18-Nov-2001 -- Michelle and I (John) are a Chinese couple living in Yunnan province. We met a good friend from Canada named Nathan who introduced us to confluence hunting and suggested we try to reach one. I went to the website www.confluence.org and realized our province had many to choose from. We thought we could find a GPS and other necessary tools, so why not?

Sunday November 18th was sunny with few clouds. We borrowed a jeep from my friend and drove it from Kunming to the closest parking spot we had found. Before this we had tried two times to find the best road access (our maps did not include the many small village roads in the countryside). The first time was on Oct 28, 2001. We arrived at a village called Qiansou, where the GPS displayed N 25.15 E 102.91, approximately 3 km from the confluence. But the time was 5:00 pm, and the point still hiding behind a mountain. So we decided to turn back. The second time, on Nov 11, 2001, we thought a better place to park would be a mountain I found on the map called Laoye mountain. The Laoye mountain is 2470 m high, but is comprised of a series of peaks. This time we arrived at a village called Wunan, where the GPS displayed N 25.05 E 102.98, only 1.8 km away. Then we saw another village, Dahelongtan, even closer. We drove there and found ourselves only 1.6 km from our destination. There the road ended and the trail began. We thought it better to call it off one more time, as again we had lost so much time driving unmapped roads.

On our walk up the mountain, the scenery was beautiful, with many trees and weird flowers. The trail, as luck would have it, led us to within 10 metres of the confluence. We did the necessary bushwhacking, took the photos, then promptly lay down for a nap in the sun.