Dangrek dallyings

I wondered whether someone was suggesting this as a memorial to Ta Mok, the one-legged KR Butcher

During my recent brief visit to Anlong Veng, en route from Preah Vihear to Banteay Chhmar, I took the opportunity to take the new paved road to the top of the Dangrek Mountain escarpment, and I've already bought you the latest photos of Pol Pot's cremation site. On the way to the top, the road is split by a massive boulder and some damaged statues hewn out of the solid rock stand as a reminder of the control that the Khmer Rouge guerrillas exercised over the area for so long. The heads have been chopped off and the statues are looking worse for wear after government soldiers apparently took a dislike to them. Shrines at the site allow locals to pay their respects to their departed comrades. At the top of the mountain, the track to Pol Pot is on the right and that in turn carries onto the squalid market and then onto the border crossing with Thailand, known as Choam Srawngam. Taking a badly rutted road parallel to the mountain's cliff-face, after about four kilometres we came to a lovely open spot with gorgeous views over the plains below. I'd stayed a night there half a dozen years before and nothing had changed, especially the stunning panorama. The six wooden bungalows there, costing $7.5 per night, now have en-suite bathrooms. Nearby, in the undergrowth, lie two more reminders of the Khmer Rouge regime, the overgrown walls of another of Ta Mok's homes, this one built for a quick getaway into Thailand when the going got too hot, and a building that doubled as both a radio station and a prison at different times. We returned to town to grab a bite to eat at the Phkay Preuk restaurant and to visit a couple of guesthouses, to see the best accommodation on offer at the Monorom and Sokharith, before heading further west and a night in tented accommodation at Banteay Chhmar.

Two more broken statues are a fading reminder of the Khmer Rouge control of the Anlong Veng area

This female soldier, hewn from the solid rock, is carrying rice stalks on her head

Two young attendants at the boulder shrine, half-way up the paved mountain road

The border crossing at Choam Srawngam, close to Pol Pot's cremation site and a squalid market

This building was used as a radio station and prison detention cell by the Khmer Rouge

The gorgeous views from the cliff-edge viewing spot that used to belong to Ta Mok

The drop from this rock ledge is not recommended

The heavily-wooded slopes of the Dangrek Mountains as they role into Cambodia

The plains of northern Cambodia stretch for many kilometres into the far distanceA visitor pays her respects to this Neak Ta spirit statue on the cliff-edge

Burnt with the rubbish

Pol Pot's cremation site outside Anlong Veng

Whilst there's little tangible to see, the cremation site of the Khmer Rouge's evil leader Pol Pot remains a priority site on the 'KR tourist circuit' in the northern former guerrilla stronghold of Anlong Veng. Pol Pot's fiefdom was in Pailin and out of his comfort zone, his demise came quickly at the hands of his former military chief Ta Mok, who put him on trial and house arrest before his convenient death in April 1998. The shack where his lifeless body was photographed before it was burnt on a pile of tyres and rubbish has disappeared, so has the toilet bowl that was still there on my last visit six years ago. The pile of mud and ash resulting from Pol Pot's funeral pyre and which sits under a rusty corrugated tin roof, has also reduced in size since I was last there, I'm told because lottery-ticket buyers have sought his bone fragments as lucky charms. Nearby a bundle of incense sticks and a neatly carved spirit house suggest his shrine receives visitors willing to revere his memory. It's hard to understand why, when this one man presided over the worst period in Cambodia's history that cost around 1.7 million lives in less than four years of Khmer Rouge rule. The site is easy to find as you arrive at the top of the escarpment and head towards the border crossing with Thailand, lying behind a newly-constructed guesthouse called Lichen. There was nobody tending the cremation site which seemed apt that the man responsible for Cambodia's darkest hour should be all alone in death.

The path heads towards Pol Pot's gravesite

A sign announces Pol Pot's cremation area

A spirit house stands near to the cremation mound

Flowers and incense sticks suggest the gravesite is tended to by visitors

A rusting corrugated tin roof covers the rapidly-disappearing grave

The spirit house and cremation mound of Pol Pot

The unremarkable and nondescript gravesite of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot

Bottles demarcate the edge of the funeral mound with flowers sprouting nearbyThe funeral mound of mud and ash looks like a strong wind could carry it away forever

A blue Ministry of Tourism sign announces 'Pol Pot Was Cremated Here'

One last look at the funeral site of the evil Khmer Rouge dictator, Pol Pot