As I encountered the big bends I immediately had flashbacks to the hellacious gorges of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Again I was about to enter a point of no return on my own, not knowing what lay around the next corner. There was no way to trek out once the big bends had been entered. The only consolation was that they only extended for a few kilometers. I proceeded as cautiously as possible down a succession of class III rapids until I could see the water building up at the first corner. I simultaneously spotted an eddy on river right and made for it to inspect what was to come.

I dragged my kayak up onto a jagged boulder and proceeded to take a look. “Nothing too difficult” I thought to myself and just then I heard two “plops” in the river and then a rock the size of a yo yo bounced heavily off a boulder and into the river just seven meters from where I stood. They were falling from far above. The gorge was so steep and sheer sided that I could not tell from which side they fell but it didn’t matter. It was time to get out of there. I quickly climbed into my kayak and seal launched half sideways into the river. As I paddled away I felt my legs getting wet. My first thought was that my spray skirt was not clipped on properly but it was. With each stroke through the next class III rapid the boat became heavier with water and I made my way to the nearest eddy. I inspected the boat to find a gash some 12 centimeters long had been torn into the hull of the boat by the jagged boulder. I looked up and down the gorge for a way to trek out, no chance!

I had to mend it as best I could inside the gorge. Using duck tape (Thanks Wick!!) and a dry bag I managed to plug the hole significantly enough to continue although water seeped in. On the 3rd day on my own and with a badly leaking boat under my arm I finally met the guys. They had been waiting at a village called “Lancang Jiang” rather than “Latsaa Jiang”. Using 16 tubes of epoxy resin, 36 screws, a length of truck inner tube and a piece of scrap metal we found on the road we managed to plug the hole. To our utter surprise when we filled the kayak with water to test the seal, nothing leaked out!. With only 14 days of white water left in Yunnan and insufficient funds to get the spare kayak sent up in time I decided to put my handy man skills to the test and paddle the ailing kayak through the rest of China.

With each passing day the waters of the Mekong rose significantly. We paddled past the snow-capped mountains of Melei Xue Shan for another 3 days and as suddenly as one can change a TV channel we entered a new climatic realm. One moment a brisk temperate breeze of the high Himalaya chilled our faces and hands the next a humid and significantly heavier type of warm air engulfed us. The temperature rose by 10 degrees Celsius and from that day forth we could wear shorts and T-shirts instead of thermal underwear and layers.

That same afternoon, for the first time in many weeks I saw a significant horizon line come into view instead of another string of mountain peaks. I yelled out to Brian “say goodbye to the Himalaya” and that we did. We proceeded to cross into a bizarre bio realm where the pine trees were interspersed with banana palms and tropical birds could be heard.

Most of Southern Yunnan has been run by 3 previous expeditions organized by Shangrila River Expeditions, yet with the water rising by as much as a foot per day we estimate that by the time we return from a brief side trip to the Zongdian horse racing festival the river will be approaching peak rainy season flows. It is unclear exactly how difficult this will make the dozens of class IV and V rapids reported by previous expeditions but what we do know is that we will be running the same rapids with at least 3 times more water volume than was reported previously.

To give an idea of the scale of rapids we expect to encounter: All members of a previous expedition through the area who had paddled the grand canyon claimed that the white water encountered was bigger than anything that could be found on the Colorado which is widely accepted as the biggest volume whitewater run to be found in the USA. Times the volume of water they paddled in the Mekong x 3 and one can logically expect a style of white water that can only be found at a select few locations on earth.