With numerous web photos to wet our appetite and a tip off from the YGP team we headed to the Yok Don National Park to where we knew big waterfalls awaited us. We traveled late into the evening from Da Lat to Dray Sap where, with the thunder of distant falling water enticing us from the darkness, we set up our hammocks and went to sleep.

Up early, we inspected the spectacular Dray Sap Waterfall (our take out and the final drop of the day) and organised a shuttle to the top of the section of the Serepok we planned to run. Not sure entirely about what kind of transport had been arranged we were more than a little surprised to see a rickety old tractor chugging into the car park to pick us up. Fortunately it was an ideal method of carting the team and its equipment to the put in.

We started out at Gia Long Waterfalls, a beautiful array of drops. We spotted potential in several falls and decided to huck of as many as we could. With Andy first in the water we did exactly that, running a selection of stylish and interesting lines.

Just downstream I was sorted out with a quick lunch by a couple of friendly locals who fed me some tasty small fish and eel which they had caught and cooked by the river, dipped in chili sauce and all washed down with a shot of xeo (Vietnamese rice wine). 

Spirits high after the fun had at Gia Long we paddled on though the midday sun down a couple of small rapids towards Dray Sap. At the bottom of the final rapid we came upon a divide in the channel, in true exploratory style we split the group with myself, Tim and Eoghain taking the right and Luke, Ben, Stuart, Stuart and Andy heading left.

After a few hundred meters the river dropped away in front of us and we stopped to inspect what turned out to be one of the biggest waterfalls I have ever seen! After scrutinizing the drop from every angle first Eoghain, then I, ran the drop which we estimate to be about 50 ft.

Meanwhile the others had found another sweet drop, 35 odd ft on the other channel and five unique lines later had had their fill. We then met up with the others and ran the drop too, Eoghain pleading a technical on his aqueous egress from the under the drop- though as Tom says "he shouldn't have been so stupid as to leave his deck off..."

Upon finishing the river we remounted our sturdy tractor and headed to a guesthouse for the night. An overzealous beer purchase that evening caused us some conflict with the owners in the morning. Our failure to drink all our booze and subsequent desire to take it with us back to Da Lat came at odds with the owner's agenda which was to keep the bottles... We were locked into the compound but when the details of our incarceration became clear we defused the situation by transferring the disputed liquid into 9 other "containers" and returned the valuable bottles to the guesthouse. Merry as ever and buoyed by our skills of negotiation we set off back to Da Lat.

Check out more awesome photos of the river here...

After reaching Da Lat we set about finding some runnable drops and rivers in the surrounding areas. Sometimes when scouting we had to resort to unconventional methods in order to decide whether each drop ran or not.

 "This is my raft, there are many like it, but this one is mine........."

After a early morning scout on motorbikes we were excited about heading back to Sa Pa and collecting the other guys ready for a multiday decent of this little gem. The Song Ta Van runs from Sa Pa down to the red river changing it's name as it gets joined by other tribs. It turned out to be nice grade 3 with a bit of grade 4 stuck in there for good measure.

 It was a bit of a mission carrying boats down from the road to the river...

But we were rewarded by amazing views and many broken conversations with the locals.

 The river was continuous due to the large amounts of rain just hours before we put on.

Nathan decided that he should really take every opertunity to pose with his paddle. Taken durning the scouting of a rapid we named 'karaoke' due the rather loud vietnamese karaoke from a near by house.

The following day we emeriged from our beds and headed off down the river again, running karaoke for a second time on a different line because the levels had dropped over night.

Shortly we came across a rapid we called 'Wibble or Wobble', work your way around an S-bend or boof off the ledge.

With the river not letting up we carried on down to our pre-scouted get out, fortunatley we did because down stream the river steepend into a gorge which contained some horrible looking features. We called the section siphon city and it still awaits a decent...

 See the gallery for more pictures.

After some hectic motorbike / creek boat shuttles we dropped into a very different character of a river than ngoi Dum. Steep gorged sides made inspecting difficult but there were plenty of sweet drops. More photos in the gallery here...

Finally we paddle! After almost two weeks of traveling, admin, research and chatting to locals. We find a suitable looking section between the towns of Sa Pa and Lau Cai. After a brief scout and some fraught discussion with the driver over where to meet us,we battled our way down through the paddy fields to the river.

With a fairly simple first couple of kilometers, we were pleased to find the river beginning to drop away in front of us. The smooth granite slabs were more reminiscent of the steep Italian creeks than the muddy valleys of South-East Asia.  

Some super sweet boofs and kinky flares, the river revealed itself to be a true classic. The gradient was consistent and steep, keeping the team on their toes constantly.

Adrenalin flowing, the team came up with some great names for the new rapids. "Left in the Sun", "All in my Face", "Broken Dog Leg" and "Blind Leading the Blind". 

After some amazing paddling, the heat and humidity started to catch up with the team. The decision to head out to the road lead to an epic extraction through the jungle. Once back on the road, the fatigue and euphoria overcame the team in a typically non British way.

On reaching the small town of Sa Pa, the team celebrated with beers and local surprise-meat Hot Pot!

Check out more photos of the river here...

Now on the road, with a 50 seater bus as our wagon and "number four" as our shuttle bunny we were set for some adventure. Slightly dismayed at not being allowed near the Ban Gioc waterfalls on the China/Vietnam border due to political reasons and at discovering that our driver was an early morning techno fan we opted to explore the region of Ba Be lake after being promised a whole myriad of waterfalls in this land of limestone.

On arrival we consulted the locals and asked them to take us to the nearest gnar; "no no, you cannot paddle that" they cried, well they haven't met Britian's finest student boaters we thought, and so we took a lift to the other end of the lake.

An ominous horizon greeted us, and even more ominous wildlife.

On inspection the rapid appeared nearly 800m long, with the main event feeding into a respectable siphon on the left or a terminal hole on the right. A true beast. 

We agreed that if we all ran it there was a 50/50 chance one of us might make it, unfortunately this wouldn't leave a camera-man so we tucked our tails between our legs and fled.

Instead we chatted to locals, took them out on the lake with the kayaks and spent our first night in the hammocks after possibly the finest meal so far.

However we were bouyed by what we found, the river was still high from the effects of the flooding, and lower water pictures suggested it could be run at normal flows. There must be runnable white water somewhere, however the hills here were super-steep, running off mainly into flat rivers with poor road access.

And so we decided to rock on over to the granite based wild wild west, and get jiggy with it.

More photos from Ba Be here...