10/27/2026
This will be a long post. An intentionally long post.
Some experiences deserve more than a few photographs and a short caption. This is one of them.
Yesterday, I visited two places in Cambodia that I will never forget: the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng Prison, also known as S-21.
It was a day of profound sadness, difficult history, and disbelief at the cruelty human beings are capable of inflicting on one another.
Several people on our trip chose not to visit these sites. And I completely respect that decision. Travel is personal. We each need to choose what experiences are right for us.
But for me, understanding a country means more than seeing its beautiful places, experiencing its traditions, and meeting its people. I also want to understand the history that shaped it—even when that history is painful.
And Cambodia’s history is so very recent.
Between 1975 and 1979, under the Khmer Rouge regime, approximately two million Cambodians died through ex*****on, starvation, disease, and forced labor.
Two million people in less than four years. Approximately ONE OUT OF EVERY FOUR people in the entire country. That is almost impossible to comprehend.
And something else struck me as I listened to our guide.
During those very years, I was a college student, going to classes, spending time with friends, and living my life.
And apparently, largely oblivious to the unimaginable suffering taking place on the other side of the world. That realization gave me pause, considering an entire country was experiencing unimaginable loss.
Nearly 50 years later, I was standing in the places where it happened, trying to comprehend what I hadn’t understood all those years ago.
Our first stop was the Killing Fields.
Our guide explained that there were hundreds of killing sites throughout Cambodia. At the largest site, Choeung Ek, we walked among the mass graves where thousands of people were murdered.
The grounds today are green and peaceful. But the depressions in the earth tell a different story.
We saw the memorial filled with thousands of skulls recovered from the graves. We learned how prisoners were transported here, often after being interrogated and tortured at S-21.
One of the most shocking things I learned was how these people were killed.
I imagined machine guns or chemicals, perhaps gas chambers. I never imagined what our guide would tell us.
The Khmer Rouge considered bullets too expensive to waste on their victims.
Instead, people were beaten to death with blunt objects, agricultural tools, and sharpened pieces of wood.
And then we stood before a tree where babies were killed by having their heads struck against its trunk, sometimes while their mothers were forced to watch.
Today, colorful bracelets cover that tree, left by visitors as gestures of remembrance.
You can’t help struggling to comprehend such cruelty. How could one human being do this to another? And how could anyone do this to a child?
It was heartbreaking.
I found myself needing to be quiet.
Not because I had nothing to say, but because I felt a deep need to be respectful of the lives lost in that exact place.
I wanted my silence to acknowledge the profound loss. To honor those who suffered there. To remember their history and never forget what happened.
Our second stop was Tuol Sleng Prison.
Once a school, it was transformed into a place of imprisonment, interrogation, and torture.
Our guide explained that many prisoners were eventually transported from S-21 to the Killing Fields, where they were murdered.
Walking into the prison interrogation rooms was sobering. The metal beds. The shackles. The photographs documenting what happened in those very rooms.
And the tiny brick cells where prisoners were confined. Barely large enough for a person, with shackles still on the floor.
Then there were the walls and walls of photographs. Faces. So many faces.
Real people with families, dreams, and lives before they were imprisoned, tortured, and killed.
I found myself looking into their faces and thinking about the fear they must have felt. The uncertainty. The suffering.
There were also many graphic photographs documenting the torture and deaths of prisoners. I looked at them because I wanted to understand what had happened. But I couldn’t bring myself to photograph them.
Others did, and I respect that everyone experiences these places differently. But for me, taking pictures of those images somehow felt disrespectful to the people whose suffering was being displayed.
I can’t entirely explain why. I just knew that I needed to look, to acknowledge what I was seeing, and then put my camera down.
Some things I want to remember without having a photograph. Again, I felt that overwhelming need for silence and respect.
And then, something I never expected to experience. We met survivors.
One was Chum Mey, an older gentleman who survived imprisonment and torture at S-21. Although he didn’t speak English, I had the opportunity to meet him, purchase his book, and have it signed.
Another survivor, Norng Chanphal, had been a young child during those terrible years. He showed me a photograph of himself as a little boy with his brother and shared that he was four years old at the time.
I purchased his book as well, and he signed it for me.
After seeing walls filled with photographs of people who never made it out, there was something moving about meeting people who had survived.
These weren’t simply stories in a history book. These were people who had lived through them.
And their stories deserve to be heard.
I’ve only begun reading their books, but I know they will help me understand even more about what happened here.
Throughout this day, I kept thinking about how important it is that these places have been preserved.
Our guide explained that some mass graves have deliberately been left undisturbed, preserving evidence of what happened for future generations if they doubt the history.
Because remembering history isn’t only about honoring the past. It’s also about protecting the truth for the future.
I know this is a difficult post to read. It was a difficult day to experience, and an even more difficult one to put into words that surely come up short.
But I believe travel should open our eyes, even when what we see is painful.
We visit beautiful places, experience wonderful traditions, and meet extraordinary people. But sometimes the most meaningful moments are ones that challenge us to look more deeply at the world and at humanity.
I left these places with profound sadness. And with an even greater appreciation for the importance of remembering.
There are moments in travel when you don’t need to say anything. You simply need to stand quietly, bear witness, and remember.
And this is a day I will never forget.
