Neak Luong, Prey Veng Travel Package Tours, Cambodia Tour Information Hotel Guide

NEAK LUONG OVERVIEW

Neak Luong is the point at which traveler's speeding between Phnom Penh and the Vietnames border have to slow to a stop across the mighty Mekong River. The car ferry chugs back and forth giving children ample to try to sell you strange looking insects and other unidentifiable food on sticks. The first bridge to span the Mekong's girth in Cambodia was recently opened at Kompong Cham. The second is likely to be built here at Neak Luong some time in the second half of the decade. Neak Luong rates a mention as one of the locations depicted in the Killing Fields . In August 1973, American B-52s mistakenly razed it to the ground in an attempt to halt Khmer Rouge advance on Phnom Penh. The intensive bombardment killed 137 civilians and wounded 268. The US government tried to cover it up by keeping the media out, but Sydney Schanberg, played by Sam Waterstone in the film, managed to travel the city by river and publicise the true scale of the tragedy. The US ambassador offered compensation of US$100 per family and the navigator of the B-52 was fined US$700, which pretty much summed the American attitude to the price of Cambodian lives in this most miserable of sideshows. The most straight foward way to get here is to take an air-con bus from Psar Thmei in Phnom Penh and pay the foot passenger toll to cross the Mekong on the ferry. From Neak Luong, it is possible to continue east to Svay Rieng (64km), north to Prey Veng (30km) or south to Kaam Samnor and the Mekong Delta.