It is the monsoon season for the mighty Mekong, as southeast Asia’s famous river artery is proudly known. Its powerful waters should be coursing through landscapes of emerald-hued rice paddies. But the river recently sank to its lowest recorded levels for a century along stretches in Thailand, dropping nearly 30ft to expose rocks, beach fishermen’s boats and cause a dramatic narrowing of the water border with Laos. In the river basin, cows grazed on brown fields where forests of rice seedlings would normally be pushing through the waters.
In Thailand alone about 4m acres of paddy fields have been hit by drought, with another 2m acres badly affected in Laos. The situation was so dire that Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Thai prime minister, asked farmers
