Angkor Wat means Holy City and a thousand years ago was the jewel in the crown of the vast Khmer Empire which a thousand years ago, stretched from Burma to parts of Vietnam and Malaysia.   Even today, some parts are still barely explored jungle temples of the kind you would expect to see in an Indiana Jones movie.   It is also a place where the energy of that holy time still whispers to the soul.

The temples were first discovered in the 19th century and French colonial times, but were left pretty much as they were found after the French left Indo-Chine in the early 1950's. Many of the temples are still to be found in the jungles with hidden passageways and the stonework entangled in the deep roots of centuries old trees.

Then 30 years ago nearly 2,000,000 of Cambodia’s people were senselessly massacred during the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge regime and country brought to its knees.   Their story was made famous in the film ‘The Killing Fields’.  The ruins of the once vast and magnificent Khmer Empire have now provided the devastated Khmer people with a way to rebuild their lives and country through tourism. Angkor Wat is a treasure that brings hope and a future, but it belongs to the Khmer people not greedy business folk who saw an opportunity and now take most of the profits which would otherwise go to the country itself, while they themselves have to date done nothing to give back to the people.

Even after the devastation there are many abandoned children and those rescued from child prostitution. Sometimes there are those who have lost limbs through forgotten landmines. Visiting Cambodia is not just another stop on the tour map, it is a place of healing, for this was a beautiful country with a gentle, innocent and happy people. 

There are many ‘good causes’ in Cambodia some more ‘good’ than others.  For our basic program we use a Cambodian family owned guest house which in turn supports those living in the outer villages.