Pol Pot Grave
Want to see Pol Pot's grave or his broken toilet seat? How about a visit to the house of a feared Khmer Rouge commander known as “The Butcher”? Welcome to the town of Anlong Veng, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold which hopes to become the next must-see destination on Cambodia's dark tourism trail, but which faces calls not to glorify its role in the country's bloody past.Prepare to be underwhelmed! A tin roof and a sign urging visitors to keep the area clean are all the tribute given to Brother Number One by his country. For an organisation famed for its secrecy, one shouldn't be surprised that the exact circumstances behind Pol Pot's detah remain murky. Depending on who you talk to, he was murdered by his erstwhile comrades, poisoned by the Thai military, suffocated due to illness or died in his sleep -- just to name some of the better known theories.What is known is that once he died in April 1998, his body was unceremoniously burned in a pile of old car tires bringing to a close the life of one of history's worst genocidal maniacs -- unpunished. The grave is a simple affair, though take a close look and you'll see the metal wire that would have been part of the tires. There is also a small shrine here recently added by a Thai businessman, who, upon paying homage to Pol Pot, dreampt the correct lottery results and won a mozza. Note the small statues of Pol Pot and his wife inside the shrine.Towards the rear of the enclosure there is a pile of smashed porcelain - Pol Pot's toilet apparently.Overall, it is one of the more bizarre attractions in Cambodia, odd yet telling that the grave has not been vandalised in any way whatsoever.
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