Mark points to the blood at his ankle. I didn’t get any pictures
of my own wound, but
Mark
did. That little nubbin is his own private leech. They could appear
much larger than that.
After the hike, which really was very
demanding—both Leah and I needed support as we descended the slick
and treacherous down-slopes—it was good to rest. My journal says,
«At the end of the trail, the place
where we ministered to our pierced ankles was a broad open
space with picnic tables and sodas available. We sat there,
relaxing, before we went on.
«And we went on to lunch below
an extremely high waterfall with a good strong flow besides.
Full of tourists from everywhere, almost all taking phone
shots, more than half of these being selfies. I took a
lot of stills and movies, too.»
In point of fact, I took only a few stills, but lots of movies, most
of them not at all interesting. The first of them, below, shows the
falls and then people on the bridge taking their pictures. The second
gives an idea of the total height of the falls.
Let me resume from the point in
my journal where I say a word about our meal below the falls:
«We got the usual semi-family
service, with (as I recall) four courses plus rice,
and beer, which was greatly
appreciated. Sat for a good while, did our touristy things,
and went back to the hotel.
«Dinner was at 7:30, giving plenty of
time for us to shower off and clean the muddiness and sweat out
of our stuff. Mr. Hung had taken the mud-encased hiking boots
of all of us, and was going to see to cleaning them off; M took
our walking sticks and soaked them in the bathroom sink after
both of us had done our best to wash the blood out of our socks
there. And I wore my completely sweat-soaked shirt into the
shower with me to at least rinse the sweat and salt away.
Mark washed the zip-away lower legs of his hiking pants,
but I decided to leave this chore till later. In the event,
I used my hair-brush to brush away the well-dried mud.
This was very persistent—even getting it off the long-soaked
walking sticks proved difficult.
«We were bussed to our restaurant
and were seated at two tables: one for six, one for twelve. We
sat across from Gwen and Steve, while Audra and Julie were at
the end of the table, next to Steve and me. The food was very good,
especially a chicken curry and a piece of fish steamed in
banana leaf.
«After the meal, we walked back to
the hotel through a market street that we had passed through,
going to and coming from our hike. People were closing up
shop, but I think that all of us got some good snapshots.»
