60965    This includes, for example, a trip to a traditional Lao "alcohol-making village" on the banks of the Mekong River.

60966    Hundreds of urns line the river bank and the smell of shochu is everywhere.

60967    Fermented glutinous rice is put into metal drums and heated over a fire.

60968    The resulting vapor is condensed with cold water from the Mekong and distilled liquor is produced.

60969    About 30 kilometers south of the old capital in the mountains is a small and very poor ethnic Mon village of about 300 people or 50 households, where the men quietly leave to work elsewhere.

60970    Many children suffer from malnutrition and related eye diseases.

60971    The Tourism Authority has plans to improve the roads and include the town in its tourism agenda, but the people are destitute.

60972    At the request of the Laotian government, an environmental seminar was held by Professor Chaianan of Chulalongkorn University of Thailand, who suggested that the national highway emanating from Vientiane to be completed in several years not directly connect the town and instead suggested "a transportation system for tourists to enter the town by boat".

60973    Efforts are being made to increase awareness so that "Thailand's traffic pollution is not repeated elsewhere".

60974    The Mekong Committee, formed in 1957, was the first to devise plans for development of the Mekong River basin in the four downstream countries Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

60975    With the support of the United Nations, European countries, the U.S. and Japan, developments such as dam construction on tributaries, basic data collection and general development planning have been accomplished.

60976    The fall of Saigon in 1975, however, put a moratorium on development.

60977    With the advent of peace in Cambodia in 1992, the Committee began to formulate their articles of association, but activities stalled due to opposition from Vietnam and Thailand.

60978    At the end of 1994, the process sputtered to life again when the United Nations succeeding in mediating with a development plan establishing a separate Mekong Committee.

60979    On the other hand, the Asian Development Bank held a series of seminars with a total of six countries-including upstream China and Myanmar-to promote road, port, communication and electric development in the greater Mekong region using existing roads as a foundation, and in September 1994 the six countries decided to actively promote six high priority projects, including a road traversing the Vietnamese coastline, one from northeastern Thailand that crosses the Mekong River in southern Laos, and one connecting Bangkok, Phnom Phenh, Ho Chi Minh City and Buntao.