Before going on this week's Discovery Week to Islands off Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, my knowledge about hammocks was limited to pirates and hippy beach bums reclining in them while listening to wall to wall Bob Marley and telling all around them that they are so relaxed which, incidentally has always made me precisely the opposite. However after this week I now have first hand knowledge about the process of sleeping in jungle hammocks.
Before I write more I suppose I really ought to define two important terms: "jungle hammock" and "sleep." A jungle hammock appears to be a green gortex tube with a cord running through the middle that is used to connect to a couple of handily placed trees. There are then two more lines attached to the hammock at 90 degrees to the main cable that can be attached to handily placed other things, which, in my experience, appears to be picnic benches, clearly the most common item of furniture in the jungle. The actual sleeping compartment then hangs down from the combination of cables and provides the next challenge for the would be sleeper. "Would be sleeper" is probably a helpful way of defining the other important term. I did my best to sleep, honest I did, but it was not easy.
The most tricky part of my two nights in the hi-tech hammock was the initial clamber in. First I tried head first as I have found that it is often useful to look where you are going, a method of travel often under-rated by many, particularly school children. The entrance point was underneath, at the foot end so once in, by now knees first, I soon discovered that sitting up and turning round in a contraption that looked like an over-sized pea pod was not possible and so I had to retrace my clamber in the most gracious style possible. According to the experts I had to reverse in, slide my backside in, lie down and as by magic the Velcro seal would close up leaving the potential sleeper snug. Snug yes, but also in a bit of a mess vis a vis the sleeping bag situation. I somehow had to get it under me while at the same time remaining horizontal while also swinging from side to side.
The jungle experts from the company that put together the programme for the week assured me that there was no better way to pass the night that lieing back relaxed in a jungle hammock, allowing the evening breeze to pass through the mosquito net top while being gently rocked to sleep. I however felt that there probably was something better than positioning myself in the recumbent banana position, sweating on top of my cheap nylon sleeping bag all up the street while my green canvass coffin swung alarmingly back and forth. As the experts emerged in the morning looking as fresh as daisies I staggered out feeling like I had spent the night being dragged through the jungle backwards. I like camping, but I am not sure that hammocks are for me.