Page 64 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL6

to help distribute your weight as you walk in order to keep your balance. With my hands busy, my safety rested entirely on the rhythm of my feet. If I missed a step I would fall over like some object weighing more than eighty kilos, not to mention that my camera might get shattered being dragged in the mud at the same time.In conclusion I wasn’t quite sure which was better, leaving the camera exposed to the rain with my hands free or using my hands to keep the plastic sheet around the camera but risk having the whole lot fall and roll in the mud.Under the rain and in the darkness we cautiously went down the steep path with great difficulty.In general, when going down one section at a time, we would let some- one with a flashlight go first and the light would then help the man behind descend. Progressing in this way was feasible, but the risk was to slip and fall and take others down in your fall. And as the height declined, we found that both sides of the trail were full of creepers and rattan with thorns as sharp as fishhooks that prevented us from grabbing them to stabilize ourselves. Therefore the best way was to rely on oneself and negotiate the62 Elite+slippery sections one at a time.After my flashlight grew useless I relied on Ooan to light the way for me along the dangerous spots level by level, but Ooan didn’t look after only me and, as he hurried to go down to light the way for those behind, a thorny rattan stem sticking out from the side of the trail struck him full in the eyelid and soon his entire face was covered with running blood mixedwith raindrops.We gathered to rest on a ledge. Iconsulted with Tong and the Lang Suan guys about what to do next. I told them that since we had climbed the mountain at noon we had been walking in the jungle for more than eight hours already, compared to the three or four hours it took villagers to reach the mouth of the Kum stream, which showed that we had gone a long way off. Therefore there was no reason to keep hurrying forward. The best was to look for a place to spend the night and in the morning when it was light look for a way to get out of our predicament.Tong agreed with me that we should look for a place to spend the night but the biggest problem was that since we had reached the ridge we hadn’t met any water spots. If we wereto camp out somewhere at least we should have water to drink and to cook with. For this reason there was no choice but to keep walking to find a convenient spot.Before we started again I called over the two guides and asked them if what they could see reminded them of anything. It turned out that their answers were different. One said that the way down to the Kum stream was like what we had just gone through, that is if we kept going up and down we would reach it. The other said no, we should keep going down, there were no further hills.The conclusion was that I had to make my own decision.Actually, before coming to this point we had heard the sound of running water at some distance on both sides of the mountain, and even heard frogs singing at times, which suggested that the way we had followed for over two hours was a long promontory with streams down its slopes or – another hypothesis – that the ridge we had walked along was skirted by the Lang Suan water- wayinaU,andaUthatwasrather narrow and very long. Actually if we wanted water we could just go down either side, but it was dangerous given that we didn’t know the height or gradient, and even if we did reach a stream without dying in a fall, its banks might not afford a place large enough for us to stay.The short-term solution regarding water was to cut down bamboo with dew inside and share that dew among us enough to keep body and soul together. In any case there wouldn’t be enough dew for everyone, because it gathered in some species and some sections only. Priority in quenching thirst should be given to the oldest among us, Chalerm, and then to the exhausted and to the two women.As for myself, for all the time I failed to find a resting place, I did