History's headwaters (Part 6)

Vithoon Pungprasert

The Nation

 Our quest to find the source of the Mekong began right here in Yunnan's Dali, the ancient city famed for Erhai Lake, China's second-largest highland lake. 

 It was here, 143 years ago, that members of the celebrated French Mekong Expedition ended their two-year journey along the Mekong from Saigon, satisfied they had found the true source of the mighty river. 

 In 1866, as European explorers and colonists delved deeper into the world's remote corners, the French dispatched an expedition of naval officers, geographers and botanists with orders to journey from Saigon as far up the Mekong as they could manage.

 Their primary task was to determine how the Mekong could be used as a trade route and as a vessel to speed French colonisation. Following the take over of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the next country in the colonists' sights was China, which the French wanted to capture by the backdoor. They saw the Mekong as the gateway to the prize, following the example of the British, who had used the Salween to seize Burma.

 This was the idea that drove the first leader of the expedition, Captain Ernest Doudart de Lagree, and his successor Francis Garnier, who led the way into Dali after an arduous two years on the river. 

  We follow precisely Garnier's chosen route to Erhai Lake by way of Xishuangbanna.

  This is where the Frenchmen realised that the Mekong, with its ferocious rapids and perilous gushing flow, would hold up rather than speed up an expansion of French colonialism in the region.

 Before the French, the Mongol warrior Kublai Khan had made it to Dali as he rolled through China, finally stumbling on the Mekong, down which he sent his armies. Eighteen years later in 1271 he became the first emperor of the Yuan dynasty.

 His Mongol hordes also swept through swathes of Southeast Asia, including what is now Thailand and Laos, coming to a halt at Angkor, where the Khan left an ambassador to keep an eye on things.

 We Thais know Dali through its many connections with our history - one theory says the Thai people originated in Nanzhao Kingdom, established here in 738. It's disputed by some historians, who point to evidence that Thais were growing rice in what is now modern-day Thailand long before people arrived from Dali.

 Whatever the truth, Dali is the focus of legends that still echo across cultures. Central to the traditional beliefs of ethnic groups from the Bai in Dali to the Lao, the Thai and the Burmese is the legend that Erhai Lake -- Nong Sae to Thais -- is the source of the Mekong and the birthplace of Phya Tan (the God of Rain) as well as the Naga Serpent King.

 The city of Dali attracts a steady stream of tourists with its age-old charm and fascinating history that goes back to the great kingdoms of Nanzhao and Dali.

But visitors can also expect to be hooked on the breathtaking landscape, which has people talking of the place as an "earthly paradise".

 The real attraction is Lake Erhai -- literally "ear-shaped sea". Feeding the Mekong's headwaters, Erhai sits at the base of the imposing Cangshan Mountain, 1,972 metres above sea level. Stretching 41 kilometres between the village of Jiangwei in the north to Xiaguan on the outskirts of Dali in the south, Erhai's surface covers about 251 square kilometres, making it Yunnan's second-largest lake.

 Also worth exploring is Dali Ancient City, which embraces Erhai Lake in the east and Cangshan Mountain in the west.

 Here, we take in the haunting sight of the Three Pagodas. Legend has it they were built to protect the city from a lake-dwelling dragon.

 Leaving Dali, we had a long path ahead on our quest for the true origin of the Mekong, which lies in the snow-capped peaks of Tibet beyond the land they call Shangri-la.

The TV series "Mekong … the Untamed" is on Channel 9 every Monday at 10.15pm.