Once is enough

I gave in to my worries about crashing into boulders in the river and suggested we call it quits. Since we hadn’t gotten very far anyway, we could portage the canoe back to the car. John and Doug didn’t argue. We made it only a short distance hauling the canoe: John had developed a terrible pain in his lower back. We walked along the highway, soaked and dejected, and came to a diner, where we had cups of tea and called a taxi to deliver us back to our car. We’d worry about the ditched canoe later.

The coup de grâce came that night, when John ended up in the hospital on a morphine drip with a case of kidney stones — which I’m told is more painful than childbirth.

CHRIS MURPHY

Arch of his triumph
I have been terrified of heights since being paralyzed briefly by a bad fall in my teens. But when I had the chance to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge with a journalist’s exemption from the prohibition against cameras, I did so . . . in a steady, cold sweat. As my wife, Patricia Harris, observes with a long-suffering sigh, I will do anything to get a picture.

Jan Morris once wrote that because Sydney has the world’s most beautiful harbor, it should be approached by boat. The sail-like Sydney Opera House greets arrivals, and the Sydney Harbor Bridge arches across the waters like a heroic tangle of wire coat hangers. Since I couldn’t sail into Sydney for a photo, I swallowed hard and signed up to climb 439 feet above the water.

More than 2 million people have gone on the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb since 1998 (including a 100-year-old woman), and although we climbed in groups constantly tethered to the structure, terror still kicked in as I stepped onto the first catwalk. When I started up the arch almost an hour later, I was especially glad I had skipped breakfast. “Don’t look down, and you’ll be fine’’ the guide kept saying on the radio headpiece.

But I did — and fired the shutter.

DAVID LYON

The punch line
When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Wrong. At least not in New Delhi, when you are hanging out with a bunch of men who trap the wild monkeys that run amok on the city streets.

As a traveler, it was fascinating to meet the monkey catchers and learn about a side of urban life that I had never read about in the guidebooks. But when my new friends offered me a cup of fruit punch — prepared only yards away from the smelly monkey cages — I should have politely said “no.’’

I said “yes.’’ The punch was sweet and delicious. And that night I started vomiting from food poisoning. I didn’t stop for two days.

I’ll never do that again.

J.V.