Mekong: Heart of Southeast Asia Gap Year Semester
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About
From its sacred headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong River flows 4,800-km towards the South China Sea, cleaving a boundary between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, and coursing into the heart of mainland Southeast Asia. Tracing the hidden contours of mountain valley and village for more than 2500km from the Tibetan plateau to the plains of Cambodia, the Mekong semester program is an odyssey of mind, body and spirit.
At times students will find themselves immersed in a broad examination of language, culture, cuisine, spirituality, history and politics, while at others the immensity of the river journey becomes all-consuming and we are submit to the course mantra: Mind like water. It is seldom the distance traveled, nor the mountains or temples, that students remember after such an odyssey, it is the collection of people and their stories that makes the Mekong a living deity.
We offer comprehensive, personal home visits so that we can answer your questions in person. One of our expert staff members will present on our program options and share stories from their own formative Where There Be Dragons program. To request a home visit in less than 2 minutes, fill out this form.
- Gain insight into Tibetan, Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, as well as the influence of animist traditions, Islam and Christianity in the Greater Mekong Subregion.
- Examine comprehensively issues pertaining to international aid and development, natural resource management, wildlife conservation, minority status and forced relocation issues, effects of modernization on traditional livelihoods, and the impacts
- Challenge yourself on multi-day treks in Kirirom National Park near the Cambodian coast, in the karst limestone and rain forests of of eastern Laos and within the sacred peaks of the eastern Himalaya.
- Live with home-stay families in a Tibetan community in northwest Yunnan, a Catholic village on a tiny island in the Mekong in Laos, and an idyllic Khmer community just south of Phnom Penh.
- Build proficiency in Kham Tibetan, Mandarin, Laos, and Khmer languages, while exploring the linguistic traditions of ethnic minorities and the migration of three major language families.
