Wat simply means temple so there are “wats” all over Cambodia but Angkor Wat is the biggest and by far the most famous. Built in the 12th century it only was used for a few hundred years and then a conquering army took over the country and it crumbled. Some has been restored other parts are in ruins.

The roots have taken over so many of these old temples. Standing next to one gives prospective of their size.

Lara Croft-Tomb Raiders was supposedly filmed here with this root intrusion

I do remember reading about the Killing Fields but seeing was numbing. Our guide was born in 1970 so she remembers the almost 4 years reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. In three days they emptied Phnom Penh a city of 2.5 million people, those that didn’t make it out were killed. Our guide, Thaly was 5. Her family fled north. This brutal genocide was accomplished because Pol Pot, who was a poor student but very charismatic and lured the poor people into following him. Thaly’s parents were teachers and would have been killed if that was discovered. They changed there name and moved north for 3 months, leaving everything behind. Finally they were put in work camps under terrible conditions. Thaly remembers one day working in the rice paddies and resting because she was tired, and only 7 years old when a guard came up and gave her a choice of 3 weapons that he would use to kill her if she did not get back to work. A burned image in her mind which still brings tears to her eyes when she tells it. The Khmer Rouge killed all educated people, engineers, doctors, teachers, students any one they deemed to have capitalist tendencies. They also targeted women and children. The killed 3,000,000 people in a country with a population of 8,000,000.
Before going to the killing fields we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This is where they brutally tortured most prisoners before sending them to the Killing Field. The photos of the signs tell a lot of the storage. They also took photos of those they tortured, there are rooms full of photos of young and old, men and women. Only 7 people survived the camp and two are still alive. I bought the book, and met the man, who survived because he was an artist and painted portraits of the leaders. The other man was a mechanic and fixed typewriters etc.