One of the things that sets dark tourism spots apart is the surreal feeling when you reach them. No tourists, few signs and a feeling that you can only get knowing something or someone ghastly has appeared on this spot sometime back in history. When it came to being surreal, the grave of Pol Pot ticked […]

Anlong Veng was the last capital of the last Khmer Rouge state and as such has a lot of Khmer Rouge based tourist attractions, such as the house of Ta Mok, the mass grave of Son Sen, and the death site of Pol Pot. It is here that you will also find the Bunker of […]

Today (April 15th) marks the anniversary of the death of Pol Pot one of the most feared and ruthless leaders of the 20th century. Table of Contents Biography of Pol Pot Democratic Kampuchea Why did the Khmer Rouge lose power? Khmer Rouge Insurgency Pol Pot and the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea Pol Pot in […]

Once a secretive testing ground for Soviet nuclear weapons, the Polygon now stands as a haunting reminder of humanity’s atomic ambitions. But what is it? And why visit it? What is the Polygon Nuclear Test Site? The Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) or more commonly known “Polygon Nuclear Test Site” was once a nuclear testing ground for […]

With Vietnam and Cambodia both being firm favorites on the YPT calendar we are always looking not just for new destinations, but also new border crossings. With this in mind we present Kampot to Phu Quoc, the largest island within Vietnam. And whilst we do not yet currently offer this as part of a group […]

by Andy Khong Chongqing, officially known as Chongqing Municipality, is a major city and administrative region in south-western China. It is situated at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers and is one of the country’s four direct-controlled municipalities, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. [Chongqing (Pinyin Romanization) is pronounced “Choong-Ching”; it was formerly […]

by Andy Khong The Mesopotamian Marshes (also referred to as the Iraqi Marshes, or Al-Ahwar in Arabic), are a wetland region located in southern Iraq recognized for their unique beauty and ecological importance; historically stretched up to 20,000 square kilometers (7,750 square miles) in the floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Anthropologists believe this […]

When you think about Iraq, what comes to mind? For many, the image is bleak. Over the last few centuries, this region has become synonymous with war, terrorism, Saddam Hussein, desert, and a whole lot of oil. But amidst the chaos and bad news stories is a natural oasis, the location of the garden of […]

If you live in Cambodia you will know there’s a monument to the win-win policy, as well as a national holiday to celebrate it, but what was the win-win policy and what is its legacy today?  Prelude the Cambodian Civil War The Cambodian Civil War of the 1980’s was one of the strangest and perverse […]

Your name is your ancestry, but what if that name is Hitler, Stalin, or Mao? YPT take a look at the decedents of despots, what they are doing now and whether they relish, or recoil from their family’s past. This list consists of seven of the best descendants of despots… For now. After all, we […]