by Charles Ray

Created on: February 13, 2009

I have fallen down, not in front of just one person, but a large group of people. Once, I was guiding a group of CEOs of some major U.S. corporations and senior university officials on a tour of the Phnom Bakaeng Temple in Cambodia. This is an old Khmer temple built during the reign of the Angkor kings and it sits atop a hill with a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding terrain. It is where thousands of tourists go to watch the sun rise.

There are two ways to get to the temple from the base of the hill upon which it sits; you can walk or ride an elephant. The elephant trail is fixed and winds around the hill, with some gut-clenching views of steep drops of nearly a thousand feet on some of the switchbacks.

Walking, going up or down, can be by the circuitous route that parallels the elephant trail, or up the ancient staircase in the center of the hill. The steps over the centuries have deteriorated and the center path is strewn with small rocks, gravel and laterite (which becomes as slick as ice when wet, and with the Southeast Asian monsoons, it is wet six months out of the year.).

In order to give the group the full flavor of visiting the temple, I had taken them up in an elephant convoy, and convinced them to walk back down. You will by now have probably guessed, we decided to take the shorter, more direct center route, which stretched nearly a kilometer from the temple to the parking lot below.

We were about a quarter of the way down when I neglected to watch where I was placing my foot and stepped on a patch of tiny gravel. Before I realized what was happened, both feet were on the gravel, and the gravel was on its way toward the base of the hill. Both feet went forward and up and my nether regions headed for the earth. Fortunately, in another life I was a military paratrooper, as well as a black belt in taekwondo, and still have fairly quick reflexes. My hands hit the ground before my backside, I did a roll to spread the shock, jumped to my feet and bowed with a grand flourish.

"There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the final act of today's entertainment. I do hope you enjoyed our little impromptu acrobatics." I said, with as serious an expression as I could summon.

The group, astonished and concerned at first, burst into laughter and applause. A few came up to me later and complimented me on my quick recovery. I just smiled and said, "I have a lot of experience falling on my rear. It's not how many times you fall down; anyway, it's how many times you get back up."

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