Chiang Khong is about 1 1/2 hours by car from Chiang Rai. We left Chiang Rai shortly after 9:00 am and made it to Chiang Khong around 11:00 after making short stop at a small rest area. The rest was located on along a river and was well maintained. I didn’t notice until walking around the building that urinals were located outside. This was not uncommon as I saw similar placements of urinals in other public restrooms.
Chiang Rai is located on the Mekong River near the Golden triangle – the area of the Mekong where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos share a border. We went to Chiang Khong to visit a NGO (nongovernmental organization) called the Mekong School. The school’s mission is to protect the Mekong River system while honoring and promoting the cultural knowledge of the River. It has been in existence since 2015 with a goal to keep the cultural history of the Mekong alive while also teaching students about evidence-based ways to document the condition and health of the River. It’s initial efforts were focused on opposing efforts to make the Mekong navigable for large vessels. China was the driving force behind the effort as a way to get goods between the interior including (China, Myanmar, and Laos) and the ocean. Other counties that bordered the River did not object and the process of dynamiting the River to remove rapids and deepen the navigate channel continued until Thailand put a stop to it in 2020. It is unclear to me the exact reason behind Thailand’s decision with justifications varying from economic (Thailand wouldn’t gain as much as China from opening the waterway to commerce and China withheld funding for the project), national security (allowing larger vessels to access Thailand’s northern border was not in Thailand’s national interest), environmental (it would disturb the Mekong ecosystem and decrease diversity), and cultural (it would be detrimental to many communities living along the river.
China continues to be focused on damming the River to increase the availability of hydroelectric power to the region. While Thailand has not agreed to dams on it’s portion of the River, Other countries have. Laos PDR is one of those countries with two dams currently under construction along the stretch of the River from Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang. The people at the Mekong, school told us that pending litigation had at least temporarily suspended construction activity. I, however, saw in the next two days during my slow boat trip that construction on both dams was definitely not stopped.
Even though people understand that a lock system will be installed to allow boats to continue to navigate the River, it seems as though damming will have unknown impact on commerce, local displaced local communities and the River ecosystem. I think it unlikely that comprehensive environmental and cultural reviews were performed. However, as significant a threat as damming is, it is not the largest threat facing the Mekong dependent communities. That dubious honor goes to uncontrolled mining and resulting heavy metal pollution of the waterways and sediments. While the impact to the Mekong River is not currently as dire as the damage done to the Kok River (see previous post on Kok River), detectable levels of heavy metal do exist in the Mekong, with fears that it will increase. As I learned, the 2700 mile long Mekong is the second most diverse river system on earth supporting millions of people living on and near the river. It begins in China (where it is known as the Lancang Jiang) and flows through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Pollution impacts will spread even wider than river adjacent communities as river fish is both a prevalent and important part of people’s diet throughout the region.
I stayed the night in Chiang Khong while the others in our group returned to Chiang Rai. Emily and her mom were returning home while Paul and Christina would fly to Luang Prabang and meet me there. I was going to spend two days on a “slow boat” cruising down the Mekong.
