2005-08-14 - 10:09 p.m.

The tour of Budapest continued apace towards the end of the week, with the last stop on the itinerary mysteriously referred to as �Viewing of Extreme Canopy�. That morning had involved a trip to an open air museum just outside the city, which had involved a live demonstration of a women in period dress showing how Hungarians used to make pasta in the mid 18th century. Mostly with a fork and bad breath, as far as I could tell. There were about 112 types and she had to show us every variety, so it took some time, but wasn�t too much of an assault on our delicate heads.

As our little bus approached our final stop, it appeared to be some kind of woody, forresty adventure park, with lots of platforms jutting out of the treeline. From the posters, I gathered it was mainly people doing that slide of death thing, where you slide down a rope between two poles, hanging onto a strap with your hands. OK, I thought. It will be fun to view that � watching people do something pointless and dangerous is at least a bit better than watching some old crone make minor adjustments to wheat-based shapes.

�OK, who wants to come?� asked our guide, Andras, who coincidentally had a voice so deep it made Barry White sound like Rene Zelwegger. I suspect the navy had used it in sonar experiments in the late 1980s, but it had since been decommissioned. Anyway, a couple of the girls were too tired even to gawp at the extreme sports loons, so me and a couple of the East European guys went for a butchers.

Five minutes later I�m stood wearing a helmet and a harness that cradled my genitals with all the delicacy of an industrial vice whilst an instructor barks out instructions in Hungarian, It appears that �viewing� is to take place from around three inches away, rather than the 60 or 70 feet I had envisaged.

The instructions go on for a long time. After several minutes, our guide translates: �So, er, you have to, um, hang on very tight and, uh, use the lever on the strap to brake.� I�m a little concerned at this point, �Wasn�t there a bit more than that?� �Yes, but I forgot the bit at the start�I think it will all fall into place when we get up there.� I thought that the only thing falling into any kind of place would be my soon to be copiously fractured body, the place in question being the cold, hard unforgiving floor approaching me at a rate of knots.

Unable to politely excuses ourselves, we were then marched for what seemed like three days up the hillside. At one point I thought they might stop us and make us build a railway bridge over the valley, but we arrived at a platform, the top of which seemed to be swathed in low lying cloud cover.

�We go up now,� said the hairier of the instructors, a development as predictable as it was unwelcome.

The tower swayed in the breeze as we made our way up the insanely steep spiral staircase. The entire thing was made of some kind of flimsy metal grille, so that we could see down to the ground at all times. I mainly concentrated on breathing and keeping my eyes forward, sadly the only thing in my line of sight being the capacious arse of the hairy instructor, but it was better than looking down.

At the top, we saw what was to be our fate. A rope above our heads stretched out across the forest canopy, round the corner to an unknown fate. The instructor gave another long speech in Hungarian, our guide translating as he went, but the wind drowning out most of it, the only bit I caught being ��or you�ll break your legs��, which would have been sound advice if I had only know what action would put me in this predicament.

Our instructor attached his sliding mechanism, and headed off into the wild green yonder. I stood back and let a few people pass, just to see if they did anything that might result in a broken leg so that I could avoid any such manoeuvres.

Sadly, I couldn�t postpone my moment of destiny forever. Hands trembling, not daring to look down to see how high up we were, I gripped my slider and threaded it onto the rope. I double checked that my harness wasn�t going to shred my dignity and looked out over the treetops. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

The next thing I know, I�m flying over the forest, legs dangling, hands gripping harder than is healthy, eyes closing and opening, streaming with water, breath coming in hastily-taken gasps, and I�m pumping the breaking gear for all it�s worth, and I still seem to be going at about 120 miles per hour and I�m thinking �I have been up here for hours and it never looks like coming to an end�, and then I�m crashing through leaves and there�s a clearing, and the end platform is in sight, and the hairy instructor is waving is arms, gesturing for me to slow down, and I pull on the break for all I�m worth, and next thing I know I�m crashing into the safety net, and I�m being unstrapped and I�ve never been so glad to be back on solid ground, or at least as solid as flimsily constructed meta grille towers in eastern Europe get.

I�m breathless but exhilarated, my heart skipping with relief and excitement. God, it was terrifying, but I got through it. I�m alive and can tell the tale. I loved it, but never ever want to do something so pointlessly reckless again�let�s get down from here and head out into Budapest, where we can drink and laugh, emboldened by our endeavours but safe in the knowledge we need never face that kind of fear again.

The hairy instructor began to bark out something else. This time there was no wind to drown out the translation.

�OK,� said our guide, his face suddenly drained of colour. �We just have eleven more slides to go to get to the bottom��