David Cross Travel Blog

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 🙂

There are lots of things to do in Siem Riep outside of running along the river or going to Angkor Wat. There is decent/fun shopping, very friendly people, nice museums and easy transportation via Tuk Tuks. You can get almost anywhere in town for just $2-3. You can also easily walk around all the traffic…it is just like Vietnam…you just casually walk across (not run) the street and everyone will weave around you. Try it, it works!

Apparently, there is ~ 290 temples in the area. We checked a few of them out. It is nice how you can get a 3 day pass for all these sites for $40. It is kind of like Disneyland.

We first checked out Bantey Srei which is a 10^th century Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva, the god of destruction. It was a small site, 40 miles outside of town, but was a nice miniaturized version of the larger temples without 1000s of tourists.

You do have to watch out for the kids…they will attack you will postcards or want to play mud ball war when you are not looking!

After walking through the Angkor Thom gate with all the gods and demons, we checked out The Bayon.

If you are nimble, you can crawl around this temple and have some fun while most of the other tourists ride elephants around the moat and the monks hang out in the giant Buddha shrines around the city.

We also, of course, checked out Ta Phrom to pretend we in the latest Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie.

This location is great because it is in the cool jungle unlike the big temples in the blazing sun.  It is a little dangerous as the jungle is fighting an extended war with the temple and it is crumbling in many place.  I like the adventure myself…

The 200 year old gum and strangler figs trees overrunning the temple were simply amazing.

Recognize the scene from the movie? 🙂