TRIGGER HAPPY HOLIDAY

The guns on offer to me in Thailand

Sergeant Chumpon Tapwong of the Thai army looks me in the eye and asks in broken English if I’d prefer a shotgun, rifle or pistol. He’s happy to hand it me loaded although he hasn’t asked my name yet.  Beside us sits an open, glass top case jammed full of weapons, big and small, dull and shiny, semi and fully automatic. We’re just outside the grounds of the 7thArtillery Battalion headquarters in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, the first stop on my hunt for machine gun tourists.

The definition lies squarely in the name. A traveler or holiday maker, young or old, male or female, who picks up a deadly weapon whilst on holiday – to fire live rounds at rubber tires, disused cars, wooden targets, live animals, or occasionally to simply spray them into the middle distance Rambo style, carefree and unshackled by the worried looks or health and safety rules that might accompany such an activity back in their own more developed nations, should it be allowed at all.  Few machine gun tourists have any previous experience with powerful guns, they’re of many nationalities, often seemingly opportunistic shooters who like the weapons themselves come in all shapes and sizes - from pot bellied, peak capped American forty-something’s to excitable Japanese teenagers – surprisingly, not all are male.  Some competent gun handlers argue there’s no problem letting these people have a squeeze of the trigger whilst others are appalled that rich westerners might pick up a gun for entertainment, often while visiting a country scarred by recent conflict.

South East Asia is still a hugely popular region for young British travelers and a hotspot for the budding machine gun tourist. The ranges across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam may be officially sanctioned but there’s no background checks and few age restrictions - in fact very few pieces of paper at all to fill out before you’re pulling on oversized ear protectors, holding a weapon bigger and more powerful than those given to licensed shooters back home and eagerly swapping hard earned holiday cash for deadly bullets.

As I settle into my Tuk Tuk on the way to the Thai shooting range the driver sizes me up a little in his mirror,  then quizzes me briefly about our destination. “You in the army?” he asks “no” I reply “Do many tourists come here?” I ask back, “Many people … many people” he replies … “Are they in the army?”  He laughs shaking his head.  

Sergeant Tapwong tells me they only deal with around ten customers per day at this particular range, a small personalized service that’s advertised on the pin boards of sleepy guesthouses down the road, alongside adventure sports and cooking classes.  But it’s proving popular enough for a new range to be opening less than a mile away.   It’s a smart money spinner for the Thai Armed Forces – collecting plenty of cash from their old weapons and spare ammo. Their guests come from Britain, France, The US and Japan as well as some from New Zealand.  He plucks his favorite weapon from a stand on the wall and shows me some of the rigors they’re put through, I get the impression few hit the target as often as he does, I wonder about where they take their skills when they leave Asia, but most of all the speed of his movements convinces me he could disarm an unruly customer fairly swiftly.                        

Friendly Thai soldier shows me his moves.

Many of the ranges in Thailand are still building their business among western travelers and holidaymakers; but in fact the phenomenon of the machine gun tourist grew up properly over the border in Cambodia. The well trodden route around this part of the continent is often known as the banana pancake trail, supposedly because the sweet snacks can now be found everywhere – driven by demand from hungry young westerners with shades and suntans. Follow the trail south east down to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and you’ll reach the veritable capital of machine gun tourism.  The country is still dealing with its tragic past but tuk tuk drivers here will readily offer you a trip to the shooting range as a bundle with a visit to the notorious Killing Fields where the violent Khmer Rouge regime once dispatched their victims en masse. Visitors – if they so wish - can study the Pol Pot genocide in the morning then fire a machine gun that afternoon. At one well known shooting range you can not only loose off fully automatic assault rifles but also handle grenades too.  For many years – and for a few dollars more - you could shoot live animals – a practice that outraged international animal rights activists and was eventually banned by the king. However most visitors inevitably learn that laws can be shifted with hard currency here and stories still abound of travelers being able to knock off chickens with an M16 – and more famously, dispatch a cow with a grenade launcher.

As in Thailand the firing is done under the supervision of the country’s armed forces.   Graham Williams – a former British Army Officer, turned travel writer who has visited the ranges, says the system is safe, but concedes the supervising soldiers often have to step in:  “They looked relieved when my girlfriend (also ex British Army) and I picked up the weapons and checked and cleared them; I’m sure that they had to deal with people who may have an idea of where the bullets come out but have no idea where the rounds go in.”  However Williams claims there’s little harm in the activity – and says he understands how young travelers become attracted to the ranges. “In the UK unless you are connected to the armed forces or the police it is practically impossible to ever use a full bore firearm, and for many people who fire on ranges in Asia, it is probably the only time in their lives that they will get the chance to do so. There is no time for safety training but as long as there is tight supervision by instructors, I don’t see why people firing these weapons is a problem.” The travelers bible the Lonely Planet, disagrees with him urging travelers not to visit the site.  And the antithesis to his argument may lie in the case of Cody Mark Patrick, a 33 year old American tourist who visited one of the Cambodian ranges in 2008.  Having fired seven shots from a 10 shot round he turned the gun on himself and ploughed the eighth into his own jaw.  Amazingly he survived but another American tourist on the same range succeeded in his suicide attempt four years earlier – shooting himself in the head.  Further to the suicide risks the Lonely Planet’s own web forum offers up at least one worrying example of a machine gun tourist who might be considered undesirable.  Posting under the name  ‘Drovers Dog’ he asks about shooting ranges in Vietnam and Cambodia “My mate's just come back and reckons you can blaze away with a Kalashnikov or an M16 for a dollar a round till your shoulder turns blue.” Other forum members react badly and suggest he try Iraq or Afghanistan instead. Drovers Dog replies:  “Joining the armed forces and going to Iraq and/ or Afghanistan's is out of the question … I've got a criminal record and they won't take me.”

The Vietnamese range Drovers Dog had his eye on is located at the Cuu Chi tunnels in Southern Vietnam.   I follow the Banana Pancake trail even further East down the Mekong Delta and find the nature of the machine gun tourist changing slightly, but as with Cambodia, there’s a heavy sense of historical irony as the bullets fly.
          

 

A dollar a shot. The guns available in Vietnam

The Cu Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City – Saigon to give it its more famous name - holds a lot of history beneath its dusty jungle floor.  It’s not really city at all but fledgling forest - the trees are smaller and more sparse than they should be, just thirty years old; their predecessors were wiped out by waves of American B52 bombers trying to destroy the network of secret tunnels built by the villagers to help the Viet Cong during the dying stages of the Vietnam War.  The huge craters are still there. During the struggle for South Vietnam everything was smuggled along these narrow subterranean stone passages – weapons, food, supplies, refugees, – the ingenious guerrilla rabbit warren, laden with booby traps to maim US troops -stretched all the way back to the Cambodian border. Now they form a major tourist destination dealing with thousands of visitors each day - a piece of living history preserved for visitors to pick over and scramble through.

The shooting range lies across the far side of the complex and the ear splitting sound of live rounds being fired echoes eerily through the whole experience. Under the casual eye of a few green clad Vietnamese army vets – holidaymakers of varying ages, some sporting visors and backpacks are again swapping fistfuls of dollars for the chance to shoot a variety of deadly weapons.  Sweating in the heat, smiling and giving each other the thumbs up. They carry the same enthusiasm as those in Cambodia but there are more families and middle aged tourists, holidaymakers rather than travelers, fewer flip-flops and Ray Bans; more bum bags and lunch boxes.

'Watch those ears' Tourists blast away in Vietnam.

                                                  
The promise of being given guns to play with was made much earlier in the day.  As we left the suburbs of the city our tour guide explained the various stages of the visit through a microphone, leaving the shooting range until last in his list: “Over there you get the chance to fire machine gun if you want to but you pay extra for ammunition.”  A ripple of excitement spread through the small bus, ‘how much? … how much?’ came the question from the rows behind us - but they had to wait a moment, the guide was already being quizzed by a Philippine tourist about the armed forces complex visible through the right hand window, there are huge weapons parked outside – he gestures at them – “do we get to fire cannon too” he asks in English, grinning but only half joking.  The look on the guide’s face suggests he may have misunderstood the question and instead he runs through the things we do get to fire if we can find the cash –M30 and M60 machine guns – M16 rifles – the standard US weapon of choice during the Vietnam war - and of course the AK47.

One Dutch member of our tour group sports a t-shirt celebrating the famous Russian made assault weapon, he dashes ahead to be first in line when we approach the range and disappears into one of the narrow gulleys leading to the gun positions. A blaze of shots follows. I catch up with him as he emerges … “It was pretty cool,” he says laughing “you have to do it at least once in your life.”  ‘Can you do it at home in your country too?” I ask … but he shakes his head – before encouraging me to pick up a weapon and have a go too.  I decline.  Sadly his shot wasn’t quite good enough to win him one of the special gifts the army has on offer for the most accurate shooters.  You’re awarded a Cu Chi tunnels badge, a book, a scarf or a lighter if you hit the target a certain number of times.  The gallery itself is intended for shooters only but it’s easy enough to walk in unchallenged.
 
My armed tour of the banana pancake trail comes to an end with the Philippine tourist from the bus holding up his young son to stare down the gun sights of an M16.  There’s compelling arguments that he’s doing no real harm – dad won’t let him squeeze the trigger – not at a dollar per bullet anyway – and nobody has been hurt here either. But the child evokes images of others his age – back over the border in Cambodia and around the world – still under ten, yet already expert in handling guns.  A report for Campaign Against the Arms Trade cited “desperate poverty, a lack of development and huge numbers of weapons” combining to have a hugely negative effect in that country. It’s perhaps when viewed through that prism that the burgeoning trade in machine gun tourism appears to be doing the most damage.