Trying to keep up the exciting momentum of the time in China could prove to be difficult. I want adventure but my legs are too tired to pedal. Markus and I have tired to put a plan together based on adventure and something new. It seems a popular trip for people is to take passenger ferries and tour boats from the Golden Triangle down the Mekong river. The Golden Triangle is the point where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet. And although we have little interest in taking tour boats, the reality is, if tour boats can get down the river, why cant we buy our own boat and take it down the river. The internet is hugely censored in China and I couldn't find any blogs of anyone attempted to try this. I had my brother, Paul, check if he could find anything about attempts to buy a boat and take it down this river. But nothing could be found, even on Irelands' uncensored blogs. And now I'm in Thailand and I can't find anything about it either.But, if boats can get down it, then, in theory, we can too. Almost everything in your home has a 'Made in China' sticker on it and so the cheapest place to buy such stuff, is in China. Markus and I decided to go shopping in the city of Kumning for a 4 person zodiac boat - The inflatable kind that is used in white-water rafting. We found the perfect size boat, with life jackets, oars, pump and everything else you could need for €340. It should easily be able to take the weight of us, the 2 bikes and all our gear. Its a pretty crazy thing to have little or no rafting experience and attempt to take a boat down the 16th largest river in the world. But I've been to South East Asia a few times and what I remember of the Mekong is just a huge brown river. Ultimately, I think we are able for this and so we bought the boat. Now the problem was getting it to water. We bought a hand trolley to transport the inflatable zodiac boat and took it (and everything else we have) to the bus station. Loaded everything onto the bus and got an overnight sleeper to Jinghong. The Mekong acts as the border between Myanmar and China and we knew we would never be able to take the boat through this heavily policed region. But we decided to take a seven hour boat tour down the Mekong out of China and into Thailand. Once again, the Chinese border police were in usual paranoid form. All 45 people trying to board the boat to Thailand were part a tour group, except the two smelly ones with the bicycles and the 48 kilo box containing an inflatable boat. Border officials refused to accept the photo of Markus in his passport was really him. I must admit it doesn't really look like him as he has shaved off his dreadlocks since having his passport photo taken. But why it took so many police (about 10) over an hour to check all our stuff is beyond me. The dear old ladies sat on the bus and waited patienceently for Chinese law to do its job. "First, they wouldn't let us in the country, now they don't want us to leave" was mentioned well within their hearing range. But we were in no hurry and it didn't worry us what time we got to Thailand. We were getting out of China and into wonderful Thailand. Eventually we got out of there and joined the dear old ladies on the boat down the Mekong. I must admit, I got a bit of a shock when I first the river. This is not going to be a leisurely cruise down the Shannon kinda trip. This thing flows fast. But during the seven hour boat trip down to Thailand, we watched the river carefully and we both agree, it is very achieveable. Thai immigration welcomed us with smiles and an entry stamp in our passport. Most European countries don't even need a visa for this great country. We checked into a guesthouse beside the Mekong. We are having a busy day sorting everything out and updating this blog. Tomorrow, we plan to set sail from just outside the Golden Triangle town of Chan Saen to where ever the river takes us.
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