People of Cambodia (in memoriam...)

You meet so many people in Cambodia. Some are young, some are old, some are dead. They all move your insides in their peculiar kind of way.

It is estimated that around 1.7 million Cambodians (mostly civilians) died under the Khmers Rouges (1975-79). Cambodia has been devasted by years of civil war, oppression of a dictatorship, starvation, occupation, etc. Most people here lived under these atrocities. However, order is now more or less restored and people here now open their arms to the outside world. The country is still facing problems but it is amazing to see how hard people work here, all smiling and confident that future is brighter. And they are right...

I was climbing back up from the bottom of a cave used as a mass grave under the Khmers Rouges. There is no light and it is splippery inside, full of dust, sand, and small rocks. I was catching my breath as an old guide tells me in a perfect french that I was courageous to have been down to the bottom. I pointed out the pile of skulls behind him and I said, no, these guys were the courageous ones.

This one is for the brave people of Cambodia.