Welcome to Cambodia

The magnificent temple ruins found in the country of Cambodia are considered to be one of the ancient wonders of the world.

Dating back to around 1200 AD, the amazing architecture, engineering and craftsmanship represented in these structures speak of a civilization that was powerful, wealthy and highly sophisticated, far advanced from many other cultures of that time period.

These advancements however, were totally eradicated during the centuries of war that followed.

Like the ruins that were left behind, the amazing culture of the ancient Khmer civilization has been lost, abandoned, destroyed.

With the rise of the Khmer Rouge In 1975, a man who had taken the name of Pol Pot led the rabble group of Khmer Rouge soldiers into the capitol city of Phnom Penh. Closing the nation off to the rest of the world, Pol Pot immediately began a brutal campaign of killing. Political figures, civil authorities, religious leaders, doctors, and school teachers were the first to be murdered.

Eventually, simply having the ability to read was enough to earn a death sentence. All religious institutions were destroyed, currency was banned, and most modern technologies were abandoned. Families were separated and forced to work long days in the rice fields with very little to eat. It is estimated that during the next three years over one million people were murdered and an additional two million starved to death in the work camps.

In 1978, the takeover of the country by the Vietnamese brought an end to the work camps and the killing but did little to relieve the suffering of the living.

The Pol Pot regime had totally devastated the country, leaving the surviving people without leadership, skilled labor, organized religion, an educational system, a medical institution, or a civil structure.

Even today, the results of this devastation are recognizable everywhere. The children who survived the genocide of the "killing fields" of Pol Pot were rarely able to benefit from the knowledge of their parents or village elders.