The Killing Fields

Most people have heard of the killing fields, but they aren't just one place because the wholesale butchery of the Cambodian people by the Khmer Rouge didn't just occur in one area -- it was spread over the whole of Cambodia and memorials like this one are common everywhere. It's estimated that between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot and his ilk murdered 1.7 - 2.3 million people out of a population of about 7 million. Almost anyone suspected of connections with the prior government and intellectuals or educated people (which might be defined as loosely as someone wearing eyeglasses) was targeted for death, leaving the country floundering after the fall of the Communists.

These stupas, with acrylic panels on the sides, show hundreds of skulls and bones of those massacred by the Khmer Rouge.

And that, for those of you who have hung in here this long, is the end of this journey in Southeast Asia. Stay tuned for upcoming photographs of my latest sojourn in Finland, Estonia, Russia and Kiev.