Word: mekong
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Businessmen are more demanding and can only travel a few days a week. Where's the money to be made in that?" On average, his flights are 75% full, and 93% of those passengers are international tourists. Tourists for whom Prasarttong-Osoth has great plans. As part of his Mekong region tourism development scheme, Prasarttong-Osoth has started building a five-star eco-resort on the spacious grounds of the six-year-old Sukhothai Airport, which is only a 15-minute drive from the 9th century temple ruins of the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site of the same name...
...version of the first mission has already been told. In 2001 the New York Times Magazine published an article by Gregory Vistica, alleging that a platoon led by Kerrey slaughtered unarmed women and children during a night raid in the Mekong Delta. Kerrey had not spoken publicly about the assault before the Times story and challenged some of the interpretations that were put upon his conduct. Those seeking the definitive account of the attack will not find it here. Kerrey says, quite plainly, "I remember very little of what happened in a clear and reliable way." What he does remember...
...untamed land where Thailand, Laos and Burma collide, full of wizened tribesmen reclining with opium pipes in the shadow of hills painted purple with poppies. It's a place you might still find should you have the time, funds and gumption to cross the muddy sweep of the Mekong into Burma or Laos. But if, like most tourists, you opt to view this famous confluence of three nations from Thailand's northernmost province of Chiang Rai, you might wish to check some of your preconceptions at the door. The unfettered, grasping, quick-buck kind of development that has turned...
Granted, there remains an undeniable thrill in gazing out over the looping red ribbons of the Mekong and its tributary, the Ruak, and being able to see not one but two other countries, where vast stands of golden teak shimmer and hint at mysteries within. But it's a thrill tempered by the riot of ugliness erupting all around, and the creeping fear that another decade or so is all that separates this once lovely spot from becoming Pattaya-on-the-Mekong. "This was still mostly farmland 10 years ago," says Junfong Suphan, 48, a farmer who now sells counterfeit...
...slow boat was half the fare for the souped-up floating dragsters that rend the Mekong's serenity with their high-pitched whine?and probably 50 times safer. That it took two days to chug the 300 km downstream instead of six hours seemed a reasonable trade-off, particularly after watching boatloads of spray-drenched adventurers go roaring past, teeth clenched and legs braced against every bone-rattling bounce...