Just out of curiosity, I picked up and read “Escape From Phnom Penh: Americans in the Cambodian War.” It is historical fiction based on the last few months of the Lon Nol regime.
Lon Nol led the military
coup of 1970 against Prince Norodom Sihanouk,
abolished the monarchy, and established
the short-lived Khmer Republic, which succumbed to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, and American diplomatic
and military personnel evacuated by helicopter to aircraft carriers in the South China Sea.

 

It was a pretty shallow book, but a quick read, and In the story, there were places I had visited in 1970 such as Siem Reap (Ankor Wat) and the Hotel Le Royal in
Phnom Penh.

 

 

In March of 1970, I was an eyewitness to the coup that overthrew Sihanouk and installed Lon Nol as head of state. I had been discharged from the Army a few days earlier and was on the way to
visit the World Heritage site, Angkor Wat. I wrote:

 

My first leg out of Saigon took me to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, which was only 20 minutes by air. It could as well be halfway around the world by appearance. I was
at once impressed by the cleanliness and friendliness of the city and amazed at what a different attitude the Cambodians seem to have about taking care of their environment. The Vietnamese hold the Cambodians almost in contempt and consider them to be culturally
inferior – but quite the opposite is true. Phnom Penh is a real pleasure. There are broad boulevards and many parks – and all very quiet with little motor traffic, congestion and smog. Every street is completely lined with trees and flowers, and on every corner
is a sidewalk café in the best European tradition. The people are a mixture of Khmer (true Cambodian), Vietnamese and Chinese – and most speak varying amounts of French. English is not too common except around the hotels – and, for the first time in ages,
my old French is really getting a workout and doing quite well. The only westerners I saw in Phnom Penh were all French – and there were a good many Japanese.

 

I booked a room in the
Hotel Le Royal (now Raffles Hotel Le Royal), which was Phnom Penh’s version of a grand hotel but pretty worn around the edges. I sat the famous Elephant Bar drinking with international characters that could
have been out of a Graham Greene novel and communicating in fractured French. I took a dip in the hotel pool, which looked on the nasty side, but it was refreshing.

 

The next day, I ventured out only to find the streets full of demonstrators and lots of police and soldiers. The coup was in process, and Sihanouk, who was in China at the
time, was on the way out. Wikipedia describes the situation:

In March
1970, when Sihanouk was touring Europe, the
Soviet Union, and
China a mob attack against the North Vietnamese embassy, initially planned by Sihanouk as a demonstration to pressure Moscow and Beijing, commenced but was led out
of control by government agents who managed to organize the complete sacking of it. In it a contingency plan was found for the Communists to occupy Cambodia, which further inflamed the government in Phnom Penh which engaged in combat with the Vietnamese and
demanded their withdrawal. Instead of returning to Cambodia to confront the growing crisis, Sihanouk continued his tour of Communist nations.

On March 16, the Cambodian Secretary of State and police chief, Mannorine, was questioned by the national legislature about corruption occurring under Sihanouk. Worried
that prime minister,
Lon Nol, was preparing to depose Sihanouk, he attempted to depose Lon Nol only to be defeated by the army and arrested. Lon Nol’s deputy, Prince

Sisowath Sirik Matak, then advised Nol to remove Sihanouk from the government.

The next day, the army took up positions around the capital. A debate was held within the National Assembly. The assembly had been purged of leftists in the 1960s
by Sihanouk and was made up at that point almost exclusively of rightists. One member of the assembly walked out of the proceedings in protest and was not harmed after. The rest of the assembly voted unanimously to invoke Article 122 of the Cambodian constitution
which withdrew confidence in Sihanouk. Lon Nol then took on the powers of head of state on an emergency basis, while much of the government of Sihanouk remained the same. This marked the foundation of the Khmer Republic.

I went to see where they had burned down the North Vietnamese Embassy.

It seemed like a good time to get out of Dodge, so I headed north to Siem Reap. I joined several other westerners and rented a station wagon and driver to take us to Siem Reap. I
wrote:

After a couple of relaxing days, I took a taxi (station wagon with 16 people in it) to Siem Reap and I am now staying on the roof of a Chinese hotel. This roof is
known far and wide as “the place’ for budget travelers in Cambodia. You get a cot, one sheet and one thin blanket for $1.00 a night. It’s really quite nice. Most of the patrons are ex-Peace Corps types from all over the world. You can feed yourself for less
than $1.00 a day at the local market on tasty tidbits of dubious quality and cleanliness. The temples near here date from the 10^th to the 12^th Century and are one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. Reclaimed from the jungle
starting over 60 years ago, most have been partially rebuilt in painstaking detail. They are huge beyond belief – and the walls, gateways and artificial lakes spread out through the jungles for miles in every direction. The main roads are laid out so as to
form a series of loops by which you can see each of the major complexes in series. This is the place that is famous for temple rubbings – and I have purchased a number that I am sending home from Thailand in a day or two. I paid less than a dollar apiece for
them. They are probably worth much more in the states.

 

 

Figure 4 – Angkor Wat main entry, March 1970. below, Cambodian currency.

 

Figure 5 – Cambodian currency

 

I had planned to return to Phnom Penh and fly to Bangkok, but because of the coup, the airport was closed.
Heading west to Thailand via land was our only option. Again, with a small group of westerners, we rented a station wagon and a driver and headed west. At some point, the roads became too bad and too narrow for the car, so we engaged
a driver of a motorcycle with a trailer (tuk-tuk) to continue the trip. Finally, as we neared the Thai border, we had to get out and walk across a bridge over a small river where we passed form Poipet, Cambodia, into Aranyaprathet, Thailand at a decrepit border
station. At the small Thai border village, we boarded a steam train with wooden cars pulled by a wood burning locomotive – like something out of a Civil War Movie. Within a few hours we had traveled from the heart of the jungle to downtown Bangkok.

 

Figure 6 –
Entry visa for Thailand (upper left) stamped March 16, 1970, at Aranyaprathet, Thailand, just west of Poipet, Cambodia

 

 

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