"If I had been trying to design a good location for this first little adventure, I couldn’t have done better. The valley is deep, and the sides are steep and heavily forested. To see open sky I must crane my neck back sharply. The river here is in places shallow enough to walk across, in other places deep and mysterious; alternately rough and gentle, headstrong and lazy, it flows past the green valley walls. The riverbank opposite is a wide strand of gravel, presumably piled up by the water in typhoon season, but the side where I stand is quite different - mostly large boulders and broken cliffs. Tucked away among this jumble of rock is a small patch of sand just big enough for my tent, providing a perfect camping spot. It is high enough above the water to avoid dampness, there are no old and shaky-looking trees hovering above and threatening to fall in the night, large boulders on each side protect it from the wind, and best of all, unless I have been disoriented by the curves of the river, I think that the morning sun will shine directly down onto a tent pitched here."