It’s not like I did NOTHING i. One of the thing Phnom Penh is known for is the genocide center or killing fields.
Before traveling to Cambodia, I could not have told you anything about these fields. I truly didn’t have ANY clue about Cambodia as a whole, except for Angkor Wat. Thankfully, staying in hostels mean you get opportunities to talk with fellow travelers who have traveled to where you are staying. Many of which recommend the killing fields when in Phnom Penh.
Another friend, who I meet in Siem Reap, happened to be overlapping with me in Phnom Penh before we depart in different directions. We both decided to venture to the Choeung Ek Genocide Center together.
Choeung Ek is the location of a former Killing Field, which is one of many sites the Khmer Rouge used to execute over one million people. It is also mass grave of the victims killed during this regime between 1975 and 1979. Four years is what it took for this horror story of over 1 million Cambodians and foreigners killed by this regime.
It was an extremely somber morning listening to the history of the Khmer Rouge and the terror they instilled on Cambodians. It is still extremely hard to put into words, the feeling I felt wandering this sight of nearly 9,000 humans.
This dark moment in Cambodia’s history still haunts them today. It was only 40 years ago that many were in fear of their life. Throughout the country, landmines are still being located and people are still dying from them. My thoughts are that any traveler, who plans to spend time in and around Cambodia, should learn about this block of time in their history and should try to make a trip to Phnom Penh to visit Choeung Ek.