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  • It’s never been more critical to slow down, open ourselves up to new cultures, and marvel at the world.
  • Several United Nations agencies, the Red Cross, and USAID are among the organizations that have rushed in to help, but more is needed.
  • Moringa’s popularity has skyrocketed in the United States—but its health benefits have long been known globally. There’s something to be said for trying it at the source.
  • Provincial Road 2648
    Anlong Veng was the last stronghold of the communist Khmer Rouge regime, which ruled Cambodia brutally from 1975-79, when it forced city dwellers into the countryside to work on collective farms. The result was some 3 million deaths due to executions, torture, beatings, hard labour, malnutrition, disease, and lack of medical care. The Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was Brother Number One, while its military chief Ta Mok was Brother Number Five. Responsible for countless massacres as well as purges within the party, Ta Mok was also called The Butcher. Ta Mok remained powerful after the Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979, controlling much of this northern area of Cambodia and 3-5,000 guerillas from this base. After a party split in 1997 (yes, the Khmer Rouge survived almost 20 years after it was ‘overthrown’), Ta Mok took control, placing Pol Pot under house arrest. Following a government attack on Ta Mok’s house in 1998, he fled to the forest with Pol Pot, who died a few days later. Ta Mok was captured at the Thai border in 1999 and died in prison of heart complications in 2006. Travelers interested in Cambodia’s history can combine a visit to Pol Pot’s cremation site with a stop at Ta Mok’s House. Overlooking a lake that Ta Mok had made, the rustic house is decorated with a map of Cambodia and murals of Angkor Wat and nearby Preah Vihear. The cages at the front of the house apparently held tigers. The house is popular with Cambodian tourists, canoodling couples and monks.
  • Provincial Road 2648
    Most travelers to Siem Reap are here to see the magnificent remnants of the Khmer Empire and don’t have Cambodia’s gruesome genocidal history high on their to-do lists. Those sorts of sites – the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, where hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were buried in mass graves, and Tuol Sleng prison, where some 17,000 were tortured and executed – are reserved for the capital, Phnom Penh. However, for the curious, the completists, and those interested in Cambodia’s modern history, there are a couple of sights at Anlong Veng, not far from the Thai border. Anlong Veng was the last stronghold of the ruthless Khmer Rouge, which ruled the country brutally from 1975-79. The communist regime was responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians by execution, torture, hard labor, malnutrition, and disease. The cremation site of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has been given the attention it deserves. None. After Pol Pot died while on the run, presumably of a heart attack, his body was hastily burned beneath a pile of rubbish. The site is covered by a rusty corrugated iron roof in a littered gully behind some decrepit buildings on the edge of Anlong Veng. On the main road a small hand-painted sign points in the direction of a gravelly track leading down to the site. Blink and you’d miss it. The site takes all of a few minutes to visit and is not worth a second longer. It can be combined with a stop at Ta Mok’s House if you’re heading to/from Preah Vihear.