On The Waterfront

Copyright Tan and Trev 2005

Life along the river in Cambodia is still not fully understood by westerners.
It is the longest river in Southeast Asia and the twelfth largest in the world, yet remarkably little remains known to those who do not live by its banks.

Indeed European knowledge of the mysterious Mekong remained extremely limited until just the past few decades. Its source was only pinpointed as being in eastern Tibet as recently as September 1994. An account of this discovery is in The Last Barbarians: The Discovery of the Source of the Mekong in Tibet, by Michel Peissel (New York: Henry Holt, 1997).

It is said that during the rainy season, so much water flows down the Mekong that when it reaches the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, the water backs up into the Tonle Sap River, the tributary linked to Cambodia's Great Lake, thus reversing the direction of the river flow during the dry season. No doubt this is a sight that, given the starke realities of current drought, locals hope will be repeated this year.

The river’s role as a historic stronghold in history, and the surprising contrast it has with the world’s other major waterways, is traced in Milton Osbourne’s academic paper available here.

For our own part, we could only marvel at the village life on the river as illustrated with these few pictures.


Copyright Tan and Trev 2005


Copyright Tan and Trev 2005