Cambodia and Vietnam to build cross-border golf course

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia and Vietnam are going to build a $100 million (49.2 million pounds) golf course straddling their border in a region heavily bombed by U.S. forces in their anti-communist war in the 1960s and 70s, officials said on Wednesday.

The "Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Golf Resort" to be developed jointly by Cambodia's Bada Investment Co. and a Malaysian firm called VXL will take five years to build and will have nine holes in each country, as well as a 450-room five-star hotel.

A helicopter service will be able to carry visitors from Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temples to the resort, tourism minister Thong Khon said.

"After visiting Angkor, they can play golf before heading to swim at the beaches," he told Reuters.

Cambodia leased five islands in the Gulf of Thailand for $627 million to six local companies and foreign investors to build tourist resorts. It now has two golf courses near Phnom Penh and two near Angkor.

The southeast Asian nation is fast putting the legacy of Pol Pot's Killing Fields behind it, with economic growth in last two years at around 10 percent and foreign visitors climbing rapidly to the 2 million-a-year mark.