On Top of Hamburger Hill

I've finally found it.

Hamburger Hill.

It was something that I had heard about when I was a young kid. It seemed too crazy to really exist. But it does. It's in Cambodia, and I have a feeling there are many such places.

I had been offered a ride to the shooting range in Phnom Penh by many moto-taxi drivers. Even by the guy who drove me to The Killing Fields. As if, after looking at piles of skulls and pits where babies' bodies and bodies without heads had been found, I would want to go straight over to shoot a machine gun at stuff. A surprising (well, maybe not so surprising) amount of people actually do go to Cambodia to shoot guns.

I overheard a tourist talking with a local guy who had just taken him to the shooting range. He had shot a pistol and a Tommy Gun. I asked the Cambodian if he had ever heard of "Hamburger Hill" and described it as a place where you can pay to shoot live cows with a grenade launcher.

He said "Yes, you can do that here. For $250* you can shoot a cow. You can shoot all types of animals, pigs too. We take you up to the mountains and you shoot the animal with the gun that you choose. You buy the animal and bring it up there." Then he said something about gasoline and a bazooka that I didn't quite understand, but he made an explosion noise with his mouth "PCHOOOWW."

He got a lost look in his eyes as he stared off into the distance remembering a woman who had bought "a whole bunch of pigs..." then he made a bunch of shooting noises.


*Price negotiable, I guarantee it.