Customer Reviews

The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ed Gargan has taken the kind of trip we all daydream about: a year's adventure through an exotic corner of the world, where time is measured by sunrises and sunsets and success by the width of your smile. His trip is part Indiana Jones and part Mark Twain, but mainly it's that little part of all of us that wishes we had the time, the strength and the grace (and maybe the money) to do something similar. His book is a luxurious read filled with skillfully drawn characters and places that are impossible to forget. Gargan's long experience in Asia gives the book heft and helpful perspectives in understanding an important part of the world. And his writing and wit make it a joy. It's a exciting ride, guided by the best.

At heart we are all world travelers. Even for those of us who have not traveled more than 50 miles from where we were born, our mind attunes to the imagery that abounds in far away places and our hearts recognize that there are wonders in this world of ours that can certainly be read about if not traveled to.

Covering the swath of this exotic and intriguing part of territory in one of the world's lesser-known places, Edward Gargan gives us that spotlight not easy to mount from many other angled and elusive written pieces. A bit of local politics, more of its history, peppered with the faces of people and the kind of food, bamboo worms prepared with, "garlic, fermented beans and chili peppers" or "feng-er - bee larvae" all combine to remove us from our reading positions and hover precariously over this geographical region fearing that at any moment, Gargan may sever the cord that ties us suspended over his river journeys and cause us to tumble downwards to his reality.

For reality it is for Mr. Gargan when he braves the elements to travel from the high plateau of eastern Tibet down to sea level along the Mekong in Vietnam. It is as if the jungle encroaching the river viewed from Mr. Gargan's commissioned boats of various types and sizes as they careen southwards, seem to loom up in front of our eyes every time our eyes lift from the pages of the book.

The exemplary choice of words, I admit, contained a few that made me scrimmage for my bedside Oxford dictionary. The word 'pirogue' could only be located in my 2200 page Random House Unabridged Dictionary. This word, by the time I was half way through the book, had appeared more than a dozen times. Seems there is no other accurate substitute for 'native craft' or 'local boat'. I kept wondering what the boats Mr. Gargan was motored on looked like or how they were different from each other as he traveled down from Yunnan, through Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam though there is one photograph in the book of such a boat.

A unique style of describing scenes evokes the sharpest imagination and makes the world alive. Witness the onset of dusk being portrayed such: "A fat copper sun slunk away into the Burmese jungle, dragging dusk behind it". "Myanmarese jungle" just would not have cut it. Also, our majestic sun personified in yet another beholden way! And to imprint the picture of a town in our minds, Mr. Gargan uses, "....the town.... was draped over the pate of a small hill, was little more than a gnarl of small byways that wrapped around tidy whitewashed cement houses." Uniquely the town is presented to us and instantly, we perch.

Mr. Gargan "marvels at people...in the underdeveloped world.... with a procession of porters bearing luggage...". This might hold true in most areas he visits in the book; it certainly is not true in other regions and of other people in the underdeveloped world. Executives and housewives alike board and alight from trains, buses and airplanes with nary an eye for a porter. Could the people he sees be transporting merchandise to trade across the borders of China and Burma or between Thailand and Laos that burden these porters, as he himself writes about in other parts of the book? Generalization, albeit a tiny spot, hurts and takes away from other intriguing travel specifics described elsewhere in the book.

If any of us have never experienced a full year traveling without the support of the taken-for-granted amenities, we will definitely cherish an evening consuming the contents of a familiar menu; "insalata mixte, spaghetti aglio e olio, pollo cacciatore and chocolate mousse" in Vientiane, Laos and; imbibing an entire bottle of Chianti. With mixed feelings, I can lovingly relate to such a "glorious" repast and also reminisce about whether those of us who have moved west can ever move back "east".

Within this irresistible journey, well-deserved portions of local culture strike at us at every turn of the Mekong. The delicate history and effect of tea in these parts is really, "the stuff of legend, passion and art". The reader comes away with learning more from these writings than he or she had possibly bargained for. Add to tea, garnishes of the U.S.-Vietnam war, drug trade in the Golden Triangle, the atrocities of Pol Pot's regime on the Cambodian people and embellish it by bits of the Opium War, wanton destruction of the Buddhist Wats, thievery of its artifacts and the state of the local economy, you, the reader will carry away a trophy worth adorning on the mantle of your revered memory banks.

Of course, there are texts that abound in each of these subjects should we choose to study more on historic and social events depicted throughout the jaunt of this 300-page marvel, as Mr. Gargan has so dutifully listed for us under 'Sources'.

Should you perchance not get the opportunity to become a part of Mr. Gargan's travel-by-book group, you should, at least, enjoin in the delectable choice of phrases he has used to describe life's moments, such as the olfactory description of gardens with waterfalls that "..scents the air like a passing woman" and the "....angry gatherings of rocky outcroppings" embanked on the edges of the Mekong.

From Tibet to the South China Sea, Edward Gargan follows the Mekong while opining upon the people who call the watershed home. As travelogues go, this book is neither fantastic nor particularly poor. What heights it could have hit are limited by the imposition of his political views, yet Gargan's powers of description save it from becoming an ideological screed. Gargan deftly intertwines his geographical position with complaints about the oppressor most responsible for the local malaise. Some of these complaints are beyond doubt, such as Tibetan treatment at the hands of the Chinese and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, but others seem a bit overwrought. Indeed, one is tempted to remind Mr. Gargan that, had he one positive observation about the U.S., he would not stand convicted of jingoism.

Edward Gargan makes a telling statement near the end of the book where he summarily announces that he'd rather live abroad than in any city in the United States. A reader of travelogues should expect an honest attempt to address the cultural issues, flora, fauna, geography, architecture, etc., of the locality advertised. Gargan's The River's Tale doesn't quite get there for the need to repeatedly identify an entirely different part of the world as worthy of his disdain.

Unquestionably biased, bereft of humor, at times shockingly myopic, (Gargan just can't wrap his mind around why many Vietnamese hold America in high esteem), The River's Tale somehow remains an entertaining read. I picked it up hoping for a riverine excursion through leafy asian jungles. Gargan doesn't deliver this, but something else: political travel. It deserves 4 stars for overcoming my disappointment. But, then, I love travel so much, I was willing to go along for the ride.

I read this book during a recent trip to Southeast asia, Including many of the countries (Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam) that the Author travelled in his 'year on the mekong'. I found it to be an enjoyable read, & applaud the author for seeking out several engaging personalities along his trip. I do not think that Gargan's work is on a par with Norman Lewis' 1950s classic A Dragon Apparent & would have liked a more balanced assessment of the historical & economic situation in some of the southeast asian countries he visited.

Like many people who were involved in the anti-war movement, Gargan seems to glorify his years as an anti-war protester & revels in the fact that he went to prison rather than serve in Vietnam. For those of a younger generation this got somewhat tiring as the book went on. He seemed shocked that modern day Vietnamese, Cambodians & Laotians would look up to the United States and may think that a better life could be had there. I mean, I only spent 3 weeks on the Mekong & did not have to stretch my imagination too far to understand how many locals (living on less than $500/year in countries with much less freedom) could hold that exact viewpoint.

Other than that, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, & Gargan is a gifted storyteller. I guess I just would have liked it more if Robert Kaplan had made the trip . . . . & I read it right after A Dragon Apparent, which made for a tough comparison.

Gargan is a keen and knowledgeable reporter whose English is faultess and, in some respects, challenging (I had to read the book accompanied by a dictionary). So, as reportage, this book is informative. I was especially moved by Gargan's description of the desecration of the Tibetian people, their language and temples by the Chinese and saddened by the realization that it won't be reversed. Yet, what was missing for me was any sense of how the author lived this year, that is, how he felt, the "story behind the story" so to speak. Perhaps Gargan believed that supplying mundane details of his travels and his personal experiences, would trivialize his reporting; in fact, it would have given the book some heart. In the end, I felt that I was reading a series of rather impersonal newspaper articles, albeit very good ones. As an expat living in Bangkok and having traveled to many of the places and areas visited by Gargan, I know there was more to his year than he has included in this book, and I, for one, would have liked to have known about them.

The thing that really grabbed me about The River's Tale was Gargan's seamless weaving of the political/historical context of the region on a general level (and he does indeed know the region well) with his own insightful unpackings of particular interactions along the river. The book has the ability to "put you there" in a way that is too often lacking in traditional political/historical attempts and which I have never found in other writings regarding the region. I'll never be able to spend a year on the Mekong, but Gargan has let me know what I've missed.

I hope he takes the same trip in a decade; I'd bet we would get a very different book in many respects.

Post script: is this the same Ed Gargan who was once the fastest schoolboy in Massachusetts??

The journey of Gargan's year of travelling down the Mekong begins interestingly in Tibet, but gradually becomes less and less so. He describes one poor village after another and they all begin to coalesce. You increaingly find it hard to tell the Laotians, from the Cambodieans, from the others. One dusty bus ride or poorly functioning boat after another becomes tedious.
What is missing is the sense of the traveller, who seemingly remains uninfluenced by the travel. A haunting initial dedication which suggests a lover lost, is unmentioned in the story. In fact, as far as one can tell, Gargen never met an attractive woman, had no feelings, in fact did not suffer from homesickness or nostalgia, or any feelings whatsoever save for the mundane discomforts of the trip.
It is all reporting, but there is no reporter.

In Laos, where I first saw the Mekong, it serves as a barrier separating the capital, Vientiane, from the bustle of Thailand. In Luang Prabang, it is an apparently sleepy and sluggish wide stretch of water, with banks of sticky red mud. By the time it finally spills into the sea in Vietnam, however, the Mekong has traversed no fewer than seven Asian countries (six, if you count Tibet as part of China) and thousands of miles, traversing some of the countries that have seen the greatest trauma and upheaval in the second half of the 20th century.

Gargan has followed this still relatively little-known river from its origins in the highlands of China right down to the Mekong Delta, showing us the myriad peoples affected by the violent conflicts that have shaken Indochina and Southeast Asia. Shadows of "Pol Pot" time linger over Cambodia, Chinese invaders are in the process of trying to eradicate a Tibetan identity, and AIDS and sex tourism rear their ugly heads along with opium trafficking. Following the Mekong for a year by boat as an observer is an excellent way to capture life in the region today -- particularly as that region has played such a critical role in forging not only Gargan's political consciousness but our own collective identity. (For many years, the word Mekong meant only the Delta region in Vietnam, a killing field where thousands of Americans and far more Vietnamese died during a long and painful conflict.)

Gargan's writing is several notches above the typical "journalist as reporter writing book about where he/she has been working" oeuvre. That said, the book's ambitions don't stretch much beyond that. We learn little about the historic role of the river, the significance of Buddhism in the the different nations through which it flows (from Tibet through Laos and Thailand to Cambodia), or feel that the people he encounters are three dimensional. He writes as well as Paul Theroux, for instance, but like Theroux, the people he encounters on his travels are walk-ons, there to play a role.

But it's a valuable addition to the all-too-few books about Indochina that are readily accessible (both practically and in literary terms) that aren't specifically about the war. For a slimmer volume, even better in its own way although narrower in scope, I recommend Jon Swain's River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam. (Swain was the photographer immortalized in the film The Killing Fields.

I really enjoyed this book, and not just because I'm a fan of travel in Indochina. For anyone who's traveled in southeast Asia, this book will have moments for you. Gargan starts in western China and Tibet and spends time in villages there, and then slowly (over the course of a year) makes his way through Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam to the mouth of the Mekong in the South China Sea. Each chapter is devoted to a region, or a series of towns in a region, as he travels the river - or as close to the river as he can manage. There are simply no passable roads along some sections of the Mekong, as we learn, so Gargan travels by truck or motorcycle or whatever other means of transport are available. He meets locals and relays their stories, including some history about specific areas, and with his adept writing skills manages to convey the sense of what it's like to live on a great river. The thing that makes this book so enjoyable is that the writer is really expert at his craft, so the whole book is beautifully put together and it flows really well from beginning to end.

A Really interesting and observant 3,000 mile trip down the Mekong, primarily by boat. From the river's mouth to its end in the Mekong Delta: Tibet, China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Ed Gargan could have played a medical trump card to avoid the draft during Vietnam war, but instead he stood up for his beliefs and refused to register, thus serving time in federal prison. This was an influential experience, and he did refer to it at times, and American war situation in Indo-china, understandably.

Noting the past history and recent events of these places, and then talking with people to get their perception and viewpoints on where things are headed. Very balanced peppering of relevant historical occurrences, recent political situations, and down-to-earth local conversations about life in these places. Indigenous life and the cultural aspects of it in the areas he visited were noted.

The Chinese ethnic Hans are continuing their colonization of Tibet, imprisoning people, destroying temples, and other aspects of Tibetan culture. The secretive government of Laos is still in the moribund foggy myst of Marxist-Leninism, those "foreign white guys." He briefly tapped into the bohemian traveler opium-den culture of Laos on his way through, though as an observer and not a participant. He also interviewed one of the few survivors of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge torture and killing prison, finally ending his journey with a young Vietnamese woman's observant description of contemporary Vietnam and where its people and nation are headed in the future.
Very descriptive and observant piece of work.

There are some interesting facts that are noted by Gargan.
Francis Garnier, the French colonist who traveled the Mekong for two years in 1866. He apparantly didn't learn much, and he got what he deserved in the end. Another tid-bit, is that the character Colonel Kurtz in the movie "Apocalypse Now," is based on an actual person. Also there are more pickup trucks per capita in Thailand than on any other nation on Earth.

This is a great book for people who like travel books, and for those who have an interest in, or who are going to South East Asia.
Another great book I'd recommend that is also about boat travel: "Three years in a 12-foot boat," by Steven Ladd.