River Road to China: The Search for the Source of the Mekong, 1866-73 (Search for the Sources of the Mekong, 1866-73) is the book to read, regarding Western exploration of the Mekong, in-depth. This effort by Osborne is a good primer for those interested in the Mekong River and the lands it flows through. ( )

Throughout the book “The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future”, Milton Osborne details the experiences of the early Mekong explorations of the French expedition team back in the colonial era. Major French exploration which started in 1866 from Saigon in Vietnam upstream to Yunnan in China lasted about two years, and enabled the surveyors to map out quite detailed information, though some were still very much inaccurate, geographical characteristic of the river as a groundwork for their future utilization and control.

Mekong River>History/Indochina>History