White Water Kayaking–Luang Namtha

As no one was taking up his suggestion of hiring motorbikes and riding to China, Russ suggested the kayaking trek.  And everyone agreed .

Two guides, and 2 sets of NZers headed downstream.  When it came to the white water one man could could be heard relentlessly yelling



And the other had some female yelling

(it’s a loss of control thing)

There were a group of younger backpackers on another tour doing the same route.  When asked the guides said they preferred the older travellers – less trouble.  And so it proved, none of us came out but the backpackers seemed to spend some time with overturned boats.

R&R steamed through most of the route but had one sticky moment caught sideways in some trees in the middle of the rapids


We had one moment where we came out of the rapids into the calm and Andrew did a turn to watch the other boats.  He managed to spin the back of the boat under water and was a bit closer to swimming than he had intended


It was a hard day and at the end we were pleased to walk up the hill from the river.  Both men had found the lack of back support in the kayak made it hard work but both managed to steer us safely for 5 hours

We stopped at some interesting villages during the journey …more to come