Steve Van Beek

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Steve Van Beek is a well-known author, explorer, and documentary filmmaker. Resident in Asia since 1966, Steve has paddled the lengths of the major rivers in Thailand and kayaked as a member of four first-descent expeditions exploring the Lancang (Mekong) River in Qinghai, and Yunnan provinces, together with Tibet. These trips have been documented in numerous books, films, and magazine articles. He is married to Piyawee Ruenjinda who now explores the rivers of Southeast Asia with him.

Born in Portland, Oregon, and educated at the University of Oregon, Steve left the U.S. in 1966 to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village in southern Nepal. After a third year in Kathmandu as the Peace Corps Resource Information Officer, he spent four fascinating months traveling between there and Istanbul, confirming his desire to remain in Asia to explore its remote region. He then traveled to Bangkok which, aside from long stays in New York and San Francisco, has served as his base for exploration and ultimately leading to his election as a Fellow of the Explorers Club.

While he is intrigued by Asian cultures, it is rivers that fascinate him. His intimacy with water comes from living for 11 years in a wooden house set on stilts in Bangkok’s Chao Phya River. It inspired him to spend five months paddling a small boat down all four Chao Phya tributaries, in the process teaching him more about Thailand than anything he’d previously read or experienced. The Chao Phya, River in Transition, published by Oxford University Press, and others grew out of those trips and pushed him farther afield.

He has written, and often photographed, 23 books, and hundreds of publications and articles; some of which are listed here. In addition he has been the writer, director, producer and/or editor of 42 films and videos, 12 AV presentations, 3 CD-ROMs, 2 Internet Web sites.