Bamboo Nights

Tony Wu · Issue 14, Aug/Sep 2003 · pp. 29–34

29 If bamboo sank, I thought, there’s no way we’d be sitting here. What would we be doing instead? How would we stretch our legs? Where would we squat to go to the bathroom?! Odd as it might seem, this was the main thing on my mind. Bamboo. I suppose that all things considered, my erstwhile fixation on this plant made reasonable sense given my circumstances. I was at sea again - hungry, parched, exhausted and somewhat concerned that I had virtually no idea where I was. Given the number of times I’ve placed myself in similar outlandish circumstances, you would think I’d have gotten used to this sort of thing by now, but a slight sense of anxiety never fails to set in once the sun begins to set, and the immediate distraction of trying to dodge UV radiation strong enough to fry eggs subsides. So here I was, with five other guys, on a tiny bamboo platform in the middle of the sea, tethered t…