Qualla: Srepok River

Srepok River: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Đỗ Tuấn Hưng, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two streams come down the western flank of the South Annamite mountains in Vietnam's Dak Lak province, and their local names describe a family. The Krong No is the brother river. The Krong Ana is the sister. Where the two meet, the Srepok begins - 405 kilometres of water that will cross an international border, gather two more rivers, pass through some of the last elephant forest in mainland Southeast Asia, and finish inside a reservoir. In Jarai it is Ea Srepoko. In Vietnamese it is sometimes simply Daak Krong, the big river. Almost everything interesting about it follows from one geographic accident: it flows the wrong way.

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Image: Đỗ Tuấn Hưng | CC BY-SA 3.0

Srepok River: Running the Wrong Way

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Binh Giang, Public domain. Most rivers in this part of the world drain east to the South China Sea. The Srepok goes the other way. From the confluence of the brother and the sister it heads west through the districts of Krong Ana, Buon Don and Ea Sup, covering about 126 kilometres before it reaches the Cam...

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Image: Binh Giang | Public domain

Srepok River: The Highway Before There Were Roads

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Y Kpia Mlo, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the late nineteenth century, when roads through the Central Highlands barely existed, the Srepok was the route. Lao and Khmer traders poled and paddled upstream from the Mekong to do business with the highland peoples, and Ban Don - Buon Don, in Dak Lak - grew into a busy rive...

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Image: Y Kpia Mlo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Srepok River: The Elephant Forest

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Đỗ Tuấn Hưng, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Srepok's Vietnamese reach runs through Yok Don National Park, established in 1986 and covering 1,155 square kilometres of deciduous and semi-evergreen forest west of Buon Ma Thuot. It abuts the Mondulkiri Protected Forest across the Cambodian border, and the two together anch...

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Image: Đỗ Tuấn Hưng | CC BY-SA 3.0

Srepok River: A Valley Called Ia Drang

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. One of the Srepok's tributaries carries a name that means something very specific to a generation of Americans and Vietnamese. The Ia Drang rises south of Pleiku, runs southwest through Chu Prong district and crosses into Ratanakiri before joining the Srepok. In November 1965 the...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Srepok River: The Wall at the Confluence

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The Srepok no longer reaches its meeting with the Tonle San as a free river. The Lower Se San 2 Dam was built directly at that confluence, roughly 25 kilometres upstream of Stung Treng town, and came online in December 2018: five turbines, 400 megawatts, about 1,998 gigawatt-hour...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0