Swimming and Meditating on the Mighty Mekong

It was billed as a challenge for 'sturdy swimmers and romantic adventurers, a celebration of life and the river'. And while at first glance that smacked of advertising hype, the notion of battling my way across the mighty Mekong unquestionably did have the true ring of exotic daring-do.

I thought of Francis Gamier, the dauntless 19th-century Mekong explorer - and of the crocodiles he encountered. And the Pathet Lao bullets he dodged while swimming the river out of Communist Laos with his wife-to-be. And about that latest of Mekong menaces mounting pollution.

I also traced the river's course in my mind's eye: its source, only recently discovered, among the bleak treeless heights Tibet, then the grand 4,200-kilometre sweep past tribal villages and bygone royal seats, pristine jungle and carefully husbanded fields that have yielded bounty for millions over the centuries.

This annual event isn't exactly on the international sports calendar. Its organizers are a small group of enthusiastic Phnom Penh expatriates; the sponsors are hardly your big multi-national corporations; and the winners reap neither fame nor fortune. But, speaking for myself, I've never felt the same thrill - mixed with some anxiety - when diving into a 50-metre pool for a race. You can't have the same intimate relations with a concrete basin of chlorinated water that I've enjoyed with the Mekong.

Walking down to the river's edge, some 10 kilometers north of Phnom Penh, with my fellow competitors, I remembered dawn in Luang Prabang: the river half-slumbering in mist, its banks astir with wizened market women and saffron-robed monks, the sun's first rays igniting the spires of ancient temples. The 650-year-old royal capital of Laos - before the backpacker brigades invaded in recent years - was my Never-Never Land, one that can now only exist in memories or dreams. In those days, back in the mid-1970s, I also nearly met My Maker, not far from where we were nervously lining up for the swim.

The river was a dangerous artery during the Indochina War, Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, was besieged by Khmer Rouge guerrillas, and the Mekong became a vital lifeline to the sea. As a reporter, I was covering the last, desperate battles along its bloody banks before the Khmer Rouge triumphed and began their reign of terror.

Over in Laos, the 1975 Communist victory sparked the panicked flight of some 300,000 refugees - one out of every 10 citizens - across the river frontier into Thailand. One lovely young woman, Keo Sin, couldn't make it until three years later. That's when my mate Everingham, an Australian photojournalist, did his swim, donning scuba gear to rescue his sweetheart under the noses of border guards. Hollywood even made a movie about it.

Gradually, thankfully, gunfire along the river subsided. But peace unleashed a greedy, destructive development which war had till then kept at bay. The Mekong was hailed as Asia's last frontier and Southeast Asia's greatest untapped resource.

"Watch out for the crocs," one of my competitors shouted before we plunged into the deceptively calm water wimpled by a gentle breeze. These beasts proved a menace to earlier explorers like Frenchman Gamier, who in 1866 discovered that rapids near the Lao-Cambodian border made the Mekong un-navigable, thus keeping it safe from exploitation longer than most of the earth's waterways.

Now, not only have the crocodiles all but vanished, but many of the other 1,000-odd aquatic species are dwindling. Almost extinct is a great symbol of the river, the giant Mekong river catfish, a gentle creature weighing up to 300 kilogram's and, according to legend, a transformation of royal personages from days long past.

Rather than snapping jaws, I thought "pollution", as I took my first gulp of water. The fact that several doctors were taking part was reassuring, as was the location - upriver from Phnom Penh, which, like most riverside settlements, dumps its waste straight into the Mekong. Lurking bacteria, however, were soon forgotten amid the drag of current, fickle shifts in flow, and the sheer joy of challenging one of the world's last great untamed rivers.

The Mekong has so far escaped inclusion among the obituaries of once-wondrous, pulsating rivers - among them the Colorado, Volga, Yellow, Indus and numerous others - that have been muzzled, silenced, broken by dams and diversions. But the taming has begun. China, which has shown disregard for the Mekong's well-being, threw the first dam across its mainstream in 1994, followed it up with several others, it has blueprinted even more.

But the Chinese are not the sole demons. The five other riparian nations - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam - are variously contributing to the Mekong's decline, through the rape of adjacent forests, pesticide run-off, human waste, over-harvesting of fish and damming of tributaries.

"Only a supreme optimist," writes historian Milton Osborne, in his book The Mekong, could feel confident that the problems of the present will he readily overcome or think of the Mekong's future without a heavy measure of foreboding.

By mid-stream my focus was frankly not on Chinese river robbers, but on my middle-aged muscles as they were worn down by the current. Fuelling a final spurt of energy was the blurred image of many competitors, including a clique of young French male show-offs in tiny black swim- trunks, being swept downriver and out of the race. Not enough respect for Mother Mekong, perhaps?

Maybe by the time you're 70 you can manage to win the race, my father wrote a few days later, not especially impressed with my 11th-place finish. I've got awhile left before that birthday, but I'm planning to be on the Mekong again for the 11th annual swim. I'll have to put in more training, mind you, since the competition is going to be tougher.

The 2005 event saw a team of aid workers - the UNICEF Rocks take the team trophy, and the race attracted 181 competitors, the biggest number ever. Plans were being made for similar Mekong swims in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.