Cambodia Photos

If you head into Cambodia from Vietnam, chances are you'll end up at this restaurant, where travelers wait as their passports are processed by border patrol.  

Street vendors hawk their wares among the motley line of vehicles that queue up to catch a ferry, en route to the capital Phnom Penh.  

A cyclo tour of Phnom Penh is a fantastic—and eco-friendly—way to explore the capital. The guides, typically from small villages outside the city, receive microloans from the Cyclo Center to help them buy the bikes in an effort to establish a steady income stream. The locally-run NGO also teaches the drivers conversational English.  

Located in the southern part of the city, Phnom Penh's Russian Market sells everything from Buddhist artifacts and tourist t-shirts to car parts, raw meat, fresh fruit, and children's toys. Its name comes from the market's popularity among the city's Russian ex-pats during the 1980s.  

One of the most somber sites in Phnom Penh, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is housed in a former high school that was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Photographs of some of the estimated 1.5 million deaths line the walls, while other rooms have been preserved as evidence of the genocide endured by the country.  

The infamous Choeung Ek Killing Fields—one of many used during the genocide—sit about 45 minutes outside of the capitol, further evidence of the horrors that befell Cambodia during the Khmer's reign. Bones are still visible in the dirt.  

A commemorative stupa filled with the skulls of victims sits at the center of Choeung Ek.  

I ran into this charming girl at a small homestay between Phnom Penh and Siam Reap. As a result of the genocide, roughly 50 percent of Cambodia's population is under the age of 18.  

A furious tropical storm rolls in near a small village who subsist on the area rice paddies.  

Siam Reap on a rainy afternoon, as seen from the back seat of a speeding tuk-tuk. This small, easily-navigated town serves as the gateway to Cambodia's famed Ankor temples.  

And the most well-known of those temples? Undeniably, Angkor Wat, which was built by King Suryavarman II between 1113 and 1150. The reflection—as seen, here, at sunrise—is cast off a four-foot-wide, 570-foot-long moat that encircles the temple complex.  

The temple itself is lined with extensive, exquisitely-detailed, recently-restored bas relief sculptures.  

The front of Angkor Wat at sunrise, as seen from a small pond to the right of the main temple walkway.  

Unlike Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm hasn't been nearly so restored, and today the jungle on which the temple complex was built is in the midst of claiming back its real estate.  

The sprawling complex is a maze of stone rooms and structures dwarfed by massive trees and roots.  

Ta Prohm's iconic landscape might also be the most memorable part of Tomb Raider, which was filmed on location in Cambodia.