The Siem Riep area and its surrounding temples are truly amazing. Unlike more developed parts of Southeast Asia, people still transport themselves primarily on bicycles through the area. The air is clean and the roads are highly under-developed. The people are friendly, peaceful, and remarkably optimistic despite their incredibly tragic history.
While I was visiting a site where Pol Pot’s soldiers murdered hundreds of people, a young Cambodian boy (who couldn’t have been more than 7-8 years old) calmly demonstrated with a stick how the soldiers murdered citizens. During the entire time he was smiled broadly and seemed happy to have the opportunity to communicate with me. Like other Cambodians, he didn’t seem disturbed or distraught by the tragedy but he instead accepted this cruel piece of history as part of his paradigm.
If you look closely at the attached picture, you will see that these smiling, angelic children are (coincidentally) posing in front of a series of pictures of corpses from the Khmer Rouge era. To me, the picture represents hope and the knowledge that humans are capable of overcoming even the most appalling tragedies.
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