Visiting the temples of Angkor Wat and notorious Killing Fields of Pol Pot’s regime leaves blogger Sue Grech Cumbo admiring the locals’ resilience.

If you're one of those travellers who rate a place by its people, unspoilt landscape and history, then Cambodia should be one of your top places to visit.

Bordering Thailand, Laos and Vietnam in southeast Asia, this country is a magical urban land, graced with raw jungle-like vegetation and temples.

It reveals the reality of a country that is still raw from decades of blood, war, genocide, chaos and death.

Yet despite this, the Khmer people are the kindest and most welcoming I have ever met.

Most villagers make their living from farming and cannot afford daily necessities, let alone pay for education.

Therefore, many people remain uneducated, unable to work in jobs that have a substantial income to support their families.

Nonetheless, they continue to wear their humble smiles.

The lack of development means much of the land has been untouched, making it an amazing place to explore, whether you’re renting a motorbike or sitting in the back of a tuk-tuk.

I had read a lot about Cambodia before deciding to go there.

Besides having the incredible eighth wonder of the world in its backyard, I was deeply interested in learning more about its people and political history involving Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

The sites I wished to visit were in the country’s capital city Phnom Penh and regional capital Siem Reap.

With only 10 days to spare, I decided to split my trip into two parts: starting with Phnom Penh to view the effects and historical remains of the Pol Pot regime, followed by Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat.

Phnom Penh is a busy city that can be a little overwhelming at first but very interesting once getting deeper into its roots.

I had asked an auto-rickshaw driver to take me around the town on my first day there.

It was incredible to just sit back and observe the fruit and vegetable markets, the scattered huts built alongside the streets and fields, the simple daily lifestyle of the people, the farmers working the rice fields and the overall feel of the place as we drove further into the rural areas, driving past children and adults waving enthusiastically at us.

The next day, I visited historical sites from the Pol Pot regime, which included the S-21 prison, the Killing Fields, memorial cemeteries and local museums.

There are two sites in and around Phnom Penh that provide a powerful insight into the effects of Pol Pot’s regime.

A giant stupa standing in the centre of the memorial site contains 17 levels of skulls and bones found in the Killing Fields

The first is Tuol Sleng Prison, formerly a public school in the centre of the city, which was transformed by the Khmer Rouge into an interrogation centre and jail.

Known as S-21 Prison, this is the place where thousands of enemies of the revolution were brought to for questioning and torture.

The remnants of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime were emotional to see.

Between 1975 and 1979, an estimated three million people, 25 per cent of the country’s population, lost their lives under the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge movement and its communist leader.

The Genocide Museum located within S-21 exhibits the prison cells and thousands of photos pasted on the walls.

It was explained to me that Pol Pot had wanted a photo of each prisoner to be taken just before they were sent for execution, as a memory of his killings.

The next day I went to see the Killing Fields, 15 kilometres out of Phnom Penh, where the prisoners of S-21 were taken for execution.

A guide showed me around the site and pointed out the many mass graves that were discovered there.

A giant stupa structure standing in the centre of the memorial site contains 17 levels of skulls and bones that were found nearby.

This place was a blatant and chilling remembrance that left me numb from the scale of the brutality that took place there.

The next place on my itinerary was Siem Reap to see the great temples of Angkor.

Hidden in the jungle for centuries, the ruins are hundreds of buildings spread over the vast city of Angkor, a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The first day of temple-sightseeing was dedicated Angkor Wat and the Bayon at Angkor Thom. Visiting at sunrise was amazing to see. As the sun peeked from behind Angkor Wat, I managed to catch the reflection of this magnificent monument in a pond.

The temple was constructed in the early 12th century as a Hindu monument, before being converted to one of Buddhism in the late 13th century.

Despite centuries of wear and tear and invasions from tourists, the sculptures and carvings remain beautiful even today.

Angkor Wat, is the largest religious building in the world. It is a massive, three-tiered pyramid crowned by five lotus-like towers rising 65 metres from ground level.

Built by various Khmer kings from the ninth century onwards, each temple demonstrates the Khmer empire’s power. Its size and architecture make it appear to be two-dimensional.

The walls of the temple are covered with thousands of apsara carvings that represent some of the greatest examples of the form in Angkorian-era art, while the outer walls display the most extraordinary mythology, each story described within these carvings.

The beauty of Cambodia goes far beyond the famous Angkor Wat ruins or the charm of the Khmer people’s simple lifestyle.

The country’s food culture is also not to be missed. Staple daily meals throughout the country typically consist of rice and fresh water fish, mainly because of the large abundance of both.

Rice, noodles, soups and stir-fried dishes are all commonly found in Khmer cuisine and are absolutely delicious, healthy and very cheap in most roadside kitchens and restaurants.

Cambodian desserts, generally based on fresh fruits and sticky rice, nicely complement the meal and are definitely worth trying.