Dark history.

Phnom Penh wasn't all crazy classes and incredible kids. We did take time to explore the city and in a country with such a dark history exploration often took the form of genocide museums, prisons and previously used prison camps. Of course we didn't spent every day or night off in these notorious places but when we weren't to be seen in my friend Carla's bar, Showbox, or beside the pool at PP Sports Club we could most probably be found at some of this side of the worlds most shocking sites. 

On my Travels I had heard so much about this aspect of Cambodia's historical places/ tourist traps and truthfully I often found the recital of days spent there a little distasteful. It was as if anyone I had spoken to about the infamous Killing Fields, Genocide Museum and torture camp S-21 enjoyed adding in gory extras and embellishments to the truth. I imagined that on retelling numbers tripled, sights got more scary, feeling got intensified and, to be honest, people told quite a few fibs to make their story more intense. Turns out I had heard no lies. If anything as many words would fail to describe the true horrors that took place on those sites and many thousands more all over Cambodia just over 30 years ago. 

A genocidal regime, The Khmer Rouge, held power in Cambodia from 1975-1979. An estimated 3 million people died during that time. The Khmer Rouge, closely associated their ideals with the ideology of the communist forerunners Stalinism and Maoism... because communism was clearly working out well for them? 

The consequences of the social and ethnic cleansing that followed is abhorrent and an absolute affront to anything I hope we would hold close as human values in the west today. 

What I found most shocking is how fresh the wounds from the many tragedies in Cambodia are. War crime tribunals are still ongoing and so many people are still as yet, and most probably will remain, not convicted.

These and many of the other tragedies and traumas that Cambodia has had to endure have, in my small experience and understanding, made the Khmer culture of today even closer, more coherent with its own ideals and most of all friendly and welcoming to each other and all that come in contact. Peace and love often prevail in some of the worlds darkest acts and atrocities.