Mekong River

The Mekong is the world’s 10th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia that runs through China’s Yunnan province, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Rising in southern Qinghai province, China, it flows south through eastern Tibet and across the highlands of Yunnan province. It then forms part of the border between Myanmar (Burma) and Laos, as well as between Laos and Thailand. It runs through Laos and Cambodia before entering the South China Sea in a delta south of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. This 4,350-kilometer-long river, therefore, has played such an important part for million of people and the existence of communities in the region.
Mekong River, Cambodian Mékôngk, Laotian Mènam Khong, Thai Mae Nam Khong, Vietnamese Sông Tiên Giang, Chinese (Pinyin) Lancang Jiang or (Wade-Giles) Lan-ts’ang Chiang, Longest river of Southeast Asia.
The Mekong is of immense significance as a natural boundary. Its unpredictable waters and shifting bed make fording or bridging almost impossible. From the bottom of the river jagged rocks as sharp as teeth extend to and above the surface of the river, making navigation dangerous. Before you abandon ship, be reassured that your captain knows every rock in the river, and the Pak Ou boats have a hardened steel hull, so we can relax!
In ancient times, the Thai people fled across the Mekong from south China to establish the kingdom of Siam (now Thailand), over 700 years ago. Later, the river protected Siam from invasions from the east. The sometime kingdom of Laos, without this natural protection, fell under the control of various east Asian civilisations, such as the now ancient empires of Champa, Funan, and the Khmers of Cambodia, and later the Siamese (Thais) the Chinese and Vietnamese.
Later, in the colonial days of the French and British empires, the Mekong marked the western edge of the French empire of Indo-China; with Siam (Thailand) preserving its own independence as a buffer zone between the British, in Burma, and the French to the east.
This century, during the Vietnam War, the west bank of the Mekong provided bases for raids against the advance of the later triumphant communist armies in Laos. Following the war, anti-Communist forces escaped west across the Mekong to refugee camps in northern Thailand.