The Mekong:
Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future
by Milton Osborne
The first time I ever saw the Mekong River was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After visiting the National Palace, I stood on its banks, looking across to the other side. A couple days later, while taking a bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I went across the Mekong by ferry. After traveling up the east coast of Vietnam to Hue, I crossed over into Laos and again stood on the bank of the Mekong in Savannakhet. My travels took me up to Vientiane where I ate river fish and som tam on the north shore and then took another bus north to Luang Prabang. One evening, I climbed down into the river valley after dinner. As the sun set on the Mekong there, the whole valley filled with an intensely golden light which was like no sunset I had ever seen before. It was the golden color of those stupas all over Southeast Asia, but brighter and more vibrant. I later went back down south and crossed the Friendship Bridge spanning the Mekong, arriving in Nong Khai, Thailand. Over the years, I would have more encounters with this legendary river.
Milton Osborne’s The Mekong: Turbulent Past Uncertain Future is significantly less exciting than any travel adventures I have had in that region. The history presented here is interesting enough, but it gets a light treatment without too many details.
The Mekong begins in the mountains of Tibet, flows south through Yunnan Province in China, cuts through a corner of Myanmar, drops further south through Laos, forming the border along the northern and eastern edges of Thailand. From there it turns inland again into Laos, enters Cambodia, and flows towards the delta in Vietnam where it merges into the South China Sea. Osborne’s historical narrative begins with the Khmer Angkor Kingdom, mostly known now for its iconic Angkor Wat. Portuguese explorers arrived and the Spanish followed. Those colonial powers did not conquer the Khmers or the Annamese, but they did have a significant impact on their affairs. The colonialists left for a long time and the Siamese conquered the Khmers and Laos while the Chinese invaded Vietnam. When the French colonialists showed up, they were welcomes as liberators since they freed those people from the tyranny of the Siamese and the Chinese. The honeymoon period didn’t last though and the French colonialists turned out to be just as severe. Even worse, they exploited the land for raw materials in far more damaging ways than the other Asian conquerors had.
In the heart of this colonial atrocity, there is an interesting adventure story. A group of explorers had a vision of using the Mekong for transport with the intention of moving commercial goods between China and the Mekong Delta where ships could transport them over to Europe. Their intentions may have been less than noble, but they were the first people to map the Mekong River and the story of their explorations is an adventure that rivals the best travel narratives. This really is the best part of the book.
From there, Osborne writes about the French – Indochina War and the end of colonial rule, the American invasion of Vietnam, and the future of the river. This last section deals mostly with environmental concerns largely in relation to China’s ambition to build dams on the Mekong. This has caused controversy with the countries further downstream.
The writing in this book is simple and clear. The first half covering the pre-modern and colonial periods are the best. Osborne does not give highly detailed accounts of events and it is all too obvious that a lot more could have been written. Osborne acknowledges that colonialism was a gross injustice, but he doesn’t dwell on the atrocities to any great extent. He isn’t dismissing this ugly side of Southeast Asian history so much as minimizing it for the sake of brevity and accessibility. This might bother some readers. Another major omission from this book is that almost nothing is said about the kingdom of Siam or the modern nation of Thailand, a significant portion of which is on the southern and western shores of the Mekong. A lot of what is included also happens in the Cambodian areas adjacent to the Mekong, mostly the plain of Angkor and the Tonle Sap tributary river which not directly on the titular body of water.
The Mekong is an interesting read, but it has its limitations. It is, so far, the only book that I know of that treats the entire river as a subject of history. It’s the kind of book that makes good casual reading if you stumble across a copy somewhere, but it isn’t something I would recommend hunting down. Most of what Milton Osborne writes about can be found in other sources that go further in depth. The target audience for this book is probably the handful of intelligent travelers and expats who are interested in more than beach parties and prostitutes. But if you’ve been to the Mekong, it might be a good book to enhance the memories you have. Personally, I have no desire to remember the persistently annoying mosquitoes, but I am more than happy to remember eating those fish that can be bought in the restaurants along the shore. The Laos and Isan Thai people stuff those freshwater fish full of lemongrass and garlic, pack them in salt for a week, then grill them. You eat it with green chili seafood sauce, sticky rice, and papaya salad. Wash it down with a Beer Chang and have a great night with the Asian friends you will inevitably make while in this most gregarious part of the world.
Milton Osborne’s The Mekong: Turbulent Past Uncertain Future is significantly less exciting than any travel adventures I have had in that region. The history presented here is interesting enough, but it gets a light treatment without too many details.
The Mekong begins in the mountains of Tibet, flows south through Yunnan Province in China, cuts through a corner of Myanmar, drops further south through Laos, forming the border along the northern and eastern edges of Thailand. From there it turns inland again into Laos, enters Cambodia, and flows towards the delta in Vietnam where it merges into the South China Sea. Osborne’s historical narrative begins with the Khmer Angkor Kingdom, mostly known now for its iconic Angkor Wat. Portuguese explorers arrived and the Spanish followed. Those colonial powers did not conquer the Khmers or the Annamese, but they did have a significant impact on their affairs. The colonialists left for a long time and the Siamese conquered the Khmers and Laos while the Chinese invaded Vietnam. When the French colonialists showed up, they were welcomes as liberators since they freed those people from the tyranny of the Siamese and the Chinese. The honeymoon period didn’t last though and the French colonialists turned out to be just as severe. Even worse, they exploited the land for raw materials in far more damaging ways than the other Asian conquerors had.
In the heart of this colonial atrocity, there is an interesting adventure story. A group of explorers had a vision of using the Mekong for transport with the intention of moving commercial goods between China and the Mekong Delta where ships could transport them over to Europe. Their intentions may have been less than noble, but they were the first people to map the Mekong River and the story of their explorations is an adventure that rivals the best travel narratives. This really is the best part of the book.
From there, Osborne writes about the French – Indochina War and the end of colonial rule, the American invasion of Vietnam, and the future of the river. This last section deals mostly with environmental concerns largely in relation to China’s ambition to build dams on the Mekong. This has caused controversy with the countries further downstream.
The writing in this book is simple and clear. The first half covering the pre-modern and colonial periods are the best. Osborne does not give highly detailed accounts of events and it is all too obvious that a lot more could have been written. Osborne acknowledges that colonialism was a gross injustice, but he doesn’t dwell on the atrocities to any great extent. He isn’t dismissing this ugly side of Southeast Asian history so much as minimizing it for the sake of brevity and accessibility. This might bother some readers. Another major omission from this book is that almost nothing is said about the kingdom of Siam or the modern nation of Thailand, a significant portion of which is on the southern and western shores of the Mekong. A lot of what is included also happens in the Cambodian areas adjacent to the Mekong, mostly the plain of Angkor and the Tonle Sap tributary river which not directly on the titular body of water.
The Mekong is an interesting read, but it has its limitations. It is, so far, the only book that I know of that treats the entire river as a subject of history. It’s the kind of book that makes good casual reading if you stumble across a copy somewhere, but it isn’t something I would recommend hunting down. Most of what Milton Osborne writes about can be found in other sources that go further in depth. The target audience for this book is probably the handful of intelligent travelers and expats who are interested in more than beach parties and prostitutes. But if you’ve been to the Mekong, it might be a good book to enhance the memories you have. Personally, I have no desire to remember the persistently annoying mosquitoes, but I am more than happy to remember eating those fish that can be bought in the restaurants along the shore. The Laos and Isan Thai people stuff those freshwater fish full of lemongrass and garlic, pack them in salt for a week, then grill them. You eat it with green chili seafood sauce, sticky rice, and papaya salad. Wash it down with a Beer Chang and have a great night with the Asian friends you will inevitably make while in this most gregarious part of the world.
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