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Asia-Pacific Magazine
No. 2 May 1996
pp. 26-32.

Exploring the Mekong's Past and Present

by Milton Osborne

One hundred and thirty years ago a French expedition left Saigon, today's Ho Chi Minh City, with the goal of exploring one of the world's great rivers, the Mekong. Despite being hailed in 1870 by the President of the Royal Geographic Society, Sir Roderick Murchison, as 'the happiest and most complete of the 19th century', the French Mekong expedition has never received the same attention as the African expeditions of such men as David Livingstone, Richard Burton or John Speke.

Indeed, in striking testimony to this fact, the recently published Oxford Book of Exploration completely ignores the expedition and its accomplishments. Why has this been so, and why has the Mekong itself failed to capture interest in the same way as the Nile or the Amazon? By any standards, the explorers of the Mekong achieved great things, meticulously mapping the river and much of the country surrounding it from the sea into China's Yunnan province. At the same time they prepared detailed reports on everything from archaeology and anthropology to geology and linguistics. It was they, for instance, who drew up the first detailed plans of the great Angkor ruins in Cambodia. As for the river itself, its very size would seem to demand attention - at more then 4,500 kilometres in length it is the twelfth largest in the world, and in terms of the volume of water it discharges into the sea the sixth biggest.

For the English-speaking world, the fact that the French explored the Mekong seems to have remained a barrier to awareness of the expedition's achievements. Of the accounts written by the explorers themselves, only one, Louis de Carné's Travels in Indo-China and the Chinese Empire (London, 1872), was ever published in English, and it is a flawed if interesting account. And the fact that much of the Mekong's lower course flowed through territories colonised by France was probably a factor in limiting the English-speaking world's concern with Southeast Asia's longest river. More important in limiting contemporary interest, perhaps, has been the unconscious association of the Mekong River with the Vietnam War. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the Mekong was the river that flowed into the Mekong Delta, where so many of the costly battles of the war were fought. Then, after 1975, much of the Mekong was literally hidden from view where it flowed through Pol Pot's murderously secret Cambodia and through a rather gentler but still hidden Laos. What is more, the grandiose plans to dam the Mekong drawn up in the 1960s were soon overtaken by the conflicts that raged in three of the riverine states - Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. And with the passage of years there has been an increasing recognition that the environmental costs of the plans that were originally envisaged must now take more account of the problems associated with the construction of massive dams that inundate large areas of land and result in the dislocation of peasant farming communities. Nevertheless, economic expansion in China, Thailand and Vietnam has sharply increased interest in the Mekong's future potential since the beginning of the 1990s.

The mid-20th century hopes that had focused on the Mekong with the idea of harnessing it for expanded irrigation and the production of hydroelectricity followed earlier, unrealised expectations that the river could become a major carrier of water-borne transport. This had been the vision of the French explorers who thought in terms of trade flowing up and down the Mekong's course between southern Vietnam and China. Within weeks of the expedition's departure from Saigon the futility of this expectation became plain as the explorers first encountered major rapids north of the Cambodian settlement of Kratie and then the formidable barrier of the Khone Falls just inside Laos's southern boundary. From that point on, until they finally abandoned travel along the river near Simao, in Yunnan province, the explorers experienced endless frustrations as passages of clear water were followed by repeated, time-consuming rapids that could only be traversed by portage.

The difficulties of long-range commercial navigation of the Mekong remain one hundred and thirty years after the explorers made their painful way up the river. Much was made by the Laotian and Chinese governments of the potential success of a river boat service between Yunnan province and the Laotian capital of Vientiane in 1990. But this 'service', which could only operate when the river's waters are high, at best a period of three months of the year, has not continued. For much of the year boat travel on the Mekong north of the Cambodian-Laotian border is restricted by natural obstacles that were all too familiar to the French explorers, and sometimes by problems of security. Nevertheless, with the countries of Indochina now largely at peace and with a measure of luck, it is possible to see and travel on much of the river as far upstream as Simao Harbour, and to assess the sharp contrasts and sometimes remarkable continuities between the world the explorers saw and that existing today.

Should their ghosts return to the French expedition's starting point, Saigon, there is almost nothing in that city that would be familiar to them. Ironically, there is one prominent building still standing that was already three years old when the explorers set off. Built as the French colony's Customs House in 1863, it has now become a museum dedicated to the life and memory of Communist Vietnam's greatest leader, Ho Chi Minh.

Once on the Mekong proper, for Saigon is sited on a minor watercourse joined to the Mekong by canal, Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, is equally unrecognisable in its modern form by comparison with the straggling collection of wooden buildings that greeted the explorers in 1866. Not that the squalor which was so much part of Cambodia's capital in the 19th century has vanished from Phnom Penh in the 1990s. As a legacy of decades of war and the shattering experience of the Pol Pot years, many hundreds of thousands of Cambodians remain uprooted from the countryside and survive as desperately poor squatters in their country's capital. Yet even in Phnom Penh there is one, essentially unchanged physical feature from the time when the French explorers paused their way north. This is the 'phnom', the small hill from which the capital takes part of its name. For it was here, according to tradition, that a woman named Penh found a Buddha image and became the founder of a city. It still stands today, surmounted by a tall stupa, just as it did in 1866.

The further north one travels on and beside the Mekong, the greater is the continuity between the past and the present. There have been changes to the physical appearance of settlements such as Kratie and Stung Treng in Cambodia, or Pakse and Savannakhet in southern Laos, though not so many as might be expected since buildings dating from French colonial times still lend a distinctive appearance to these river towns. And the country around them has changed remarkably little. Along the river itself, both the rapids at Sambor and the Khone Falls, which when the river is in flood stretch across some eleven kilometres and are crossed by more water than flows over the falls at Niagara, are features that are timeless. 'Timeless' is not strictly a term that can be applied to the Khmer ruins of Wat Phu that stand by the Mekong not far from the southern Laotian town of Champassak, but the site has links stretching back to the very origins of Cambodian history as the predecessors of the kings who were to rule at Angkor were consolidating their position in southern Laos. Surveyed by French soldiers in more peaceful times and then neglected in the troubled decades of the Indochinese wars, Wat Phu is again under study by archaeologists.

Much further north again, the Laotian capital, Vientiane, evokes strong memories of the past despite being overwhelmingly a modern creation in its present form. Linked to Thailand for the first time by a bridge across the Mekong, which was built as one of Australia's largest overseas aid projects, Vientiane is braced for change. For Laos's politically conservative leaders the prospects of greater trade with Thailand have to be weighed against the dangers of 'spiritual pollution' from Thailand's rampant capitalism and the consumer-oriented society that accompanies it. There is a recognition that the 'Friendship Bridge' will boost Laos's limited export capabilities, but be of much greater advantage to those in Thailand who look to Laos as an expanding export market and as a country ripe for exploitation by foreign enterprises.

Neither the passage of time since the French explorers reached Vientiane, nor the coming to power of a communist government in 1975, have led to an end to Buddhism's importance in Laos. The Buddhist temples and monuments the explorers saw in Vientiane in 1867 remain of vital importance today, even though two of them, Wat Phra Kaeo and Wat Sisaket have been turned into national museums. The former was where the famous Emerald Buddha was once housed before it was removed to the Grand Palace in Bangkok following one of the frequent Siamese (Thai) invasions of Vientiane, in 1789. But more important than either of these is the That Luang stupa. Linked by legend with the great Indian Buddhist emperor, Asoka, That Luang had only recently been regilded when the explorers saw it, and today it stands, once again, freshly covered with gold paint.

The extent to which this monument is revered as a symbol of Laotian identity is shown in the fact that it was used as a symbol on bank notes that were issued by the Pathet Lao (Lao Nation) communist forces during the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War). Beside a delicately engraved scene on a 500 Kip note showing heroic peasants firing their weapons against imperialist aircraft is a rendition of the That Luang stupa. The war is long over. The communists won, but That Luang's importance for Laotian Buddhists has not diminished and in November of each year there is a week-long festival centred on this monument.

If Vientiane offers an image of an urban centre in which elements of modernity sit easily with memories and relics of a bygone age, no great leap of imagination is needed for a visitor to Luang Prabang to see this once-royal city as it was before France made it part of its Asian colonial empire at the end of the 19th century. While Vientiane is sited on a wide, flat plain, Luang Prabang hugs the Mekong within an encircling series of steeply rising hills and mountains. Motor transport is not absent, and there are the ubiquitous 'tuk-tuk' taxis, but a visitor can still walk the narrow streets during much of the day without encountering any other wheeled transport than a bicycle.

Despite the presence of modern buildings, the dominant architectural presence is that of the richly decorated Buddhist wats, the pagodas, and the empty royal palace, a relatively modern construction but traditional in style. The French explorers were quartered in one of the city's many pagodas when they reached Luang Prabang in late April 1867 and reacted positively to what they judged to be its promising commercial activity. This was a judgement that owed more to hope than to reality and Luang Prabang today, with its population of barely 20,000, is still only of minor importance in economic terms for the Laotian government. If this is to change, it may be through the attraction the city will provide for tourists, for there is no denying its scenic appeal and its richness in Buddhist sites.

Not far upriver from Luang Prabang are the Pak Ou Caves, two deep caves set in a limestone cliff beside the Mekong. Once a great pilgrimage site visited by the King of Laos each year, the caves still attract the devotion of the population at the time of the Buddhist New Year in April when thousands come to render homage to the hundreds of Buddha images that are housed in them. A pilgrimage site of a different kind lies closer to Luang Prabang beside the Nam Khan River. This is the grave of Henri Mouhot, the French explorer who reached Luang Prabang in 1861, having travelled much of the distance from Bangkok overland before coming to the city along the river. By the time the members of the Mekong expedition reached Luang Prabang, Mouhot had achieved fame as the first modern, European visitor to have seen the great Cambodian ruins at Angkor and to have written in enthusiastic terms of their architectural magnificence. But his fame was posthumous, for he had died of malaria in November 1861, recording in his journal the despair of a desperate man struck down by disease far from home.

He had been buried where he died and in 1867 his fellow countrymen saw it as their duty to construct a tomb over their fallen predecessor. By the 1980s the location of this tomb had been forgotten and it was not until 1990 that foreign aid officials posted to Luang Prabang were able to find and restore it. Today the tomb stands surrounded by secondary jungle, just a few metres from the banks of the Nam Khan River, looking exactly as it did in the illustration made by the Mekong Expedition's official artist so long ago.

Yet, despite the exotic charm of Luang Prabang's architecture and the interest of historical sites, whether those linked to the Laotian past or to foreign explorers, it is the Mekong that ultimately demands a visitor to the city's attention. Flowing between sharply rising hills, the river dominates the landscape and reminds those who view it of the impression the Mekong left on the first Europeans who explored it. Before his death, Henri Mouhot wrote in his journal of the awe-inspiring experience of seeing the Mekong in flood when, at high water, the river rushed through the surrounding gorges with a sound like the stormy sea. Francis Garnier, the second-in-command of the French expedition in the 1860s and its most accomplished chronicler, described the river in terms that mixed fascinated wonder with memories of the privations and illness that he and his companions had endured along its course. The kingfishers that he saw darting over the river's surface with their vivid blue feathers flashing in the sunshine are still there today. So, too, are the towering sandbanks left behind as the river falls from high water and the jagged rocks and rapids that exacted such a cost in time and effort as the explorers slowly made their way upstream.

With plans to build massive dams on the Mekong abandoned, and with river traffic essentially limited to short-distance transportation, it seems unlikely that the river will ever yield the economic benefits that have been hoped for over more than a century. With one tributary already dammed and producing electricity for export to Thailand, the Laotian government, encouraged by a wide array of foreign commercial interests, is considering building more dams on other rivers feeding into the Mekong. But ultimately, the Laotian government will have to look for different measures to transform its economy. And the need to do so is pressing, for Laos remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Statistics do not always tell the whole story, and in neither Vientiane nor Luang Prabang is there a sense of the grinding poverty that can still be found in other Asian countries that have moved far beyond Laos in terms of per capita income. Nevertheless, and however qualified, national statistics do emphasise the formidable challenges facing Laos's leaders. Average per capita income for Laos's population of 4.4 million is only a little more than US$250 a year. In the whole of the country there are only 2,000 kilometres of sealed roads, and with Cambodia Laos shares the unhappy distinction of having the lowest life expectancy in the whole of Southeast Asia: even those children who survive to the age of five can only expect, on average, to live to fifty-one years of age. Moreover, Laos faces the need to find solutions to its social and economic problems as its population increases in size at a rate that means it will grow by twenty-five percent over the next decade.

Timber offers the best immediate basis for boosting Laos's income, but logging carries with it environmental risks that the government is ill-equipped to combat. Concessional arrangements negotiated in 1993 required foreign logging firms to follow a strict regime of reafforestation after timber has been felled, but it is too early to judge how well this requirement is being observed. In the future there are hopes that prospecting currently under way, including by Australia's CRA, will lead to commercially profitable discovery of minerals. For the rest, there seems little likelihood that there will be any early change from a situation in which income from small-scale exports of clothing and agricultural products will, along with hydroelectricity and fees from airline overflights, amount to no more than half of what Laos receives in foreign aid.

There is, of course, another aspect of the Laotian economy that is not reflected in the country's official statistics. This is the drug economy. Northern Laos forms part of the so-called 'Golden Triangle', the tri-country area embracing sections of Burma (Myanmar), Laos and Thailand, where much of the world's opium crop originates. Grown by members of the various hill people who live in the Laotian uplands, opium has been a cash crop for centuries. The French explorers encountered mule caravans carrying the drug in their travels along the upper Mekong, and transportation by this traditional method continues today. What has changed is the enormous growth in demand for opium as the raw material for the production of heroin and the sinister involvement of ruthless international criminal cartels. Efforts to wean traditional growers away from planting opium poppies have had some limited success, but the capacity of the Laotian government to deal with the problems associated with drug production, and their degree of determination, remain in question.

Beyond Laos and Thailand the Mekong flows between Burma and China until the upper course of the river - about half of its overall length - lies solely in western China and the remote regions of eastern Tibet. In the longer term, how China behaves in relation to the Mekong will be of great concern to the downriver countries whose governments worry that their great northern neighbor might selfishly tap the Mekong for irrigation purposes or carelessly allow industry to discharge pollutants into the river. And these are not the only worries attached to future usage of the river. Vietnam has fears that Cambodia and Laos, too, might be profligate users of the Mekong's water, while Cambodia and Vietnam are potentially at odds over the question of navigation rights for that section of the Mekong running from the South China Sea to their shared border.

So the Mekong will continue to flow through countries confronting a range of problems for many years to come. It is a river that has slowly given up most of its mysteries. Only in April 1995 was its source finally located in remotest Tibet by an expedition that included, perhaps appropriately, some Frenchmen. And even when mysteries have been solved a modern traveller can still find, as did this writer, that passage up the Mekong can be halted because bandits had closed the river to boat traffic. In searching for a final word about the Mekong, it seems hard to better Francis Garnier's summation. Reflecting on his experiences as a member of the expedition that did so much to reveal the river to the world he wrote, 'Without doubt, no other river, over such a length, has a more singular or remarkable character.'

Further reading:

• John Hoskins and Allen W. Hopkins, The Mekong: A River and its People (Post Publishing Co., Bangkok, 1991).

• Henri Mouhot, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia and Laos, 2 vols. (London, 1864). A condensed version of Mouhot's book has been published as Henri Mouhot's Diary, edited by Christopher Pym.

• Milton Osborne, River Road to China: The Mekong River Expedition, 1866-1873 (London and New York, 1975).

• Milton Osborne, 'Frances Garnier (1839-1873): Explorer of the Mekong River', in Victor T. King (ed.), Explorers of South-East Asia: Six Lives (Kuala Lumpur, 1995).

• I.A. Shearer, 'International Legal Notes: Mekong River Basin Agreement', The Australian Law Journal, vol. 69 (July 1995).

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