While there we visited the Royal Palace which thankfully has been restored to much of its former glory. There are also a number of restaurants along the riverfront that cater to westerners and upwardly mobile locals. One that I enjoyed for it's view and Western menu was the Foreign Correspondent's Club which is open to the public. Sitting at the bar I could imagine working on tomorrow's byline, drink firmly in hand while the world or that which is borne on the Tonle Sap river floats silently by.

However my favorite restaurant in Phnom Penh is run by an organization called Friends-International “Mith Samlanh” in Cambodian. Friends-International works with street children in a developmental and sustainable perspective in accordance with the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UN-CRC). The organization runs two main restaurants and the one I prefer is called Romdeng Restaurant and is located at #21 Street 278. It carries food from several provinces in Cambodia. The waiters are all former street kids as I assume are many of the cooks but contrary to what you might think the service and presentation of the food would put many upscale establishments in the United States to shame. The idea is to teach skills adequate to find work in the burgeoning tourist service industry along with a sense of pride and accomplishment..

His April 17th People or New People look to a future of being worked or starved to death, of death by disease or exposure, summary execution for any infringement of camp discipline. These so called infringements punishable by death include not working hard enough, complaining about living conditions, collecting or stealing food for personal consumption, wearing jewelry, engaging in sexual relations, grieving over the loss of relatives or friends and expressing religious sentiments. The killing fields would have a rich harvest.

Captured Khmer Rouge records from the Tuol Sleng interrogation and detention centre in Phnom Penh (also known as S-21) show that 14,499 "antiparty elements", including men women and children, are tortured and executed from 1975 to the first six months of 1978. Only seven of those detained at the centre will leave it alive. At least 20 other similar centers operate throughout the country. Terror and paranoia reign, reaching a climax in 1977 and 1978 when Pol Pot launches a bloody purge against "hidden enemies, burrowing from within". At least 200,000 of their own cadres are executed.

Only an invasion from Vietnam would end Pol Pot's murderous reign when on the 25th of December 1978 the Vietnamese launched a full-scale military invasion of Cambodia. Pol Pot and the defeated Khmer Rouge would retreat to the country's remote western region and continue to fight the invaders for another 20 years. With the Khmer Rouge resistance crumbling and he himself about to be turned over to the government authorities, Pol Pot dies in the evening of April 15th 1998, his body cremated on a pyre of old car tires beside a village latrine.