BORDER BATTLES, CASINOS & MISSING JOURNALISTS

The 'Parrot's Beak' is on the Cambodia - Vietnam border

I'm standing in the extreme southeast of Cambodia, in Bavet Village, right by the border with Vietnam. This part of the country was known to US soldiers during the war as the ‘Parrot’s Beak’, an apt name for the shape of the border which reaches deepest into Vietnam. The tip of the parrot’s beak is only 35 miles from Saigon, which made this border a major smuggling route for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. A lot of blood was spilled fighting over this strategic zone, where communist weapons and troops flowed eastward to fight the Americans.

When the US war ended in Vietnam, that wasn't the end of fighting at this border. Soon the Khmer Rouge began raiding nearby Vietnamese villages and massacring civilians there, as they aimed to take back their former lands on the Vietnam side. That turf is what Cambodians call ‘Khmer Krom’, meaning Lower Cambodia. Their former lands used to reach across this border all the way to the South China Sea, and included the Mekong Delta. It's still shown on many Khmer maps as part of Cambodia today. 

Two of Pol Pot’s powerful inner circle were born in the Delta in Khmer villages, on Vietnamese territory. Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister, and Son Sen, the Khmer Rouge military chief grew up there. Like Khmers living in the Mekong Delta today, they endured discrimination by the Vietnamese. This helped form their dislike for them, even though they were fellow communists. It was these territorial claims that led to war here after the US left, war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese communists.

It was only a few years after the US left, when the Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia on Christmas day in 1978, on this road where I'm standing. The former communist allies were 'comrades' no longer. This time the invading Vietnamese Army would overthrow the Khmer Rouge.

A 'Winn Casino' limousine by the border. Casinos have taken over the former battleground of Bavet.

As I leave the immigration post and walk into Cambodia, Vietnamese are still invading this border town today. Only now, they aren’t soldiers. They’re gamblers! 

Just steps away from the border itself, I find the Le Macau Casino, VIP Casino Hotel, King’s Crown Casino, Winn Casino Resort, Las Vegas Sun Casino, New World Casino, and finally the Sun City Casino. This former hick border town and war zone, has turned into a gambling haven!

“Vietnam people come here,” a Khmer tells me. Gambling is illegal for the people of Vietnam; a people culturally known for gambling. Enter the current Cambodian government, who built all these casinos only in recent years. More are under construction.

I walk into a couple casinos, finding them small and unrefined. Make no mistake, this is no Las Vegas. There are no elaborate stage shows or magic acts here. They may have pirated some Vegas names for these casinos, but the gambling is real enough. Well, at least these places are air conditioned.

I had already seen the ruin of an old French colonial casino, but these are totally different. The casinos here are obviously for the benefit (or to the detriment of) the Vietnamese. With most of the gamblers coming from across the border, staff here speak more Vietnamese than English.  Since casinos in Saigon are open only to foreigners, (and since Saigon is so close) Bavet is where rich Vietnamese go to gamble on weekends. One casino is literally right next door to the border crossing. Just take the first left after immigration. 

Besides these copycat casinos, there’s not much more to see in this small border town. Poverty is still evident, as run down shacks are situated right next to some casinos. There are a few passable guesthouses in town for those with a gambling itch that want to spend the night.

Poster for movie, starring Sean Flynn

As for food in town, most restaurants here cater to the many buses stopping for lunch. They roll into Bavet from Vietnam on Highway 1, before continuing on to Phnom Penh. On this very highway an unsolved American mystery began. It was here in April of 1970 where journalist and former actor Sean Flynn disappeared. The son of movie star Errol Flynn, Sean had turned his back on Hollywood, and proved himself to be a daring war correspondent. He had years of experience reporting on the Vietnam War, but in Cambodia, the conflict was different. In Vietnam, most foreign journalists captured by the communists were eventually released. But in Cambodia, most foreign journalists captured by the communists ended up dead.

Flynn had been traveling together with Dana Stone, a freelancer for Time Magazine and CBS. Missing here in Svay Rieng Province, they were captured outside the village of Chi Phan, just up the road from where I stand now. The two had crossed the border here in Bavet and headed up Highway 1 on motorcycles, only to be captured by the North Vietnamese Army’s 9th Division.

Years later, it was discovered that the two MIA journalists were moved north to Kampong Cham Province, and turned over to the Khmer Rouge. There the trail disappears. It’s believed that they were executed the next year. In recent years, a dig found bones and teeth that searchers thought may have been Flynn's, but DNA tests showed they were from a Cambodian. His remains have never been recovered. 

Flynn and Stone were only two of the 37 journalists who died during the war in Cambodia, while 33 other journalists died across the border covering the Vietnam War. 

Strangely, Sean Flynn became the single most famous person that was Missing In Action during the long war in Southeast Asia, and he wasn’t even a soldier. 

Memorial in Phnom Penh park for journalists killed in '70-'75 war

Flynn and Stone are among 37 journalists listed as killed in the war

THE SOLDIER THAT SURVIVED GENOCIDE

Sunrise over Bokor Mountain, a former battleground in Cambodia

Morning has come early, and I'm up before sunrise with the rest of my trekking group. Our Cambodian guide Tri has arranged a truck from the nearby Buddhist monastery to give us a lift, saving us a day long hike down the mountain we climbed yesterday. 

We ready our backpacks in the cool darkness, until the sun peeks over the eastern hills. Clouds hang low just above the range, leaving a long line of orange sunlight across the horizon, giving the appearance of a far off forest fire.

Soon the truck pulls up, and we climb on the back. The truck kicks into gear, and we are off down the dirt road. The sun gradually brightens the landscape as we descend the mountain switchbacks.

As we make our descent, I chat with our guide Tri. I learn that he has a fascinating story of survival!

Like most Khmers, Tri is small in stature, but lean and toned. His hair is black, though his slight beard stubble has touches of grey. With wrinkles round the eyes, his skin is tanned, from so much time backpacking up the mountain with foreigners like me. 

My war veteran guide Tri, a true survivor

He has a youthful air about him; and I tell him he seems younger than his 51 years. But he doesn’t agree.

“All the girls tell me, you old!“ He says. “You old man!” We both laugh.

Tri's youth had been promising. He attended university in Phnom Penh, studying French and Khmer language. As a youth he was one of the fastest runners in his class. No wonder he was able to walk so fast up the mountain with us. As a trekking guide he leads foreigners like me up and down the mountain, again and again. He’s a strong little man. His running ability also happened to save his life during the war.

“I had hard life,” Tri tells me. Like everyone else in Cambodia, the war brought tragedy to his family. Tri's father was a captain in Lon Nol’s army, so after the war ended his family was eventually targeted by the Khmer Rouge. His parents, his sister and Tri were arrested by 10 Khmer Rouge soldiers in Sihanoukville. Their hands were tied, and they were blindfolded. They were then led away to be executed.

After they were marched into countryside, he heard a gunshot. He pushed up his blindfold, to see that they had just killed his mother. Shocked, he also saw that there were no longer 10 soldiers surrounding them. “I look,” Tri told me, “I see only two young soldier.”

His odds had improved. Tri bolted, and ran for his life into the forest, where he hid in the thick brush. He returned later, to find the rest of his family dead.

With nowhere to go, Tri hid in the forest, living off the land. He occasionally was sick, from eating inedible leaves and fruit. But he still managed to survive, living the hermit's life for over a year.

Tri cleared hundreds of landmines from this ghost town atop Bokor Mountain

Then the Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia, and he finally emerged from the forest. He joined their allied Cambodian army to fight the Khmer Rouge communists. “I was angry,” he says. That’s understandable, given what they did to his family.

For years, Tri fought the Khmer Rouge. Through a combination of rough English and pantomime, he showed me how they used to target the Chinese made tanks used by the radicals. As a tank approached their position, he would have one of his soldiers run across in front of the tank. When the tank turned to follow him, Tri fired a rocket propelled grenade launcher, hitting the tank in it’s more vulnerable side. He talked of dropping bombs into tanks, and making homemade grenades, and booby traps out of Coca-Cola cans.

Tri was injured a couple times, including from a small landmine. He tells me that when it happened, he dived to the side when it exploded. Somehow he didn't lose his foot. He showed me some scars on his lower leg, and he tells me, “My leg, it’s ok!”

As he was a good soldier with some education, Tri became an officer, and went to Hanoi to train for one year. After returning, he rose to the Cambodian Army’s equivalent rank of captain, commanding 200 soldiers.

Tri stayed in the Army for 12 years, but he grew tired of war. He tells me that he left the army, because he came to believe that the Vietnamese just wanted the Cambodians to kill other Cambodians.

He soon found a more productive job for his skills. He became a deminer for United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). He even cleared  landmines and unexploded ordinance from the ghost town atop Bokor Mountain, which we were leaving now. He had worked the old French hill station for months, with a demining crew of 50 men.

I asked Tri, “How many mines did you clear up here?”

He thought it over. “Many. 400, maybe 500,” he said. That's a lot of dangerous explosives to handle.

Eventually the funding for demining ran out, and his UNTAC demining crew was disbanded. Since then Tri has lived mostly in Kampot, where our truck is heading now.

Tri the survivor has done pretty well for himself, under the circumstances. He now has a family with five children. Two of his kids are now working adults, so his burden is not so heavy these days. Tri is very much in demand as a guide, especially to climb Bokor Mountain. After we arrive back in town, Tri will spend the evening with his family. Then tomorrow morning, he'll be rested and ready to climb the mountain once again. He's so fit, he could almost run to the top if he wanted. 

Less than two hours later I’m back in Kampot. I bid goodbye to my amazing guide Tri. By afternoon, I’m back on the road out of town.