SHANGHAI, Sept. 13 -- LIKE the monk who collected official seals from all the kingdoms he visited according to the famous Chinese novel "The Journey to the West," modern travelers are doing the same thing - but in the name of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Since July nearly a dozen adventurers from other provinces have arrived in Shanghai by various means - one drifted in a vehicle tire along the Yangtze River.

But for the Shanghai Sports Federation, it's a problem.

"We are getting at least one adventurer every week. They turn up unannounced and claim the trip was done to celebrate the Olympics," said Jiang, a federation official.

Jiang said the travelers kept logbooks and collected official stamps and seals from sporting authorities in each city and county they passed through.

"Most of them travel here on bike or by car - one came on a three-wheeled bike - and they come from their hometowns passing through Shanghai heading to Beijing," Jiang said. "When they arrive in Shanghai they ask for our official stamp and then continue to their next stop."

But the official sporting agency, the Shanghai Sports Administration, cannot issue its official stamp to these amateur adventurers, so the Shanghai Sports Federation handles these requests.

Jiang said when he looked at the log books of the travelers there were usually dozens of stamps from other cities or counties.

"However, because of the risks involved we don't want to encourage people travelling here in these strange modes to celebrate the Olympics," said Jiang. "But if we ignore them they sit outside our doors and refuse to leave until we give them an official stamp."

Jiang said some of the trips were extremely dangerous, not only to the adventurers themselves but to other people.

One of the adventurers was Cheng Yanhua, 41, from Hubei Province, who drifted into the city last month paddling a truck tire along the Yangtze River from Chongqing City in southwest China.

And in late July, 27-year-old Wu Xiaoliang, a Tsinghua University graduate, drifted to Shanghai along the Xiangjiang River from his hometown in Hunan Province. He had planned to float along the Yangtze River to the Huangpu River but was forced to give up the 2,000-kilometer dinghy trip when local maritime officials refused to allow him to float into Huangpu River because of safety concerns.

Before that eight-year-old Zhang Huimin was encouraged by her father to run from Sanya in southern China's Hainan Province to Beijing. She arrived on schedule late last month - one year before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games open.