HISTORY OF PEOPLE AND THE MEKONG
It is believed that Marco Polo may have set eyes on the Mekong River in the 13th century. The Portuguese Dominican missionaries Father Gaspar da Cruz was the first European to describe traveling on the Mekong River. He spent 1555 to 1557 in Cambodia. The Dutch explorer Gerrot van Wuystoof wrote about it in 1641
The French had ideas of using the Mekong to navigate through Southeast Asia into China but these dreams were dashed when an expedition led by Francis Garnier in the 1860s discovered a major obstacle, Khone Falls, in southern Laos. He suggested blasting a canal next to the canal but a short railroad was built instead but the effort led to only minimal increases of commerce on the river.
A treaty signed in 1893 by France and Siam designated it as the border between Thailand and Laos. In World War II, a number of battles were fought in the proximity of the Mekong in China. During the Vietnam War, The Gong Guo Bridge near Baoshan, Myanmar, built in the 1930s, was a key link to the Burma Road. Mekong Delta in particular was the site of some bloody guerilla warfare as was the case with the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 70s.
RELATED ARTICLES:
MEKONG RIVER: ITS ROUTE, FLOW, HYDROLOGY factsanddetails.com
MEKONG RIVER BIODIVERSITY: DOLPHINS, GIANT FISH AND NEW SPECIES factsanddetails.com
MEKONG DELTA, AGRICULTURE, GLOBAL WARMING AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS factsanddetails.com
MEKONG RIVER ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS: POLLUTION, IRRIGATION, DROUGHT factsanddetails.com
DEVELOPMENT ON THE MEKONG RIVER: CHINA, GAMBLING AND LAWLESSNESS factsanddetails.com
DAMS ON THE MEKONG RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES factsanddetails.com
CHINESE MEKONG RIVER DAMS factsanddetails.com
IMPACTS OF CHINESE MEKONG RIVER DAMS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA: DROUGHTS, FLOW AND SEDIMENT, factsanddetails.com
Importance of the Mekong River
Hannah Beech wrote in the New York Times: The Mekong’s headwaters spring forth high in the Tibetan plateau, but in China the river holds little utility for humans. The Lancang, as the Mekong is known there — a name that means “turbulent” — is too fast and steep to do much more than power turbines. “But for the downriver nations, the Mekong is a lifeblood. Like the Nile, the Tigris and the Yangtze, the Mekong watered empires. Two capitals, Vientiane of Laos and Phnom Penh of Cambodia, stand on its banks.[Source: Hannah Beech, New York Times, October 12, 2019]
The world’s most productive rice growers, in Thailand and Vietnam, depend on the Mekong’s generosity in depositing rich alluvial soil during the rainy season. The river network is the world’s largest inland fishery. More than any other country, Cambodia is nourished by the Mekong. The country’s 16 million people get about 80 percent of their protein intake from its system, which includes a tributary that is the only river in the world that changes course seasonally.
Khone Falls and Limits of the Mekong River as a Transport Route
Khone Falls (on the Mekong River along the Laos-Cambodian border) is the widest waterfall in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records. The series of rapids and falls are 6.7 miles wide, with a drop of 70 feet. The falls are most impressive at the end of the rainy season when the flow is 1.5 million cubic meters per second. This is more than any other fall in the world, and twice as much as Niagra Falls.
Known properly as Khônephapheng Falls, Khone is six mile chain of cataracts. There are two main cascades: Phapheng and Somphamit Falls and several smaller sets of rapids. In some places some flimsy bamboo platforms have been set up for fishermen to use. Don’t try to use them yourself. The magic manikhot tree that sits in the middle of the falls is said to have never been touched by human hands. The river cruise to the falls passes by numerous islands and temples with saffron-robed monks.
The falls are one of the reasons why the Mekong River was one of the last rivers to be explored and developed. Fish amazingly can make their way up the falls but boats can’t. It dashed the hopes of French hoping to use the Mekong River as a transportation link to China.
The French built a 14-kilometers railway so that goods could be moved across two islands to bypass the falls. Cargo at one end of the railway was hoisted from boats and placed on railcars and unloaded back onto to boats at the other end of the line. Sometimes entire boats were lifted and put on railway cars The railroad operated until the end of World War II and was the only railroad built in Laos. After the war the rails were carried away by villagers. All that remains really are two piers, a bridge between the two islands, remains of sleepers and gravel and a rusting steam locomotive. On Khone Island you can hike on part of the old railway bed.
Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS)
Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) is comprised of five six countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia) and one Chinese province (Yunnan) that share the Mekong River. Cooperation in the Greater Mekong subregion, led by the Asian Development Bank, began in the 1990s and has helped unite an area that for a long time was divided by longstanding conflicts. In 2005, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia signed an agreement to standardize and accelerate border crossings to facilitate trade. The agreement shortened border crossing formalities that previously took three hours to a day to just 30 minutes for trucks and five minutes for passenger cars.
Takashi Shiraishi wrote in the Yomiuri Shimbun: “Thailand is the hub of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). All three GMS economic corridors--the North-South Corridor between Kunming, Yunnan Province, and Bangkok via Laos, the East-West Corridor from Vietnam to Thailand via Laos and Cambodia, and the Southern Corridor--lead to Thailand. Further infrastructure development in Bangkok, growth of industrial clusters in the areas around the Thai capital and trade promotion under the framework of free trade agreements, among other policies, will greatly contribute to Thailand's economy once the GMS successfully emerges as an integrated regional market. [Source: Takashi Shiraishi, Yomiuri Shimbun, October 10, 2011]
China has been helping GMS countries build expressways, high-speed railway lines and hydropower stations and improve power grids. These Chinese endeavors can be a big plus for Thailand, which wants the GMS developed as an attractive market. It makes sense for Thailand to enhance its partnership with China. China has been taking a "hub-and-spokes" approach to the GMS area. It regards the broad north-south linkage, stretching from China--Yunnan Province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region--to Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar as the "hub" of its GMS economic development. For the "spokes," China is radially extending its reach to various places that dot the region along the main linkage. For the GMS area to facilitate regional economic integration and growth, it is essential for all mainland Southeast Asian countries to be linked horizontally and strengthen their mutual economic relations.
People Living on the Mekong River
The Mekong provides an important source of food and income for millions of people and plays a vital role of the many communities that live along it. Harmony Patricio, a conservation biologist and the conservation director at FISHBIO, told mongabay.com "The river means everything to the people living in the basin, especially in rural areas. It's their source of life. More than 60 million people depend on the fish for food, which typically accounts for more than half of their animal protein. There's not really a substitute for that. People also use the river for transportation, for their household water supply, and for growing rice and farming." [Source: Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com, April 23, 2013 |~|]
“In the dry season, the water level goes down and people in rural areas have this really rich soil where they plant riverside gardens, which are an important source of vegetables like beans and corn. So in the dry season, maybe they can't catch as many fish, but they have these riverside gardens that are really productive. The river also delivers huge amounts of sediment to the delta in Vietnam, which supports some of the world's highest rice production and the nutrients in the sediment create a marine plume that contributes to high fish abundance in the ocean off the coast of the delta. Scientists are just now starting to understand the role of this marine plume for fish production. |~|
“You also have many different people involved in fishing—men, women, and children—at all different scales. People will fish for just 20 minutes for subsistence, just enough to get dinner for their family that night. Then there are big commercial operations in the Tonle Sap that pull in huge hauls. Trying to measure and research the harvest at these different scales is really challenging. |~|
Fishing on the Mekong River
The Mekong supports one of the world's largest inland fisheries. According to National Geographic: Cambodians and Laotians catch more freshwater fish per capita than anyone else on the planet; in many places along the river, fish is a synonym for food. Grilled, fried, or boiled; wrapped in palm leaves; garnished with ant eggs; or simply mixed with rice in a wooden bowl, the more than 500 known species of Mekong fish have sustained millions of people through droughts, deluges, and even the genocidal Cambodian regime of Pol Pot. [Source: Michelle Nijhuis, National Geographic, May 2015]
Fish caught in the river are an important source of protein for an estimated 65 million people. Many of these fish rely on the natural annual flood cycle of the river to reproduce. In Laos, Thailand , Cambodia and Vietnam, fishermen catch about 1.3 million tons of fish a year, four times the yearly catch in the North Sea. One of the riche fish ground is the Siphandone, or Four Thousand Islands, area between Laos and Cambodia.
Fish stocks have been reduced by overfishing, habitat destruction and development. Large fishing operations—some fo them legal, some of them not—employ large nets and traps that can catch hundreds of thousands of fish ay a time. Some people catch fish with bed-sheet-size butterfly nets that they dip into rice paddies flooded by the river.
Transportation on the Mekong River
The Mekong River and its tributaries provide crucial transportation links in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Between Simao in Yunnan and Jinghong on Laotian border the river is navigable. The river runs for 786 kilometers between Simao and Luang Prabang in Laos. Passage between Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand is blocked by Khone Falls in Laos, one of the world’s most powerful cataracts. The series of rapids and falls drops 20 meters (70 feet). The river is eight miles wide near this spot.
The idea of using the Mekong River as the hub of a major transportation hub became a possibility in the 1990s when the peace was finally achieved in Cambodia and the insurgency in Laos became more manageable. In the early 1990s there were no bridges over the Mekong River. Now there are several, in Vietnam and between Laos and Thailand.
Myanmar, Thailand, China and Laos has signed an agreement to open a navigation route along the upper reaches of the Mekong River. Under the agreement the four countries allowed commercial navigation across each other’s borders. There are plans to make an access route from southern China to the Indian Ocean via the Mekong River.
China is currently involved in dredging upper parts of the river to make them navigable. In the dry season, 150-tons can not navigate these sections. Dredging will remedy this. Dredging between Vientiane and Simao in Yunnan Province in China will make section of the river capable of handing 2,000 ton ships throughout the year except for a couple weeks in the dry season when water levels are exceptionally low. Both the Chinese and Laotian governments support the project as a means of promoting economic growth through increased trade.
Many locals oppose the dredging operations, They complain large ship creates wakes and waves that can sink smaller boast and worry that large Chinese boats will take away cargo business from smaller local boats and flood the market with cheap Chinese goods and produce. Environmentalist say the dredging damagesriver banks, destroys fish stocks and threatens endangered animals. The dredging operations involves using explosive to blast apart shallow rocks, reefs and shoals and widen channels.
Types of Boats Used by Travelers on the Mekong River
Speed Boats called “heua wai “ are used primarily between Luang Prabang and Hat Sa (Prongsali) on the Nam Ou River and between Vientiane and Huay Xai on the Mekong Rivers. They are able to cover a distance in five or six hours what might take a ferry a couple of days but are very dangerous, noisy and uncomfortable. Passengers sit on wooden benches and wear life jackets and crash helmets. They are so noisy passengers on other boats can hear them when they are almost a mile away. Speedboats can take up to six passengers and are generally rented for about $23 a hour, a cost that can be split among several passengers. A trip between Vientiane and Luang Prabang can done be done with six people for about $25 per person.
Accidents involving “heua wai “ are very common. Accidents occur on a weekly basis and often involve fatalities. Because the boats are very light and travel at high speeds, the results can be quite nasty if they hit a rock, sand bar or branch in the river, which is not all that hard to do. Sometimes a bow wave from a large boat is enough to flip them over.
Long-Tailed Boats (named after drive shaft which extend beyond the back of the boat and connects the an automobile engine to a propeller) are used by locals and tourists to get around the rivers of Laos. Tourist generally travel on boat trips sponsored by travel agencies and locals get around on boats that run scheduled routes like buses. The fares for local boats are quite reasonable. The tours aren't very expensive either. Many of the long tailed boats used in Laos are long narrow river taxis with a covering for protection form the sun and rain, A boat that carries eight to 10 passengers can be hired for about $10 an hour
Cargo Boats make the trip between Vientiane and Luang Prabang in about three to four days down river and four to five days upriver.
Traveling on the Mekong River between Stung Treng, Cambodia and the Laos border
The Mekong River between Stung Treng and the Laos border is very light on population and heavy on beautiful scenery. Boulder outcroppings, numerous sets of rapids, swirling pothole currents, wide sweeping stretches of river and forested landscape along the banks all await the boat traveler. It makes for a great trip, either for the traveler that wants to continue on to Laos or for those wanting to enjoy a wild stretch of the Mekong in Cambodia. [Source: mekongdiscoverytrail.com ]
The trip is difficult to downright impossible to make on this shallow stretch of the Mekong during the dry season, with countless sunken islands and a virtual forest of trees growing right in the middle of the river. The trip becomes an obstacle course for the boat drivers this time of the year, as they carefully try to choose the best way to guide their craft through the maze that nature has created without losing a propeller to the river. The best time of the year to take this trip is from May to November when sufficient upstream rains have raised the river to a level that allows the boats to pass through carefully.
If you want a faster journey, approach one of the small fiberglass boat operators, the ones that have the 40-hp outboard motors-they want US$ 20-$25 (one-way) to make the trip- but if you are looking for a quick trip or fast fun, the trip time going upriver is cut down to only 1½ hours. The slow boats are fast enough coming back downstream so you could save money by grabbing one of those on the return trip. For those wanting to cross into Laos using this route you will need a Laos’s visa in your possession and you also need to stop at the main police station in Stung Treng town to get a letter of permission to cross the border at this point. This is shown to Cambodian immigration will not let you stamp out of the country without this.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Global Viewpoint (Christian Science Monitor), Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, NBC News, Fox News and various books and other publications.
Last updated August 2026