IT WAS MY third night eating at the Dead Fish Tower, and I was still wholly enamored with the crocodile pond. Sure, the little lizards were really just babies – measuring only three feet long – but that malevolent look in their dragon eyes kept luring me away from my meal to watch them, spellbound.

"One of them escaped this morning," my waiter said, laughing. "We found it by the massage table."

Two weeks into my trip, and Cambodia was still taking me by surprise. As I hung out in the Dead Fish Tower – with its blind piano player, phenomenal food, and pool full of deadly reptiles – it seemed no small irony that the remote city of Siem Reap boasted a long list of first-rate bars and restaurants easily on par with the offerings in stateside hipster destinations like SoMa and SoHo. Even the humor and spirit demonstrated by locals seemed considerable in a city where, just a few years earlier, heavily armed tanks had rumbled through the streets and locals had kept indoors after dark.

Spend enough time in Cambodia and you're likely to notice that it's a country hinged on paradox. Teetering between the staggering beauty of Siem Reap's Angkor Wat temples and the chilling horror of the killing fields, it's a showcase in the furthest extremes of the human condition.

In the capital city of Phnom Penh, the streets are busy with an up-from-the-ashes energy that's frequently contrasted by lingering reminders of decades of continuous warfare. The scenic riverside esplanade along the Mekong is lined with palm trees and populated by one-legged land-mine victims begging for change. The aging colonial French architecture is majestic, but occasionally pocked with bullet holes. Standing outside the city's central market, amid the frantic late-afternoon bustle, one overlooks streets once left desolate after the Khmer Rouge evacuated the entire city to rural "reeducation" camps during the spring of 1975.

The history that ensued is one of modern humanity's darkest chapters, and the nearby site of the Khmer Rouge's killing fields is a haunting reminder of the atrocity. Still, it was my visit to Tuol Sleng – the genocide museum – that put the twisted legacy into perspective.

Housed in a small elementary school on a quiet side street, Tuol Sleng was employed by the Khmer Rouge as an interrogation site for the many "foes of the revolution." In the end, neither the case of human skulls nor the grisly torture instruments on display proved most disturbing. Rather, it was the sizable gallery of prisoner portraits taken by the Khmer Rouge to catalog their extermination efforts.

Later, back on the streets with my hired driver, the expressions from the Tuol Sleng photographs lingered in my memory. It wasn't just their stark emotion, but also their ready resemblance to the Khmer people I was now interacting with. It is likely, after all, that anyone in the city over the age of 30 has firm memories of the Khmer Rouge's rule, having managed to survive it somehow. A cheerful 29-year-old, my driver recounted that his family had been fairly lucky: He'd lost "only" a brother and an uncle.

The experience of Tuol Sleng, in Phnom Penh, stood in sharp contrast to my time touring Angkor Wat, in Siem Reap. Rather than gasps of horror, the site provoked slack-jawed looks of wonder toward the stunning ancient temples that seemed to defy the technological limitations of the era when they were built (9th to 14th century). Other than the Great Pyramids of Giza, it was hard to think of another human-made monument that could rival this awe-inspiring spectacle on the edge of the Cambodian jungle.

At present, the temples play a key role in generating much-needed income for the Khmer people. Angkor Wat is now one of the premier destinations in Asia, anchoring Siem Reap's compelling collision of ancient ruins, century-old French architecture, cool expat enterprise, and idyllic charm. And locals speak of the temples as a source of tremendous national pride and identity, a reflection of where the Khmer people come from and what they are capable of accomplishing.

For a traveler touring the sites of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, the disparity could not be more distinct. Yet it is hard to tell which legacy overshadows the other. The upbeat spirit of a people enthusiastically embracing a life free from warfare is enough to inspire optimism for their country.

Still, I have to wonder if 25 years from now, travelers will tour the remains of Abu Ghraib while en route to see the ancient ruins of Mesopotamia. As a nation, the Khmer people are anxious to finally move forward, while humanity has fit Cambodias onto the map.

Charles Russo is a San Francisco writer and photographer. Reach him at truent23{at}hotmail{dot}com.

Trip planner

Flights Join Us Travel (450 Geary, SF. 415-292-9660) has excellent rates for flights to Asia. Book ahead.

When to go The weather in the dry season (December to April) is more conducive to traveling, while the wet season (May to November) brings out the lush jungle atmosphere of the Cambodian landscape. November visitors can arrive on time for the Bon Om Tuk holiday, which celebrates the remarkable reversal of currents on the Tonle Sap River.