It is hard to explain without referring people to a book or a documentary, but the genocide that occurred in Cambodia in 1975-1979 was a horrible tragedy to the people of Cambodia and the world. It is still shocking to hear that (most) of the people and leaders that led the Khmer Rouge have not been convicted, imprisoned or held responsible for the horrors they led to bring their government to power.

We first visited the mass graves outside of Phnom Pehn.

It is about 40 minutes outside the main city, and this is where thousands of people were found in mass graves. There is still bones, teeth and debris still being found every day from the rain and floods.

The horrors and stories are hard to even describe to tell.

It is effectively a Cambodian Holocaust that is hard to believe occurred in the past 20 years.

Many visitors purchase flowers to pay homage to those who perished at the commemorative temple. It was the least we could do.

We also visited the S21 prison.

This is another location that was a true story of those that were being persecuted by the Khmer Rouge.

We were fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet the two living survivors from the prison that are still alive today.

What an amazing experience.

I wish we could say more or provide more pictures to tell the story, but it is impossible to share the emotions or the horrors on a simple blog. Most of the pictures are just not possible to share with most people on a public web site.

On a positive side, we visited the Central Market to buy some gold watches for 10$ to help the local economy 🙂