'As it got closer, I realised that this strange cloud was actually thousands of bees, each one an inch long and each one heading for me'

I heard the bees way before I saw them. I also heard my friend John screaming before I knew what was happening. He was a little way ahead of me, on a rock face close to the water.

I was 18 and backpacking around India with friends. One very hot afternoon, four of us decided to cool off in a patch of river the locals had told us about. We weren't climbers – we were wearing flip-flops – but to reach the water we had to scramble down a small ravine. That's when John started to wave his arms around and I knew something was up. He jumped forward a few steps, then leapt 10ft off the precipice into the dark green pool beneath us.

I heard a low hum, which was growing louder, but I still didn't know what it was. From a distance, the swarm looked almost like smoke, an opaque mass vibrating somewhere above me. As it got closer, I realised that this strange cloud was actually thousands of bees, each one an inch long and heading for me.

John had been close enough to the rock edge to leap to safety, but I was unable to jump from where I was balanced on rocks higher up the ravine. So I covered my face with my hands; a childlike reaction to protect myself. I genuinely thought that if I made myself invisible, they may not find me. It wasn't logical, but it made sense at the time. I curled up into a tiny ball, praying they would think I was just another rock.

After a few seconds, and the sixth or seventh sting, I knew my plan hadn't worked. It was me the bees were after. I could hear my friends below, shouting. The two others had reached the water before the attack began, and they were telling me to get down to the pool fast.

By now I was in extraordinary pain. Each sting was like a wave of agony – much worse than that of European wasps or bees. I later found out that these were giant honey bees and that, when provoked, a swarm of them was easily capable of stinging a human being to death. We had obviously disturbed their colony, although we never actually saw the nest.

The only way I could get away from them was to use my hands to climb down the rocks, yet this meant exposing my face. The noise the bees made was so loud and terrifying, my instinct was to scrunch up my eyes and keep them closed.

Ultimately, however, I had no choice. I did scramble down the rock face and jump into the pool, but I have no recollection of doing so. Everything was blanked out by the sheer relief of being free from the pain. I was safe, and the sensation of treading water seemed wonderful.

It was terrible, then, to realise that we still weren't out of danger. Every time one of us tried to climb out of the pool, the bees swarmed back over our heads. We spent the next three hours bobbing up and down in the water, which was just shallow enough at the edges to stand in. We kept dipping our heads under to avoid the bees, keeping as still and as quiet as possible until they finally lost interest.

I was the first to make it out, covering myself with a damp sarong that had been around my neck. Slowly I climbed back out of the ravine and sat under a tree. One by one the others followed me; it seemed to take for ever in the scorching heat. One friend extracted my stings where she could – I had around 15, including one up my nose. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry," I said, at which point all of us fought back tears of fear, shock, horror and relief.

The real miracle was that John, who was already in the pool before the attack began, was lethally allergic to stings. Had he been in my shoes, he would definitely have died. As it was, he was stung twice and his arm swelled up to the size of a melon. Any more stings and he could have suffocated, whereas I just had little red bumps with the stings sticking out of them, and was thankfully immune to their poison.

I don't have much luck with wild animals in India. As a child, I had to be rescued from a pack of wild dogs and not so long ago I was nearly trampled to death by an elephant in the Assamese jungle. As you can imagine, I am not an animal lover, but I'll always be thankful that the bees attacked me and not my friends.

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