Oxford University Cave Club

[Rich] Seeing the locals lower each other to the bottom I couldn't maintain my desire to get underground any longer and motioned for them to let me down. I felt surprisingly secure being lowered hand over hand by the villagers. When I had untied the rope I ran off into the black space like a school boy. The cave was well decorated with stalactite formations and mixed in with the rocks on the boulder floor were the bones of a yak. Being careful not to break any of the formations or bash my helmetless head on the roof I ducked through short crawls to investigate the passages beyond. The cave was quite small and it didn't take long to follow all the leads to their termination. Satisfied that I had seen enough I headed back to the shaft of sunlight that would bear me to the surface.

On the walk back to the village for some lunch we mused on our next course of action. It was clear in my mind that we should go and look at the nearest gorge in search of a resurgence, or at least to record the elevation that would help us determine the area's depth potential. Xiao Gang related our wishes to "the manager" and our afternoon plans were agreed.

[Hilary] It was a baking hot afternoon and the altitude, though not extreme, had been noticeable as we'd walked the gentle slopes of the morning's tour. We didn't know exactly how far we'd be walking that afternoon, having received two answers "two and three kilometres" and "seven and eight kilometres" to our query of how far the gorge was. I debated what to take with me, settling on the safe option of my standard day pack, waterproofs, first aid kit, survival bag and the like. As we walked down the steep winding path into the gorge, I thought of the return journey and was glad I wasn't carrying any more.

Soon we were at the bottom of the gorge, standing on a wooden bridge, no railings protecting us from the vast brown swirling torrent that rushed beneath our feet. Now we knew (more or less) where we were on the map, and it was clear that the morning's caves couldn't be much more than 300m deep. Win some, lose some.

Still, it would be interesting to see any resurgence. The path continued from the bridge, into the vegetation on the far river bank. I asked the manager (via Xiao Gang) whether the path ran alongside the river, or climbed the bank. He replied that it went upstream to a waterfall.

This turned out to be true only in some fairly twisted sense. As the locals scrambled up the bank, up rotten tree trunks and loose mossy slopes, Rich and I, mindful of the raging torrent increasingly far beneath us, of the precarious nature of every hold we had and ultimately of our own mortality, were definitely the limiting factors in the party's speed. I was at the back, and one of the locals assigned himself a role as my minder. He offered to take my featherweight pack. I struggled not to laugh. "This [pointing at my daysack] no problem," I tried to explain in broken Mandarin, "this [pointing down slope at at the latest clump of moss in my hand], problem."

[Rich] After much sketching around on steep moss we finally came to the view point. My first thought was "We risked our lives to see that". Impressive though the waterfall was it was distant and barely visible behind a heavily vegetated buttress. Slowly however, the cogs in my head whirred - DOES NOT COMPUTE - Where was the water in the Fall coming from? My highly developed speleological mind eventually got it. Although we couldn't see it the water was obviously issuing from a resurgence halfway up the gorge wall! We fixed our position on the GPS and took a bearing and estimated distance to the top of the fall.

With our work finished we reluctantly accepted the fact that we had to return to the bridge. Fortunately the way they chose to go back was slightly less scary, although only just. The manager obviously saw that I was terrified and immediately assumed responsibility for his guests safety. Dancing nimbly across the lose compost that served as footholds he firmly grabbed my right hand from the largest, safest tree on the entire slope whilst my other hand and both feet clung on with all digits to nothing more than grassy fronds. Luckily the way eased soon enough and I was spared well intentioned help.

Xiao Gang and the boy were waiting for us at a convenient spot not far from the path. As I stepped beside them I felt excrutiating pain above my ankle. "Aaaargh!!!" I lifted up my leg and swatted the offending hornet that was curling it's abdomen viciously into my sock. Out shot hands to stop me from falling down the now non-existent cliff. I could see the sir now filling with dozens of angry black and orange stripes. "No, no!!!" I screamed "Aaaargh!!!" swatting another hornet from my other leg before charging off at breakneck speed through the undergrowth. The others followed soon enough and we were all pelting headlong down the path flailing our arms and cursing as we desperately tried to lose our assailants.

[Hilary] I found Rich's shades lying on the path where I broke out of the vegetation. Thinking I had reached safety I stopped to pick them up. "Ow!" I was swatting hornets and running again; this time I didn't stop running until I had reached the bridge. Rich appeared on the far side. I held up his shades. "You got stung?" I asked as soon as we were within earshot. He didn't have to answer verbally. Not only had his eyes popped out of his head but he was also walking like John Wayne. Ah, so you got stung there too.

It soon transpired that everyone had suffered the same fate. There was relief that the swarm was over but, for Rich and I at least, fear of an aftermath to come. The sum total of our experience of Anaphylactic Shock was stories from friends and an episode of 999. How long did it take to kill you? Quite a while, Rich thought. How long to render you incapacitated? Not long.

"Don't fancy humping all that around." Kunming, four days earlier [I was eyeing our large red medical bag] We were in Liu Hongs office, sorting kit into a Take pile and a Don't take pile for our "lightweight" recce to the North and we already had camping and cooking kit and a weeks worth of food. "Ain't no point buying it if we aren't going to carry it around." In the end we left the saline drip kit and took the Adrenalin and sharps... "Thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck."

Xiao Gang turned round. "I think I need cream." I got out my hill first aid kit and fed him Piriton. Rich and I took some too; the locals declined. Before I had time to repack the kit, Xiao Gang was on his feet and pointing up the hill. "I go okay, I think I no good, I need sleep."

By the time we caught him up Xia Gang was staggering, supported by the manager. He sat down, waving a hand infront of his face, "I no see."

Rich and I looked at each other, then Rich took off his bumbag, thrust it at the other villager and took off up the hill.

[Rich] Rich actually ran round the next couple of bends feeling fit and energetic with the urgency of the situation. After a short distance though the pounding in my head, week wobbly legs and painful hyperventilating lungs forced me to stop. I sucked and blew at the thin mountain air until I could struggle on a bit further. Again I had to stop. This time I sat until I had recovered properly. I thought of Xiao Gang and selfishly wondered how I would feel if I didn't make it back in time. Would I blame myself for not being quicker. Pushing negative thoughts aside I carried on at a more sustainable fast walk. I kept checking my arms at regular intervals as I knew that Xiao Gangs arms were the first thing to come up in an allergic rash. I hoped that I wouldn't suffer the same fate; particularly as I was on my own and was supposed to be another persons hope. Through the seat and exertion I had difficulty focussing on my arms and was not sure until much later that I had been lucky to escape any serious effects. When the going levelled I broke out into a jog, speeding up when the village came into sight. I offered a few hurried "Hellos" to perplexed villagers, knowing I couldn't explain what had happened and burst into our allotted room. I picked up the first aid kit and plunged inside with my hand trying to sort through the dressings, rehydrats and antimalarials for what I wanted. My head thumped violently, I couldn't think straight and my hand sifted vainly through the same dressings, rehydrats and antimalarials. I panicked, thinking that maybe we had left a vital component of the adrenalin kit out: "Stop, breathe, think!" I told myself and then emptied the entire kit onto the floor. Syringes... ampoules... sharps... antiseptic wipes... and... and ... and... gloves! I thought back to the training course and ran through the procedure in a flash confirming that I had everything. As I put what I wanted into the bag, leaving the rest strewn across the floor, the managers wife rushed in. The look of panic and urgency on my face had obviously transcended the culture and language barrier, the whole village knew that something was up!