The remote district of Rovieng was once a battleground between Cambodian government troops and Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge. Unexploded bombs still lurk in its fields and forests.
So does something more desirable - iron ore - and supposedly in such huge quantities two Chinese companies have an $11-billion plan to extract it.
Their proposal - a steel plant and seaport linked by a 404-km (251-mile) railroad - has alarmed environmentalists, mystified mining and transport experts, and bolstered Cambodia's reputation as an agent for Chinese expansionism in a region where the United States is increasingly competing for influence.
It is the latest in a series of mega-projects underscoring China's growing economic clout in mainland Southeast Asia, while improving China's access to supplies of raw material and ports in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.
Work will soon begin on a $7-billion railway through Laos to link China's Yunnan province with northeast Thailand. And in Myanmar work is almost finished on a $3-billion twin pipeline project to carry oil and gas to Yunnan from Myanmar's Bay of Bengal coast.
The railway, port and steel project will be Cambodia's largest, with a price tag not far off the value of the country's $12.9 billion economy. The steel plant in Rovieng, in northern Cambodia, will be its first. The seaport on a Cambodian island in the Gulf of Thailand will be connected to the mainland by a 3-km (1.9-mile) bridge. The railroad will almost span Cambodia, although its exact route hasn't been revealed.
"This is 65-percent iron," says Sun Qi Cai, 58, caressing a heavy, gleaming lump of Rovieng rock. "Not many places have such high-quality ore." That includes China, the world's largest steel maker, where most ore has an iron content of less than 40 percent.
Sun is a Chinese site manager for Cambodia Iron and Steel Mining Industry Group, which on December 31 signed a deal to build the three-part project with China Major Bridge Engineering Co, a subsidiary of state-owned behemoth China Railways Group.