The Mekong
If there is magic in words, there is mystery in names. Already in my childhood "Mekong" used to evoke to me sampans spiked with guns, waters carrying bodies, snipers in ambush in marsh and shores ploughed by shrapnels.Michel Peissel
I have chosen to sail down the Mekong river, from the golden Triangle to its mouth. Among traditional pirogues and modern boats, I will let myself drift along the current of this magnificent river in order to discover the different cultures, that have always been faithful to it. Fishermen or conveyors, age old villages or modern cities, I hope I will get the opportunity to share the lifestyles of many natives and discover many jobs related to water.
But this time, the river will essentially be a road, the one that, so many people before me, have always preferred to any other. Scattered with hazards, the rain season will make the Mekong river easier to navigate though.
The Mekong river has given birth to more civilizations than any other river in the world. Seven countries are crossed by its wake : Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Chinese Yunnan and Tibet.. It is impossible to tell how many persons live along the Mekong river, but there seems to be no other river that has mattered so much for so many nations.
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Because of its length, it confronts many different climates, from the frozen heights of the high Tibetan plateaus to the stifling tropical plains in Vietnam. There, it leaps into the sea at a huge delta with nine arms symbolizing the "nine dragons" of the river according to the legend. No precise statistics are known, but 4,500 km long make it the longest river in South-East Asia.
