It started way back in 1965 at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. A group of young misfits from different parts of New Zealand where resident in the hostels of Massey. We became close mates and over the next five years went on to share flats, money, beer and occasionally girlfriends. We became known as “The Uncles”.

Now, almost forty years later we are still the uncles and we are still good mates.

Don and Brian arrived at Ho Chi Minh Airport at 10am to be greeted by Pete and Dave. Its a dull overcast day but we are all in high spirits, like excited school boys!. Quick taxi to the rather grand Majestic hotel by the Saigon river. After checking in and a quick beer in the lobby it was off down the river to the ocean aboard a Russian built hydrofoil. The boat looked like a submarine and went OK but had to stop several times and go backwards and clear weed and debris from underneath Interior and exterior plus mechanicals very run down.

Arrived at the seaside town of Vung Tau after a noisy two hour trip. At the port we were mobbed taxi, moto and cyclo drivers and when we crossed the road for a beer we were mobbed by street traders selling everything from stamps, postcards, ornaments and fruit. Seemed fitting that our journey to China on the Mekong should start at the South China Sea.

Back in Saigon we had an early meal at a rather classy Vietnamese restaurant. We decided that I would take care of the kitty and we would have a “rotating captain” system for general trip management. We also raised our glasses to remember Nic’s birthday.

Across the road from the hotel the waterfront and our boat was waiting. Uncle Pete had made the arrangements for the boat. He and Martha had met the tour guides when they were in Can Tho last January. Pete had arranged for them to bring one of their boats to Saigon to collect us and take us on a three day trip through the Vietnamese delta to Chau Doc on the Cambodian border. Thao and Ut the 2 tour guides and owners of the boat, Vu the driver and co-driver were on hand to load our bags. Seems to be a family business like many in Vietnam as they are all cousins, brothers/sisters etc.

The boat is a typical long-tail with noisy engine, about twenty feet long with 6 rows of seats and luggage area at the back. Rising platform at back for driver and at front to get off. Canopy over top to keep the sun off. Really an elongated punt. Today we moved first back down the river the way we went yesterday towards the ocean then cut across on a link river to join up with one of the nine arms of the Mekong.

First impressions – stilt houses backing on to the water, the ugly backyard like from a railway line –dirty, muddy, rubbish floating collecting on rotting piles, garbage just thrown out. We had to stop often in this lower area to clear plastic bags and water weed from the propeller. Another impression – large hoardings on the city side taking all of the clear space to have unrestricted outlook. Also all manner of business and commerce along the banks with large warehouses, boats moored in the inky black water being loaded o unloaded.

On the river the boats are everywhere, all sizes similarity of style. Everyone is a trader or doing something!. Fishing boats with scoop nets in front, fishing boats with drag or set nets, fishing boats with bottom scrapers and people bottom scraping by hand along the muddy shores. Trading boats are all live-aboards with cabin at back. They carry bananas, melons, coconuts, general trade goods and rice husks. When full they are loaded right down to the gunnels and beyond with splash boards to keep the water at bay. All very basic wooden boats with un-baffled diesel motors, painted eyes at front.

An easier start with regular boat to leave at nine am. Breakfast in the poncy restaurant of the Victoria Chau Doc hotel overlooking the river – wide range of European and local foods. Captains meeting after breakfast and bathroom stop before a walk around town. I wanted to get a movie of some boys fishing and catching snails but the new disc in the camera wouldn’t work – wrong type so there was a need to buy some more of the right type.

Also watch bags of rice being unloaded – The Vietnamese are really hard working for sure. Boat this morning was a regular water taxi between Chau Doc and Phnom Penh, picked us up at nine am from the hotel wharf along with four or five others. Set off up the river at about forty mph – quite different from our long-tail experience. After about an hour and half we reached the Vietnam border post. The boatman collected all our passports and immigration forms and went ahead, we followed with all our bags and took them into a building to be checked. While we waited we chatted to a pretty buffalo girl. After waiting around for about half an hour the boatman came back and said we needed to pick up all our gear and take it back to the boat. The computer for passport checking was broken down and the X-Ray machine for the baggage was not working. However, our passports had the necessary exit stamps to legally leave Vietnam. A further stop for Cambodia immigration where the officers gave us some fruit and were very friendly. No border problems at all.

The boat trip on to Phnom Penh quite quick another one and half hours or so. We entered the vast Cambodian flood plains and passed the ferry crossing at Neak Leung where at Japanese plan to build a bridge across the Mekong. The town is the site of a terrible bombing accident during the Vietnam (American?) war where a B-52 bomber bombed the town instead of the Ho Chi Minh trail.

A five thirty am start for Brian with a run along the river bank. Incredible number of people out and about walking, running, doing line dancing, Tai Chi etc., some groups numbering several hundreds. Some with callers and some with music - all out exercising before the sun came up. Interspersed where people and some families sleeping rough on the sidewalk and under makeshift shelters and any available nooks and crannies. Streets were littered with rubbish but already the street sweepers were sweeping it into piles ready for collection.

After 3 hours steady traveling, we stopped at Kampong Cham for lunch and a walk around this bustling provincial town. Here there is a new bridge across the Mekong constructed by the Japanese. Lunch was at a rather dirty local restaurant and we took some photos of the kitchen and local coffee being brewed. In normal fashion you walk through the kitchen to get to the toilet. The restaurant owners seemed to quite enjoy the four of us invading their kitchen. Close to the port was a squatter village where there was a very busy market selling fish, shell fish, snails and vegetables. A ferry boat was loading up ready for departure up-river. As well as people it was loaded with live chickens, pots and pans, bicycles and vegetables.

This morning we met Mr. Tong again for the trip up to the Lao border, a distance of about fifty kms, and we traveled at fifty kpm – a real speed boat with four stroke petrol Toyota engine and long-tail propeller. A hell of a racket but what a fast trip. In addition to life jackets we also had crash helmets. A real adrenalin buzz flying along across the water at this speed sitting down low in the boat. This part of the river is very braided and we travel through flooded forest, zooming trees and rocks in and out of the wider channels and islands. Soon we come to the border with Cambodia on one side and Laos on the other. We climb the bank to the immigration office – combined sleeping quarters and office for the staff. The immigration officers are friendly and we soon have exit stamps without paying the expected “tea money”.

After clearing immigration on the Cambodian side we get on the boat again for the short trip across river to the Lao side. We walk up the small village of Veun Kham to the immigration post which is on the road with a string and wire barrier which I operate to let Don walk symbolically through. Because it is Saturday we have to pay an extra fee of 15,000 Kip ($US 1.50), but once again border procedures are quick and without hassles.

Don’s mate Warren Hoye has done most of the arrangements for our travel in Laos and Don managed to call him for a progress report. The good news was that the boats from Pakse to Don Khong still run and therefore must surely do the return journey from Don Khong to Pakse. The bad news was that due to the low water level no boats were prepared to venture from Pakse upstream to Savannaket. However the owners of the “garlic boat”, already hired to take us from Savannaket to Vientiane, had agreed to make the additional trip down to Pakse to pick us up at the same agreed price of one hundred dollars a day plus fuel. All was not lost, we hoped.

Now we find the only part of the trip where we cannot go by river – The massive Khone Phapheng falls. These are the largest falls in Asia in terms of total area. There are no huge vertical drops, but many channels and huge volumes of water surging through the narrow rocky channels and ravines. The French expedition thought they could find a way by boat around the edge of the falls. A really impossible dream, and their hopes of finding a navigable route on the Mekong from Vietnam to China were pretty well dashed when they reached the falls back in 1867.

We were expecting rough water today and didn’t want to risk all our bags and we only took life jackets, umbrellas, sleeping mats, mosquito nets and toothbrush with us. Davee and the garlic boat were waiting and at around seven thirty we headed off with some mist still rising from the brown waters of the Mekong.

Our first day in the garlic boat was a day of narrow river high banked rock walls and lots of rapids and “holes” in the river. In places there where whirlpools and angry waves. Mr. Davee the driver sat on a spare fuel tank at the rear and nursed the tiller between his legs. At the front was Mr. Don the spotter. They were both tremendous blokes and had to work hard and concentrate all the time. Don would signal to Davee the course he should take and after a quick hand wave we would immediately change direction. Just as well we had a good crew as we were to find out later that several boats had recently gone under on this stretch.

Often the boat would stop altogether as they figured out the best way through the rapids. At one stage we stopped and walked up the river bank to survey a narrow channel with raging current. Just then a local boat loaded with people came hurling down and we waved. They were hanging on for dear life but managed a quick wave. Our boatmen decided the water was too fast and too dangerous for us to go up and we eventually found a less difficult (but still pretty exciting) route on the other side of the river.

Awoke before six and got packed up and prepared for the final leg to Vientiane. Breakfast of noodle soup once more at a small country town. We travel upstream for about an hour and stop for petrol. All tanks are now full and we can make it to Vientiane without further stops. I try and catch up with the diary on the smoother water. We pass the Thai city of Nong Khai and under the “Friendship” bridge built by the Aussies and after a big loop in the river, Vientiane comes into sight. We stop at the waterfront which is a real mess with the water festival having taken place the day before. All during our journey today we have seen the remains of Krathongs and some bigger bamboo rafts with oil lights affixed. Some rafts had bamboo pipes filled with gunpowder to shoot off rockets. We never saw any in action but they must have been impressive in the middle of the river at night.

We took our bags up the bank and flagged down a couple of tuk tuks to take us to our hotel about one km away. The hotel is the Lane Xang Hotel, a former government guest house and now a hotel. An old, poorly maintained place but tidied up for the forthcoming ASEAN conference in late November. After hot showers and attending to much needed laundry we went down town to a Scandinavian bakery for Sunday lunch of soup, open chicken sandwiches and fresh fruit. Quite a pleasant change from the noodle diet of the past 2 days.

A wake up call from reception and we are all down for breakfast at six am. A nice looking buffet breakfast with a good choice of local and European food. Unfortunately it had been prepared the night before and the warmers had only just been turned on, and everything was cold. However coffee and toast did the trick. After changing some money and paying the bill we get the hotel courtesy van to take us out to the ferry landing. We are the only foreigners in sight among a crowd of Laos, baggage and cargo being loaded on the boat. The ticketing takes some time as the boat company has to take down all our passport details and then we go to immigration who do the same thing. Travel by foreigners on this part of the Mekong is not normal and all movements have to be recorded.

Soon the ferry reaches more mountainous country and the river is full of boulders, sand bars and rapids now more numerous and more onerous than those downstream where we were pushing the little garlic boat through. Maybe the main difference is that here we could clearly see the rocks whereas in the garlic boat we could only sense the rocks and ravines below the swirling water. The journey here is simply amazing, even better from the roof and we all clamber up for as better view and to maximize the experience. This incredibly long boat weaves forward and across the river between the rocks only meters away, up the roaring rapids and around the next shoal. We are totally dependant on a single diesel engine and a propeller underneath, not the luxury of a long-tail that can be lifted in the shallows. No depth sounder either and anyway I doubt it would work in the muddy silt laden water of the Mekong.

Occasionally there are villages on the banks but the country is much less populated. Evidence of shifting cultivation with upland rice patches and former forest burns. This is the most fascinating part of the journey for me and I marvel at the Skipper’s ability to navigate such an unwieldy craft which rocks and sways as it turns or gets pushed by the eddies and whirlpools. Alongside the river is a constantly changing scene of mountains and valleys, areas of primary rain forest, larger areas of secondary forest and bamboo and small patchworks of cultivated land. This is the golden triangle area and in the past, and perhaps to some extent today a major area for opium production. In some places there are areas of teak planted in rows and Don says these are evidence of project activity. He has previously worked in this area on a project funded by the World Bank

By eight am we were off into the misty morning. Our journey today moves through changing scenery. At first we have rapids, rocks and steep hills. Occasional small villages and a few fishermen. Areas of harvested rice land cut out of the forest. After a petrol stop at a glass tank pump on a drum on a raft we move on into more open country, giving way to wider water, and flatter land. The more urbanized sights of Thailand come into view. There are more boats, agriculture, villages and towns as we approach the border town of Huai Xay where we arrive after a quick three and half hours.

We take a tuk tuk through the town to the immigration office and get stamped out of Laos. What an incredible journey it has been – 13 days of amazing adventure, not really knowing what would happen next or if we would actually complete the journey all the way by water. Below the immigration office there are small ferry boats to take people and cargo across to the Thai town of Chiang Klang. However this is not our destination and we arrange another speed boat to take us sixty km up-stream to Chiang Sean where we will catch the China boat. Don manages to call Nim and she confirms that our freighter will leave the next day. We are all very relieved to hear this as we are now fighting the clock to complete our journey by the 9th November.

Surprisingly the crew rose quite late. I went for a run at 6am and the others got up at various stags for shore walks. not sure at this stage when we are leaving, if we are leaving or whether or not breakfast will be served on board. If we don’t leave today the China leg looks unlikely.

Below our cabins there are two bunk rooms for the crew, and a tiny kitchen. The cook provided us with breakfast at 7am and again it was great food and plenty of it. The toilet is on the opposite side to the kitchen (thank God). The toilet/shower is interesting – a hole in the floor type with a water pipe directly overhead for shower and bottom washing, a bucket and a rope for major flushing.

Our boat is called the Jiazhou and it is No. 59. There seems to be a crew of seven – the captain, first mate, purser, engineer, cook and two deck hands. About 8.30am the deck boards came off the front cargo hold and a container truck load of boxes was put on board over the next two hours by a procession of about 50 laborers. They looked just like a colony of ants. The boxes contained rubber fiber and were destined for northern Burma. I tried to act as one of the wharfies, took a tally stick, picked up a box from the truck, gave the tally stick to the purser and walked down the steep concrete steps with the box on my shoulder and on to a narrow wooden plank. But, disaster, half way across I felt myself losing balance and launched myself across to the boat in a leap but saved the box and it was taken down into the hold. By 10.30am we were loaded and pulled out from the bank

About an hour later we passed the Myanmar border. There is a big casino just over the Thai border (no casinos in Thailand). The river is wide at this point and we settle in for the long haul with a card game. The boat slows and we go up on the bridge to see what is happening. The captain and all the crew where looking at the shore line on the Lao side. Then a new 4WD pickup pulled up on the river bank and one of the crew went ashore with the hawser to attach to a tree, the boat moved closer to the bank. Out come twin steel ramps to the shore and the pickup maneuvers into position. In just a few slick moments it was all over – car on board, ramps pulled up, cover over the vehicle and we were on our way as if nothing had happened. We had heard about the illegal sale of cars in Burma and this looked like a stolen car (no plates). Looks like we are our boat does a bit of smuggling on the side.

As the sun set we wondered when and where we would stop for the night. We had a drink with the “car smuggler” – He was a Dai native of Sip Song Panna and spoke the Northern Thai dialect. Don could communicate with him as it is the same dialect Nim’s village speaks. He was a nice gentle guy and hard to believe he was in the illegal car business. As the evening drew to a close it was obvious we would keep going in the dark. As if we had not already had enough excitement for one day. Four search lights were used, one pointed to either bank and two at the rocks in front. All the crew were up on the bridge helping man the lights, a real team effort. It was an amazing sensation watching the boat maneuver between the rocks showing out white in the bright light. The captain had obviously done this before and was a cool as a cucumber. We finally stopped in heavy rain and tied up to a tree on the Burmese side. What a day.

We are still in Burma tied up to the wharf with unloading to do. There is now real concern about getting to Jinghong today, as its a full days journey. There may be a speed boat option if our boat doesn’t go but none of us are happy about that. We spoke to a young Chinese guy from another boat who spoke good English and he explained that all boats were waiting for trucks to arrive. If they came then it will take another two or three hours to unload and then we would travel to the first port in China about four to six hours by boat. Jinghong would be another six hours journey.

Our clocks went forward one hour yesterday so it was still dark when we wake up at seven am and get our gear packed. Unbeknown to us the captain has organised bus tickets and arranges for the bus to come down to the wharf to pick us up. We are first on the bus and away at eight am but our first stop is back in the town for breakfast. Then another stop for more passengers – obvious the bus will not leave until its full. Then a trader takes all four back seats for his goods and the bus is now over-loaded. No problem – the driver produces stools so that late passengers can sit in the aisles. By nine am we are ready to leave.

The road is partly asphalt with concrete edging and partly metal and very narrow with just enough room for two vehicles to pass. All along the road there are trees spaced a few meters apart and painted white for the first meter as road markers. Agriculture is well developed with rubber terraces on the higher slopes then banana, pineapple, citrus and then vegetable crops leading down to the paddies. We stop at Menlun for a break – toilet (open plan), fruit and ice creams. Soon we meet up with the Mekong and in the distance can see the city buildings of Jinghong.

Arrived at the bus station at Jinghong about one pm and headed out to the airport. Spent our last Yuan on beer and fried rice and caught the Bangkok Airways flight to Chiang Mai at four pm. It was strange to think it was all over and we all sat lost in our own thoughts on the one hour flight. At least we had made it to China if not to Jinghong – Oh well we will need to do another trip on the Mekong through China.