Koh Tang these days is principally forgotten because the final battleground of the Vietnam War. Placed within the Gulf of Thailand it is 35 miles from the port of Sihanoukville Cambodia. There aren’t any memorials here, while I heard the distinctive sound of a AK47 ripping through a clip poking holes in the sky fired in anger over a poker gamer, sometimes these days you’ll still hear explosions, but they’re related a lot of to poverty than to war, as desperate men risk their lives in an exceedingly continuing battle to make money from a slowly decaying fishing ground that’s systematically being depleted by the Vietnamese and Thailand fishing fleets, illegally fishing in Cambodian water for squid and shrimp typically. Thankfully the dynamite blasts are down to a escape as the Cambodians are discouraging this at the upper levels and it is starting to be very enforced.
Underwater there aren’t any visible artifacts or evidence that the battle ground was here. The USA MIA groups are though wanting for a helicopter lost and never recovered throughout the Mayaguez incident, however several here speculate that it was found a while ago, and love the opposite submerged wrecks during this half of South East Asia was salvaged for the metals that they are composed of. The iconic helicopter of the Vietnam War nicknamed “Heuys” I have been told are principally aluminum, magnesium and titanium which would bring a stunning reward to the salvager.
Koh Tang today is one in all the best scuba diving areas in cambodia tours with several Sihanoukville dive corporations running overnight journeys out to the current massive uninhabited island group. Massive fish go for cobias and sail fish in addition to massive colleges of jacks, snappers and fusiliers swim over the reef in large numbers as damaged reef section are repaired by mother nature, with fresh coral colonies of “apcora” (a commonly known variety being stag horn coral) mounting at a rapid pace, and the fish stocks displaced start to recover. The diving is good, no crowds and many giant shallow sections, further as the deep reefs escaped injury, so there’s extensive dive opportunities interspersed with the damaged coral beds. The most well-known dive web site in Cambodia would be Virgin Reef that has never been utterly dived because of its giant dimensions, is blessed with healthy fish stocks and a few wonderful coral gardens stretching for lots of meters out from the island.
Fred Title has lived and worked in holiday vacation resorts his entire life, from Lake Geneva’s Playboy Club, as a rock jock for KSPN FM in Aspen Colorado, he became a PADI Professional Scuba Diver in Hawaii, diving on Maui, Kauai, Kona on the massive island, and Waikiki on Oahu. He currently owns EcoSea Dive in Sihanoukville cambodia tours where he teaches SSI and PADI scuba diving courses and runs liveaboards within the gulf of Thailand and Asia adventure tours.