Day 1
Day 2
2 days down and sort of on track after a 60km+ session today. Random gunshot which seemed to be in our direction got us moving a bit quicker towards the end of the day!!! Camping by the side of the River again tonight, sticky rice delights. 45km to Pak Beng tomorrow.
Monday. Kate’s Birthday! The river got busier today with plenty of Fast boats zooming past. We paddled for 7.5 hrs today and already we weren’t smelling our best!
Day 3
Heading to Pak Beng today hopefully. Had basically no sleep for 2 days. Still wearing the same clothes from sunday. Time for a shower and a proper bed…
50km done on a very very hot day 3. Andy had a morning wipeout, avoided the whirlpool. Danny tried gold-panning without success. Enjoying a well-earned Beer Lao in Pak Beng. Early start tomorrow, with 58ish km to get done . Day 3 was an eye opener. On the water by 8. Allowed ourselves to just go with the flow through some stunning scenery. Appreciating the total silence and lack of human existence. One of the special memories…. Andy was unlucky and hit a branch just as we were going through rapid. Right next to a whirlpool. I was just shouting “whirlpool, whirlpool!!” apparently! Haha not much help saying that i guess but at least we were next to each other so I helped him right the board and we drifted out of the danger. It was the first potentially dangerous moment we had had so it shook us all up a bit. Didn’t stop till mid day for lunch so the heat was really getting to us. Another mega hot afternoon but we were aiming to the transit town of PakBeng that evening so the cold beers and restaurants were calling us and helped us battle on through the afternoon….
Day 4
Apocalypse Now day…
Stunning misty blue hills disappearing into the distance all day but battling lots of backflow all morning really took it out of us. The hotter it got the less the beautiful surroundings got acknowledged. Totally knackered by lunchtime and we were just focused on moving forwards.
A stop for lunch was really needed but we were plagued by bees (got stung on my finger – only injury of the week!). They were everywhere. Never seen so many. Apparently it is because we smelt. We certainly smelt (stank possibly?) but I’m pretty sure we didn’t smell anything like a flower…
Our camera broke in the heat which, added to Andy’s waterlogged iphone meant we were down to just 1 phone for photos now…
The hills sides were really burning in the afternoon, thick haze everywhere, ash constantly falling from the sky. Bizarre to be floating through complete wilderness with such an apocalyptic look hanging over it.
I lost my Mekong virginity just after lunch when we hit some strong rapids and we both fell in. Andy got pulled under but thankfully on for a few seconds. It was quite good to finally fall in as it took the edge off all the rapids after that.. it also taught me a valuable lesson.. don’t let go of your paddle. I watched mine float away after stupidly letting go the moment I hit the water.
That night we stayed at the side of the river beneath a lovely village, the first with a Buddist temple that we had seen. And learnt a little know fact about how to grow monkey nuts..
Day 5
Having been told there was no way we would be allowed to paddle into Luang Prabang on saturday due to the Songkran festival on we had a destination we had to get to today. Aig, our boat driver’s family had invited us to their house for dinner.
No slow floating admiring the view allowed today.
We had hoped to collect the plastic we found during our journey down the Mekong. Given the amount of rubbish we saw it just wasn’t possible. We couldn’t have carried it.
Today the river naturally collected much of the floating rubbish in an area behind some rocks.
There was so much you could see the swirls of the water current from the patterns of the rubbish. The rubbish varied from cooking oil tins to broken plastic toys. We even have a souvenir Chinese drivers licence we found floating past. Other pollutants in the Mekong were also invisible to us. Heavy metals from industry and chemicals from farming coming mainly from upstream China.
Whilst planning our trip we said we would not buy any single use plastic. So when we were looking for water purifiers I emailed the boss at The Grayl to see if their filters could cope with the Mekong waters.
Travis sent me this link to what was in the water
then said “So yeah, Got ya covered!”
I liked his confidence but still didn’t fancy drinking the Mekong! Thankfully we didn’t have to. We filtered tap water from villages, and streams
Day 6
We made it!! Landed in Luang Prabang after 310kms, in 6 days hard graft on our @billboard_sup . Survived the rapids and whirlpools, bought no single use plastic water bottles thanks to @thegrayl – our guide, Xai, and his boat driver, Aeg, were so good to have with us, we couldn’t have known about the rapids and whirlpools with out them. Thanks to everyone who sponsored us we raised an amazing amount for @minesadvisorygroup who clear mines and Unexploded Ordinance (a huge problem in Laos) around the world. I really hope the money that so many of you have so kindly donated will help save lives out there.
Tonnes of pictures to go through now we are home so more pics of our adventure to follow
We made it!! Landed in Luang Prabang after 6 days hard graft on our @billboard_sup . Survived the rapids and whirlpools, bought no single use plastic water bottles thanks to @thegrayl and our bag kept safe by @overboardbags – our guide, Xai, and his boat driver, Aeg, were so good to have with us, we couldn’t have known about the rapids and whirlpools with out them. Thanks to everyone who sponsored us we raised an amazing amount for
We got dressed into our normal stinky clothes ready to get back on the boards before changing into something cleaner (although not much smarter) as we had been invited back to breakfast with Aeg’s family.
After we ate we were presented with a sash to wear, invited into the house and asked to sit with everyone around a low table. Candles were lit, prayers were said and then they all individually tied cotton around both our wrists whilst offering a prayer for our safety.
Considering today was the day we had the big whirlpool that had been hyped all week it was nice to have this support to help keep us alive!
On advice from our guide they took our bags so it was just us and the SUPs today.
So, with a mixture of fear and excitement we headed off on our final day.
We stopped just before the rapids and climbed a large rock to have a look. They looked fine. Although the week long hype still made us (well me at least) a bit nervous…
It was much easier with out all our kit on the boards and we sailed through. Almost disappointingly easy!
On the home stretch now and we decided to just plough on through the heat of the day with no stops.
Well just one stop – the impressive Cave Temple. However, our minds weren’t really in sightseeing mode and it was pretty weird being surrounded by so many tourists. After a brief look around we were back on the SUPs and heading downstream again.
It was hot, we hadn’t eaten and we had no idea how far the end was.
A low flying plane was the first hint that we were close. The river was getting busier with people going to Luang Prabang for the New Years Celebrations the next day.
Once we saw big houses appearing on the river banks we knew we couldn’t be far..
Then we heard a loud hoot and saw Aeg’s dad cheering us on from the boat we stayed on last night as he sailed it to Luang Prabang.
We had made it.
6 days.
315kms.
No single use plastic water bottles.
And a lot of sweat.
Lovely welcome from Aeg’s family, Sai and Thongsali (who had helped us organise it all) – they welcomed us onto the boat again and even cracked open a few beers
