The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong
by Edward A. Gargan
Book Description
The River’s Tale is a deeply informed personal chronicle of a remarkable journey down the Mekong River as it runs through China, Tibet, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In it Edward A. Gargan tells a stirring tale of adventure that reveals the Mekong’s many worlds.
Beginning in 1998, Gargan was at last able to pursue his long-held dream of traveling the three thousand miles of the river and lingering where he wished. He was, in a sense, coming to terms with places and peoples with which he had already linked his life. His youthful opposition to the Vietnam War had been the first manifestation of his passionate interest in Asia, where he subsequently spent much of his career as a New York Times correspondent.
His travels show us a kind of modernity settling uneasily on regions still mired in backwardness and poverty, and shadows that linger so many years after the end of the Vietnam War. We visit Internet cafés in dirt-streeted towns near thatched-hut villages without electricity. The magnificent Angkor Wat, a hub of tourism, is surrounded by the ruins engendered by Pol Pot’s genocidal reign. We see plodding mule trains caravanning sacks of opium through Burma on their way to China to be processed and distributed to the West. Tibetan horsemen adorned in silver and amber jewelry herd yaks across endless grasslands as their ancestors did, though their culture is under siege by the Chinese. Vietnamese salesmen scooter around Saigon hawking American soaps, passing by outcast children fathered by American soldiers and left behind. Buddhism flowers in a Laos ravaged by communism. Sex tourism thrives in prosperous Thailand, a trade chiefly involving teenagers, who pay a deadly price.
And throughout, there is the Mekong—shaping landscapes, linking cultures, sustaining populations, showcasing spectacular beauty. Edward Gargan is an acutely observant, sympathetic guide to a fascinating world, and he has written a powerful and lyrical book. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Amazon.com
"The Mekong scours some of the saddest history of recent years," writes Edward A. Gargan in this richly described and melancholic tale of his journey through Tibet, China, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Thirty years after landing in jail for refusing to register for the draft, the war-protester-turned-foreign-correspondent decided to see for himself how these countries have brought themselves back from the brink, and how their myriad cultures are struggling to preserve themselves. Beginning at the source of the Mekong River, near a camp of nomads high on the Tibetan plateau, he followed the 3,000 mile-long waterway through the heart of some of Asia's most complex and wounded societies. While the first half of Gargan's story, which focuses on China's demolition of Tibetan and other minority cultures, is interesting, it becomes gripping in the claustrophobic paranoia of Laos and post-Pol Pot Cambodia. Ultimately it becomes clear that while America lost the war in Vietnam, it has never left the region--lingering in the scars of war and inversely the creeping acceptance, if not embrace, of all things American. --Lesley Reed --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From the Back Cover
"For all his lyric descriptions of the great river and its moods, Mr. Gargan has written far more than a picturesque personal travel diary. He offers an insider's look infused with sympathy and often with anguish at the political and societal tragedies he meets on the way....Not many Americans would attempt the trek of this huge river, from sources to delta....Still fewer would possess the knowledge, the imagination, the wit and the deep-rooted sympathy with Asian peoples that characterize Mr. Gargan's writing. He tells a unique and thought-provoking story."
--Frank Gibney, New York Times
"The River's Tale is an engrossing discovery of the lands and peoples along a river that has stirred the imagination of wanderers and adventurers for as long as I can remember."
--David Lamb, author of The Arabs
"This is a great journey Ed Gargan takes us on, weaving down the deep river through seven countries, encountering tea, elephants, monks, Kublai Khan, dolphins, ferries, and things inexplicably horrible, and beautiful, all along the way. The River's Tale is a lyrical, clear-sighted account of the ancient, roiling soul of the Mekong."
--David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered
“The River’s Tale guides us through a river of strange and untamed scents and
sensibilities, taking us through the battles of peoples who for centuries have tied their lives to the relentlessly flowing lifeblood of the Mekong. Ed Gargan’s sharp and lyrical images have the power to both soothe and sting, to tickle and temper, to enrage and enrapture.”
–Sheryl WuDunn, coauthor, Thunder from the East
“Ed Gargan’s remarkable journey along the Mekong takes us well beyond the clich?s of Asian exoticism and clashing civilizations. This sensitive account reveals the variety of Asian life, as well as a humanity common to us all.
--Ian Buruma, Author of Bad Elements --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Edward A. Gargan worked as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for the New York Times in West Africa, China, India, and Hong Kong, was a magazine writer for the Los Angeles Times, and now covers Asia for Newsday. He was an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and is the author of China’s Fate. He is based in Beijing and has a home on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Keywords: The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong, Books, Edward A. Gargan, Travel, Travel - Foreign, Asia - China
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