Thailand Mulls Path Linking Indian and Pacific Oceans

For decades, Thailand had an ambitious plan of dredging a canal through the country’s narrowest point to link the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, bypassing the Strait of Malacca — one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes — and potentially cutting travel time by five days.

The plan never came to fruition, partly because the cost involved in such a project and the environmental destruction it would ensue. But as the narrow sea lane between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore gets more congested, the Thai government is revisiting a plan for a bypass linking the Asia-Pacific region with India and the Middle East.