Mekong, The River of Nine Dragons

The Mekong is one of the great rivers of the world. Born at 5000 meters altitude in the Tibetan Plateau and after crossing China, Burma, Thailand, enters in Laos and Cambodia to die in the China Sea, South of Vietnam. Laos, Cambodia and southern Vietnam are the site where develops this episode, which aims to show the reality of these three countries and how the Mekong River is central to the life of its people.

Anam mountains, in Laos, welcoming Ekor Tribe. Until then the cameras have moved the program to capture the new year celebration, its leisurely way of life and respect for the environment in their daily work. Following the path of spirituality that the river leaves behind in this place, are the temples pagodas and monasteries where youth are initiated into the monkhood and show the subtle balance between the religious world and the secular world.

In Cambodia you still can guess the splendor of the ancient Khmer empire in the refined ruins of a civilization that was able to create a complex system of canals and levees for intensive rice cultivation. But the country is marked by a recent past of violence. The documentary features testimonies about the concentration camps that killed off a third of the population, and analyzes the problem of a land planted of bombs and mines that produce a staggering 10 amputations a day.

The delta of the nine dragons is the Vietnamese name given to the river where it flows into the South China Sea. Here 5000 channels carry water to the rice fields. In Sang, the largest city in the delta, where the river dies, the Li family, wealthy fish merchants, offers insight into the hectic life of this population sustained by the Mekong River.

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The Mekong River with Sue Perkins