About 300 meters up the gorge wall on river left a large excavator nudged boulders the size of 40 foot shipping containers into the river. They tumbled, half rolling, half airborne down the near vertical cliff crashing into the river below sending water high into the air. It was an awesome sight. Dozens of workers downed their tools to watch a couple of crazy kayakers sneak along the river right bank above a long class VI rapid caused by the thousands of tonnes of rock that had been blasted and dumped into the flow.

We rapidly made our way through the site concerned that falling rocks or dynamite blasts may put a swift end to the expedition. The sheer scale of the construction site was something that will remain etched in my mind for years to come. We had been warned about photography in the site and could not get our cameras out.

The next day we arrived at the second operational dam in China called the Dashaoshan. We were greeted with a surprise in that US$600.00 had been stolen from my bag while we paddled the previous leg. Brian was forced to make a long and frustrating drive to to retrieve more funds from the bank and ultimately did not manage to return to the river for the final stretch in China leaving me to do the last 140km of previously unboated white water solo.

After a nights rest in Dashaoshan village we drove to the put in at the base of the dam to find that only a fraction of the water entering the lake was being released down stream. The Mekong became a new, medium to large volume river instead of extra large volumes we had previously paddled. We estimated that water flows below the dame were about 75% less than could be found above. I spent the next 2 days paddling various sets of previously unboated rapids including two challenging class V’s. After 140km the waters relaxed and for the first time I came across commercial cargo boats just north of Simao. I took the opportunity to surf their stern and bow waves but the captains were not as fond of the experience as I was.

I also started to notice the locals interacting with the river rather than avoiding it. In most of the Tibet and China sections the Mekong is seen as a dangerous obstacle that should be avoided. Yet now, children swam and played while their fathers fished and women came down to the rivers edge to wash clothes. I had crossed into the Dai area of Southern Yunnan. The Dai are the ancestors of modern day Thais and Laos and are as at home in a hardwood pirogue on the river as they are on dry land.