The day began with loading the truck which had arrived the night before. After 2 hours of work loading and securing the boats, equipment and baggage on the truck and the accompanying passenger vehicles, we left Lunglei at 9 a.m. for the very scenic drive to Tupui D, the village where we were going to put the boats in the water.
Shortly before arriving in Tupui D and while we were still in the hills, we caught the first glimpse of the Kaladan / Kolodyne River below us and our excitement grew instantly. At around 1.30 p.m. we started unloading near the ferry at Tupui D, mounted the engines and tested the boats.
Then, we loaded all the equipment onto the boats and, heading off upstream to find our first camp site, had to negotiate the first powerful rapids.
