Mekong (Mae Nam Khong)

The Mekong is one of the world’s major rivers. It is the 11th-longest river in the world, and 7th longest in Asia. (discharging 475 km³/114 cu mi of water annually). Its estimated length is 4,350 km (2,703 mi), and it drains an area of 795,000 km² (307,000 sq mi).[1] From the Tibetan Plateau it runs through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. All except China and Burma belong to the Mekong River Commission. A South Asian regional association, Mekong-Ganga Cooperation is named after this river. The extreme seasonal variations in flow and the presence of rapids and waterfalls have made navigation extremely difficult.

History :
The difficulty of navigating the river has meant that it has divided, rather than united, the people who live near it. The earliest known settlements date to 2100 BCE, with Ban Chiang being an excellent example of that early Iron Age culture. The earliest recorded civilisation was the 1st century Indianised-Khmer culture of Funan, in the Mekong Delta. Excavations at Oc Eo, near modern An Giang, have found coins from as far away as the Roman Empire. This was succeeded by the Khmer culture Chenla state by around the 5th century. The Khmer empire of Angkor was the last great Indianized state in the region. From around the time of the fall of the Khmer empire, the Mekong was the frontline between the emergent states of Siam and Tonkin (North Vietnam), with Laos and Cambodia, then situated on the coast, torn between their influence.
The first European to encounter the Mekong was the Portuguese Antonio de Faria in 1540; a European map of 1563 depicts the river, although even by then little was known of the river upstream of the delta. European interest was sporadic: the Spaniards and Portuguese mounted some missionary and trade expeditions, while the Dutch Gerrit van Wuysthoff led an expedition up the river as far as Vientiane in 1641-42.
The French took a serious interest in the region in the mid-19th century, capturing Saigon, from Vietnamese invaders, in 1861, and establishing a protectorate over Cambodia in 1863.
The first systematic exploration began with the French Mekong Expedition led by Ernest Doudard de Lagrée and Francis Garnier, which ascended the river from its mouth to Yunnan between 1866 to 1868. Their chief finding was that the Mekong had too many falls and rapids to ever be useful for navigation. The river's source was located by Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov in 1900.
From 1893, the French extended their control of the river into Laos, establishing French Indochina by the first decade of the 20th century. This lasted until the First and Second Indochina Wars ended French and American involvement in the region.
After the Vietnam War, the tensions between the U.S.-backed Thai government and the new Communist governments in the other countries prevented cooperation on use of the river.

Bridges :

The Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge (Thai: สะพาน มิตรภาพ ไทย-ลาว Saphan Mittaphap Thai-Lao) connects Nong Khai city with Vientiane in Laos. The 1170-metre-long bridge has two 3.5 m-wide lanes with an unfinished single railway line in the middle. On March 20, 2004 the Thai and Lao governments agreed to extend the railway to Tha Nalaeng in Laos
The Second Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge connects Mukdahan to Savannakhet. The two-lane, 12-metre-wide, 1600-metre-long bridge opened to the general public on January 9, 2007.
There is also a third bridge, located in Champasak province, in Laos. Unlike the Friendship bridges, this bridge is not a border crossing. It is 1,380 metres (4,528 ft) long, and was completed in 2000 .
Cambodia has one two-lane bridge located near the city of Kompong Cham, on the road linking Phnom Penh with the remote provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri, and further away Laos.