This is a dangerous statement since our friend George W. Bush’s performance on the aircraft carrier off the Iraq coast. And similar to his case our case is not finished yet.
What we have accomplished is the "Down the Mekong" tour. On Sept. 16th 2008 we set out from Amsterdam airport and disembarked in Kunming, China one day later. From there we bussed to Dali, from where we started our bike tour. We rode to the very north of the province of Yunnan and on Oct. 1st we encountered the Mekong river for the first time this trip (we had seen the Mekong a lot 3 years ago). It was a spectacular encounter: we were riding on a narrow mountain road from Decqin at an altitude of 3200 meters and immediately after we passed a short little tunnel we could see the river raging through a gorge, over 1000 meters below us. Since then we rode along the river, left it because there were border crossings to be passed, or no roads near it or just because we wanted to see interesting sites away from the Mekong. But all the time the river was our lead. We rode 2000 kms through Yunnan, then app. the same distance through Laos, then we went into Cambodia and after 5700 kms we considered the task fulfilled and said goodbye to the grand river in the Vietnamese town of My Tho, situated on the most northern branches of the mouth of the Mekong, Cua Tieu and Cua Dai, and some 50 kms from the South Chinese sea. There, on Jan. 24th 2009, we got on a boat and sailed down Cua Tieu in the direction of the sea. We didn’t reach the sea as a matter of fact, we turned north some 20 kms from it in order to reach Saigon by water. But on Cua Tieu we considered our Mekong mission accomplished. (The picture will follow in the Dutch language entry following soon).
What willcome after this accomplishment? We still have some time left before heading back home. Therefore we decided not to fly back from Saigon, but to ride on to Hanoi and return from there.