From the earliest days of planning the Mekong First Descent it became apparent that the greatest physical and political obstacles to completing the expedition successfully would lie within the confines of Kham Tibet.
Unlike Lhasa and various other prefectures of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) the Kham remains heavily restricted to foreigners. This closed area status was earned largely due to the fierce resistance communist forces faced from the local inhabitants, which lasted long into the 1960s with American support.
External support of anti-communist militants in the Kham has left a legacy of considerable distrust towards foreigners among members of the "Party" who now rule over this still wild region. Gaining permission to travel for weeks, without being constantly tailed by a government "watcher" was in itself a considerable task, yet this was not the main problem.
Over hundreds of millions of years the Mekong River has carved out one of the most extreme and desolate environments to be found on earth within the Kham in the form of the Mekong Gorges. In its infancy the river meanders gracefully through the high plains and mountain fringed valleys of Qinghai Province, picking up volume with little turbulence before reaching its adolescence just north of the Kham Capital of Chamdo. The increasingly powerful river runs off the rails at this point, undertaking a violent descent off the Tibetan plateau that continues for many hundreds of kilometers. Some of the world's deepest and least accessible gorges have been carved out of the Himalaya by the relentless action of the water and even the rugged and resourceful Tibetans who eke an existence from the most testing of environments have not managed to inhabit long sections of the river housed in ravines up to 1600 meters deep.
As far as my research could reveal, only two river expeditions have ever been attempted along the Kham section of the Mekong. The first, a Japanese team in 1998, was violently attacked and robbed by bandits only hours after crossing the border into the TAR. Nevertheless they succeeded in navigating the relatively mild section of river from Qinghai to Chamdo.
The second took place only weeks before my own attempt and planned a full navigation from Chamdo to the Yunnan border. This attempt led by Pete Winn of Shangrila River Expeditions was made up of an experienced international team, most of who had previous exploratory experience on remote sections of the Mekong. Starting at Chamdo they rafted and kayaked just 80 miles of the planned 400-mile stretch before calling the expedition off. Slow progress down increasingly treacherous sections of rapids compounded by extreme weather conditions and heavily laden rafts led to them making a tough decision. Knowing that they were about to enter an extremely remote and much steeper section where trekking out would be almost impossible and in the knowledge that with their current rate of progress the team would quite possibly run out of food supplies before exiting the gorges, they wisely chose to trek out. A decision I would find out later probably saved lives. Even from a relatively accessible section of the gorges where farmers' homesteads, trails and packhorses were accessible the trek out to a road took a week to complete.
This left the most challenging and remote section of the entire Mekong River unchallenged and I was thoroughly looking forward to having a go at it. Finally, delays caused by permit problems and sponsors not coming forth with pledged funds had placed my departure at the changing of the seasons and the start of the summer rains. This was far from ideal; if the river were to go into flood while I was in the gorges I would be left with no way out. This factor gave my departure an extreme sense of urgency and my strategy was simple, get through the gorges as fast as humanly possible before the heavy rains hit and turned the canyons into a kayaker's hell.
I had to make room for food, lots of food. Fitting 14 days worth of food supplies and camping gear in a boat just two and a half meters long is no easy feat. A plastic sheet and space blanket replaced my North Face tent. I only packed one liter of water and would refill at the numerous crystal clear cascades that plummeted into the mainstream and my first aid kit, clothes and other accessories were halved in volume to make room for noodles, dried fruits, cooking fuel and other essentials. It took two hours and various repacks to get it all in the boat but finally I squeezed myself and a 20 liter dry bag into the cockpit, snapped on the spray skirt and was ready to go.
At around 55 kms the heavily laden kayak sat low in the water, making it hard to maneuver and portaging it if necessary would be difficult. I set off from the town of Nanqen in the late afternoon on June the 1st 2004. Around 15km south of town the water slowed almost to a standstill and continued at this pace for many kilometers. The Mekong in China does not stay still without reason. I guessed that it must have been backed up by either an unmarked dam or a huge avalanche creating a natural dam. Sure enough 12 kilometers down stream I heard a distant roar and finally eddied out above a massive rapid. The river suddenly dropped on a tight right hand bend in a sheer sided canyon. Fortunately there was a disused horse trail cut into the wall with explosives on river right, which allowed me to survey exactly what was creating the thunderous roar from dry land.
I trekked up part of the avalanche to the path to view a brutal class VI (Class VI tops the white water scale in terms of technical difficulty and danger) cascade created by a recent avalanche and extended for one kilometer around a sweeping left hand bend where the canyon widened into a more open valley. Dropping 12 meters in all, from one man eating hole (Extremely dangerous re-circulating hydraulic of water) to another before climaxing in an almost river wide ledge/ hole at the bottom, it was a monster and intimidating just to look at. The rapid was un-runnable and would be the first to be portaged as part of the Mekong First Descent. Although slightly disappointed that it would no longer be possible to kayak every inch of the Mekong, I was also relieved that there was a convenient path with which to bypass the rapid as anyone who entered it, regardless of their kayaking or rafting ability would be lucky to come out the other side alive.
I camped above the impressive drop and hoped I would not encounter such a monster in the much larger canyons downstream that would not have pathways around. This probably gave me a little too much time to think about what might be to come. In the back of every whitewater kayaker's mind lurks a distant fear of some kind of whitewater disaster. For some it is being re-circulated into oblivion by a house-sized hole, for others it's being pinned under water against boulders by the overwhelming force of the water. For me it is cruising down a sheer-sided canyon towards a suicidal class six rapid with no way of stopping before going over the edge. With no locals around to find out the name of the cascade I called it "Raging Thunder" and although it proved easy to stop before this particular drop, the potential for disaster was clearly evident in the features it displayed.
I also considered the consequences of the natural dam bursting under the strain of rising waters and releasing millions of tons of water suddenly into the gorges below. I moved on early the next morning and encountered a second rapid that the Japanese team had described as extremely difficult but at higher water it proved relatively predictable and I paddled it without scouting.
I crossed into the Tibetan Autonomous Region and into the area where the Japanese team had been attacked, yet after meeting overwhelmingly friendly and hospitable locals until this point I found it difficult to be too concerned. The setting was beautiful with robust stands of pine backed by snow-covered peaks and waterfalls. Terraced fields of barley tended by farmers swayed in the swift breezes that wafted up the gorges and Tibetans would yell out in amazement at seeing a foreigner in a weird looking boat cruising down rapids, which I considered quite mild but they obviously perceived as life threatening. I had two encounters with deer, one of which was within 10 meters. I was finally in Kham Tibet and it was every bit as beautiful as I hoped it would be. I took many photos of the flora and landscapes I encountered. I camped on a sandy beach and noticed the next morning that the river had risen over 30 centimeters. I had to move fast.
