I am the Mekong River
I am the Mekong River
From my humble beginnings in an ice cave high in the Tibetan Himalayans, I wind 2,600 miles through remarkable years of history. I am known by Asian peoples as the “holy river.” I have seen war and hunger. I will now tell of who I am and who I know.
I am the tenth largest river in the world. My course runs through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and on to the South China Sea. I provide life-giving resources for countless people and wildlife. My history is long and diverse. Early man inhabited my banks using my waters for nourishment. From the fifth to the eight-century primarily the Tai inhabited me. By the 13th century the Tai people occupied most of the my valley and grew from my waters with their staple food of rice. The Tai eventually formed a country, Thailand. As for foreign explorers, I was not “discovered” (by western standards) until 1886. It was difficult to navigate my waters because of my pesky Knong Waterfalls. In 1886 six Frenchmen were trying to establish a trade route. Finally they realized my falls were unbearable so they built a railway across the falls.
During the 10th century, however, the Vietnamese began noticing how well the Kingdom of Champa was doing with my rich waters and soils. After all, I am considered to be one of the world’s richest rivers in terms of mineral laden sediments. I give all the water for irrigation not only the rice fields along my course, but also many fruits and vegetables. Currently I provide well over half of all the rice grown in Vietnam. Sediments from me provide food for one of the worlds most diverse fisheries. So it is no wonder that Vietnam began to want a piece of me. Here is where the years of anguish started. I would no longer be the carefree peaceful waters I was in past history. Humans began to complicate everything. The Vietnamese captured the Champa capitol, and destroyed the magnificent capitol over the Mekong delta. This was only the beginning of many wars and violence I would be witness to. In 1953 the French battled with Vietnam to take control of my middle and Lower River. In 1957 the U.N. started development to control flooding. Flooding my natural life cycle…they had no idea what they had put in motion. They meant well,...