It seemed unthinkable to visit Cambodia and not devote some time in the capital learning about the horrors of the Khmer Rouge period of the 1970s, and so we spent several hours at both the S-21 Genocide Museum, and Killing Fields of Choeung Ek while in Phnom Penh.

These sites of course cannot be classfied as "enjoyable visits", but they both provided excellent audio commentaries and written information to supplement the experience. The S-21 site is actually a former school that was converted to a prison where Cambodians were held and tortured, and it was absolutely chilling to walk through the rooms and stairwells that had witnessed such terror. The Killing Fields site presents a combination of burial spots, as well as a memorial site where uncovered skeletal remains are displayed by the hundreds in a large case. Tourists at both sites were visibly moved and shaken, and along with our trip to Auschwitz several years ago, these sites were probably the most unsettling and devastating we have experienced. Still, it was essential that we visited, and reinforced our passion for social science courses as we debated ways of how to include more global citizenship into our work. (That sounded so nerdy. We are still loving our work-free year!)

Since we understandably don't have a lot of lot of photos of these sites, we have included more of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, which we were lucky enough to have visited on a beautiful, clear morning. This is the last of the Buddhist temples we will be seeing for awhile - what will we do with our time?!