Welcome to Svay Rieng

Svay Rieng was heavily bombed during the Vietnam war. This small province in southeastern Cambodia sits on a piece of land commonly known as the parrot’s beak. It is mostly surrendered by Vietnam and bordered by Prey Veng in the West.

Svay Rieng was thought to harbor a large number of Vietcong and suffered a ground assault from combined US and Cambodian troops. It also suffered heavily under the Khmer Rouge when it was deemed that the Cambodians living in the more densely populated provinces in the southeast had to be relocated to the northwest to boost rice production.

Khmer Rouge Purge

With so much of its area bordered by Vietnam, the powerful and more moderate Khmer Rouge leaders here in what was called the Eastern Zone were deemed ideologically more aligned with the Vietnamese. The Khmer factional purge led to execution of hundreds of leaders, forcing several of the commanders, including the current prime minister Hun Sen, into Vietnam to form the nucleus of the government that would be later installed under Vietnamese rule in 1979.There are many several mass graves in Svay Rieng and documents show that up to 94,000 people were executed in a single site.

Nowadays, Svay Rieng remains one of the poorest provinces in the country. Most of its residents survive on subsistence farming as the land has poor soil and its rice crops are negatively affected by the extreme flooding during the wet season, followed by a drought. Being so impoverished, many of its people have moved to Phnom Penh to eke out a living from collecting garbage and now live in one of the largest slums in Phnom Penh called Toul Chey.

Sleepy Town

Its provincial capital, Svay Rieng, is a sleepy little town where cows are as common as motorbikes on the road. However, the highway which connects Phnom Penh and Ho Chih Minh City in Vietnam happens to run through it and it benefits from the commercial traffic. The Tonle Wayko, a tributary of the Mekong, runs through the town. Basically, Svay Rieng is off the tourist maps and is best for backpackers and those who want a slice of rural life in Cambodia.

Bavet is a key border town and the only land crossing from Vietnam which issues the e-visa on arrival. It is undergoing rapid change as investors flock in to build multi-million dollar casinos. These are patronized mainly by the Vietnamese who cross over daily as they are not allowed to gamble in their own country. Many of the residents of Bavet are of Vietnamese origin as can be told by their peaked Vietnamese hats.

There are a couple of little known temple ruins here at Prasat Chea Hao and Prasat Bassac but few other attractions exist in this sleepy town of Svay Rieng.