We were told that the next day, our last day of paddling, was going to be to run the same stretch again that we had just run the day before. We looked at our itinerary and found that it had in fact been written up that way and we had never noticed! We complained and suggested that we didn’t want to run the same water a second time. Our guide went and talked to the boat crew and received permission to take us on the next section of the river!
The water in this section of the Li River calmed down to a lake-like stretch of deep water. We felt like we were working harder than the previous days and not getting as far. One good reason for continuing the trip anyway was for the lunch meal! And this was supposed to be a special one. We had paid our cook extra to make us a special treat: “Hot Pot” for lunch. After a short morning on the water the support boat pulled over and told us it was lunch time. While we were getting ready for lunch they started packing up our kayaks and informed us that the paddling trip was over. They could not let us go farther down river. Just ahead of us there was a pontoon bridge across the river and I had wondered how the support boat was going to get past it.
After lunch the boat did head towards this bridge with all our kayaks in tow or on board. Some people ran out and poled a section of the bridge out of the way so that the boat could go through. Answering my question with action if not words. The bridge was a road across the river built on floating 50 gallon drums, so one section was anchored at only one end and could be pushed out of the way with bamboo poles. However, our boat turned aside at the last minute and landed at a dock just upstream from the bridge. The bridge keepers poled the bridge back together so tractors and cars could cross it once again.
The truck arrived to pack up all our kayaks, we waved goodbye to the crew and the kayak trip down the Li River was over.
