Book claims Ah Meng was barge ‘bartender’

AH MENG, the island’s most famous orang utan, spent 15 years tending bar on an oil barge before landing at the Singapore Zoo, according to a new book.  

The controversial account, which comes from an Australian oil rig worker, is the latest version of how the iconic ape came here from its home in Indonesia more than three decades ago.  

Two weeks ago, Ah Meng, the public face of the Singapore Zoo, died at the age of 48.  

A new memoir by Paul Carter titled Don’t Tell Mum I Work On The Rigs says Ah Meng spent about 15 years serving cocktails on the Ismaya, a vessel that plied the waters of South-East Asia.  

It was only when the ship was sold to new owners in the 1970s that the crew was forced to give Ah Meng up to the zoo, he wrote.  

Fresh copies of the paperback, which covers Carter’s time on oil rigs around the globe, were released here last month. The last chapter of the 203-page book is titled “Ah Meng” and dated 2004.  

Carter draws his information from two colleagues who worked on the Ismaya, which spent part of the 70s drilling around Indonesia.  

Ah Meng was a young orphaned orang utan which the barge captain found in some “harbourside market”. A crew member built a bar room below deck, which then turned into Ah Meng’s domain.  

“It was always clean and she made cocktails,” Carter wrote.  

But Carter has his doubters.  

Former Singapore Zoo boss Bernard Harrison said the book was a “bit far-fetched”, and could be a case of mistaken identity.  

Zoo curator Alagappasamy Chellaiyah said yesterday that several people have come forward since Ah Meng’s death claiming they had donated the orang utan.  

The official version is that Ah Meng was born in Sumatra, and came to the zoo in 1971.  

She had then been removed from a couple who had kept her illegally as a pet. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network