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The strong guys were sent back to get more water to cook the food with, which for the most part cameout of Somphoat’s fertilizer bag, besides what was left over from lunch. Meanwhile Ooan took out a small plastic flask from his backpack and told me it was full of water but the reason he had refused to pull it out when we were dying for water was to keep it in reserve for those who were most affected.I listened to his explanation and couldn’t help rejoicing that I had someone like him as a travelling companion.In any case, right now the big problem for us was no longer water but the lack of equipment for an overnight stay, as most of us had neither tent nor hammock. So we put together the two or three fly sheets we had to form a tent roof and spread out plastic sheets on the ground to form a large sleeping area, but since we numbered almost twenty, there was no way everyone could be protected. Ooan himself, who was the owner of much of the equipment, could only protect the upper part of his body under the improvised shelter, while his booted legs had to stretch under the rain and in the mud all night.I, who had brought a hammock along, went off to sleep by myself, using the small shelter we had set up to cook the food and tying the hammock to a tree. Nui too had tied her hammock to the same tree, but pointing another way. Further down from me were Jo and the guides from the PWCM unit. Wiroat, my latest disciple, was the only one to have a tent to himself. As for Chalerm, at first he took out his pricey foreign tent but didn’t succeed in setting it up as some accessories were lacking and in the end had to slip into Wiroat’s cheap tent.Around ten at night the rain which had fallen continually turned into adownpour. Those of us who had finished eating began to retire under the shelter and lay down in sundry postures. Rainwater from the neigh- bouring slope came flowing towards our camp but we had already dug channels to divert it.I too went to huddle up in my hammock, even though I still wore my dripping clothes. In the drifting thoughts of exhaustion, I felt as if my whole body was being pierced with pinheads and in the wetness that covered the entire valley, my heart too felt drenched from the downpour.It wasn’t the distress of being lost in the jungle, it wasn’t the sorrow of life, but something like dumbness at the sight of what shouldn’t be seen or for knowing what couldn’t be told to others...If life is a journey to an hour we do not know, each stage must have a meaning of its own. Whether some- thing is valuable or not must depend on when it happens. Such as in this hour – what could be as precious for us as the shelter, plastic sheets and hammocks stretched out like tablecloths?And if there was something more important, it was that we had one another.That’s right. Relations in the end are relations and the only way to make them deep and long-lasting is by stepping to the next hour together... We call it love for this reason and we call it separation because at certain stages we can’t help but pine for the missing ones.Less than two hundred metres in front of me was the watershed of the Lang Suan and in that watercourse were the Heo Phong rapids, which I had shot four years earlier. Tonight many of the friends with me that time had not come and two of them had left forever.I came to reflect that if life is a journey to an unfamiliar destination,maybe my friends weren’t dead yet. They had merely stepped aside to walk towards a new hour by themselves...I thought of the young woman who had shared my raft to shoot the rapids... I was sorry that she hadn’t come. Maybe if we had lost our way in the jungle together one more time, we would have had plenty more to tell each other.I can’t remember when I fell asleep. I only know that in the dream close to dawn I felt as if I had travelled into some secret land where I saw a tiger and I saw an image of the Buddha.In it, I didn’t feel that I had lost my way, only that I had entered a land unfamiliar to me.The next morning...Most of us were up at dawn because sleeping conditions hadn’t been quite comfortable. One thing that came with the dampness and made the reputation of the Phato jungle was leeches. We didn’t know last night how many of their troops they had raised to surround us. In the case of Ooan, whose legs had protruded out of the shelter the whole night, he found in his boots and trouser legs dozens of those tiny bloodsuckers. The others had had their share depending on where they found themselves in the shelter.Among us, young Wiroat was the only one to wake up as late as nine, and only because I went to check whether he was still hurt or not. It turned out nothing much was the matter with him, apart from being utterly exhausted, as he wasn’t used to the conditions we had been through.Actually, we had sent a guide to walk upstream as soon as the first rays touched the treetops to find the boat with the provisions, which must have waited at the meeting place. We figured that spot would be at leastElite+ 61