Cambodian gem miner Lang Tith, 36, scrapes silt into a makeshift sieve in Pailin, Cambodia. Lang Tith said he hoped to find a gem large enough to fetch 25 or 50 USD with the local merchants, but so far he has come up only with fragments of dull stone worth not even one dollar.(AFP/File/Seth Meixner)AFP
Up to his waist in water, Lang Tith scrapes silt into a makeshift sieve, hoping that after hours of work he might be able to find a few shards of ruby or sapphire to sell for money to buy rice.
This city at the edge of Cambodia's former frontier and the sharp hills surrounding it once seemingly spilled over with gems, traded by the Khmer Rouge whose thirst for gun money turned Pailin into a boomtown for anyone willing to turn the earth.
Years after the communist rebels and Thai mining companies stripped Pailin clean of its once-famous precious stones, a few still toil at the bottom of muddy holes with dreams of striking it rich.
"I have been digging in this hole for two days and I haven't found anything yet," Lang Tith says, peering up into a hot afternoon sun from his narrow tunnel carved out of the side of a vast, flooded crater left by Thai excavators.
He hopes to find a gem large enough to fetch 25 or 50 US dollars with the local merchants. But so far he has come up only with fragments of dull stone worth not even one dollar.
Pailin, a rambling town of squat, dusty buildings, close to the Thai border has lost it garrison feel, with a few newly constructed homes of brick and shiny tile giving it an almost quaint, prosperous appearance.
But the ragged, thatched shacks lining the few roads in and out of Pailin are a reminder of the poverty that has become increasingly acute in recent years. Small red signs dotting the edges of forests and fields warn of landmines and underscore Pailin's troubled past.
Lang Tith, 36, came to this former Khmer Rouge stronghold on the Thai border in 1997 while the country was still convulsed by civil war and few dared to enter the rebel-held areas.
"At that time there were a lot of gems," he says.
He became a gem merchant himself and married a local woman, but had no experience in the gem trade and soon began losing money to his more savvy competitors.
"Then my wife and I got divorced. I couldn't support my family," he says quietly.
He went back to mining, working alongside Thai companies contracted by the Khmer Rouge to feverishly empty the ground of gems to fund their fighting.
And then came the end of war in 1998 and Pailin was suddenly overwhelmed by prospectors, drifters and carpetbaggers all seeking their fortune from the gems that seemed to simply sit on top of the earth.
Stories abounded that when it rained gems would wash down the side of Yat mountain on the outskirts of Pailin and the area swarmed so badly with scavengers that the government was forced to make prospecting there illegal.
"In the past you could dig anywhere in Pailin," says Ly Chhon, who like most in Pailin complains bitterly that the large Thai mining operations destroyed the trade long ago.
With the lawlessness of the war years came large Thai mining operations, which gouged huge holes in the ground with their heavy machinery and took away millions of dollars of precious stones to be sold in Thai markets or overseas.
"Now everything is finished -- no more gems. Our lives depend on farming instead, but the farming is not always good for us," Ly Chhon says, sitting in a narrow shop off a dusty street in Pailin town with two other men, mechanically cutting small rubies on a spinning grinding wheel.
None of his stones come from Pailin, he says, joking that they probably come from Thailand.
Around Pailin a few dozen gem shops open listlessly to the road, with an occasional solitary owner slumping lazily over a glass display case waiting for the chance customer -- another small-time Cambodian dealer from another province or the occasional tourist.
Dealer Sok Cheng, who has been in the business for seven years, says that gem prices have nearly doubled to around 45 dollars a carat, adding: "If the former Khmer Rouge had not allowed Thai mining companies to mine during the war time, gems in Pailin would never have finished".
The large mining companies, and the jobs, have all moved east into Cambodia's Ratanakkiri province bordering Vietnam. Over the years in Pailin everything of value has been scraped off the top of the earth -- mostly timber and bamboo -- and the ground littered with landmines.
Without the gems, Pailin has nothing, says Y Hoeun, director of the city's department of mines and energy.
"Gem diggers are very poor now -- they make no money," he says.
Up to his waist in water, Lang Tith scrapes silt into a makeshift sieve, hoping that after hours of work he might be able to find a few shards of ruby or sapphire to sell for money to buy rice.
This city at the edge of Cambodia's former frontier and the sharp hills surrounding it once seemingly spilled over with gems, traded by the Khmer Rouge whose thirst for gun money turned Pailin into a boomtown for anyone willing to turn the earth.
Years after the communist rebels and Thai mining companies stripped Pailin clean of its once-famous precious stones, a few still toil at the bottom of muddy holes with dreams of striking it rich.
"I have been digging in this hole for two days and I haven't found anything yet," Lang Tith says, peering up into a hot afternoon sun from his narrow tunnel carved out of the side of a vast, flooded crater left by Thai excavators.
He hopes to find a gem large enough to fetch 25 or 50 US dollars with the local merchants. But so far he has come up only with fragments of dull stone worth not even one dollar.
Pailin, a rambling town of squat, dusty buildings, close to the Thai border has lost it garrison feel, with a few newly constructed homes of brick and shiny tile giving it an almost quaint, prosperous appearance.
But the ragged, thatched shacks lining the few roads in and out of Pailin are a reminder of the poverty that has become increasingly acute in recent years. Small red signs dotting the edges of forests and fields warn of landmines and underscore Pailin's troubled past.
Lang Tith, 36, came to this former Khmer Rouge stronghold on the Thai border in 1997 while the country was still convulsed by civil war and few dared to enter the rebel-held areas.
"At that time there were a lot of gems," he says.
He became a gem merchant himself and married a local woman, but had no experience in the gem trade and soon began losing money to his more savvy competitors.
"Then my wife and I got divorced. I couldn't support my family," he says quietly.
He went back to mining, working alongside Thai companies contracted by the Khmer Rouge to feverishly empty the ground of gems to fund their fighting.
And then came the end of war in 1998 and Pailin was suddenly overwhelmed by prospectors, drifters and carpetbaggers all seeking their fortune from the gems that seemed to simply sit on top of the earth.
Stories abounded that when it rained gems would wash down the side of Yat mountain on the outskirts of Pailin and the area swarmed so badly with scavengers that the government was forced to make prospecting there illegal.
"In the past you could dig anywhere in Pailin," says Ly Chhon, who like most in Pailin complains bitterly that the large Thai mining operations destroyed the trade long ago.
With the lawlessness of the war years came large Thai mining operations, which gouged huge holes in the ground with their heavy machinery and took away millions of dollars of precious stones to be sold in Thai markets or overseas.
"Now everything is finished -- no more gems. Our lives depend on farming instead, but the farming is not always good for us," Ly Chhon says, sitting in a narrow shop off a dusty street in Pailin town with two other men, mechanically cutting small rubies on a spinning grinding wheel.
None of his stones come from Pailin, he says, joking that they probably come from Thailand.
Around Pailin a few dozen gem shops open listlessly to the road, with an occasional solitary owner slumping lazily over a glass display case waiting for the chance customer -- another small-time Cambodian dealer from another province or the occasional tourist.
Dealer Sok Cheng, who has been in the business for seven years, says that gem prices have nearly doubled to around 45 dollars a carat, adding: "If the former Khmer Rouge had not allowed Thai mining companies to mine during the war time, gems in Pailin would never have finished".
The large mining companies, and the jobs, have all moved east into Cambodia's Ratanakkiri province bordering Vietnam. Over the years in Pailin everything of value has been scraped off the top of the earth -- mostly timber and bamboo -- and the ground littered with landmines.
Without the gems, Pailin has nothing, says Y Hoeun, director of the city's department of mines and energy.
"Gem diggers are very poor now -- they make no money," he says.
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