Phnom Penh, and how we place Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek
Two of the most important places in Cambodia are a former school and a former orchard on the edge of Phnom Penh. Visiting Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek is not something we would leave out of a Cambodia itinerary, and it is not something we would drop into a week without thought either. Where those hours
This article is about that placement, and about what the visit is actually like, written plainly and without embellishment.
The history, briefly
Between April 1975 and January 1979 the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia’s cities, abolished money, schools and religion, and attempted to remake the country as an agrarian state. Roughly a quarter of the population, on the most widely cited estimates, died from execution, starvation, forced labour and untreated disease. Most Cambodians you meet are connected to that period directly, through a parent or a grandparent. It ended less than fifty years ago.
A joint Cambodian and international tribunal sat in Phnom Penh for many years and convicted a small number of senior figures. Cambodians disagree, openly and reasonably, about whether that was justice or a formality.
You do not need to arrive knowing more than that. A good guide will fill in the rest, and the sites themselves are careful with their own history.
Tuol Sleng, S-21
Tuol Sleng was a secondary school in a residential district. In 1975 it became Security Prison 21, the central interrogation centre of the regime. Somewhere between twelve and twenty thousand people were held there. A very small number survived.
The buildings have been left largely as they were found. Classrooms with tiled floors and iron beds. Cells subdivided with rough brick. The exercise frame in the yard. Rooms of photographs, because the prison photographed everyone who entered, and those faces, several thousand of them, are the reason people remember the place.
What the visit is like. Quiet. Most visitors say very little for two hours. The audio guide is one of the best of its kind anywhere and is narrated in part by survivors, and we recommend it over a guide talking beside you, because it lets you set your own pace and stop when you need to. Allow two hours. There is a garden at the back where people sit afterwards, and most do.
In recent years one or two survivors have often been present at the site, sitting with their memoirs. Whether they are there on a given day varies, and we do not treat their presence as part of a tour or as something to be arranged. If you meet them, meet them as you would anyone.
Photography is restricted in parts of the museum and the restrictions are signed. The straightforward approach is to take very few photographs anywhere in the building.
Choeung Ek
Choeung Ek is about 9 miles (15 km) south of the city, roughly 40 minutes each way in traffic. It was an orchard and a Chinese cemetery before it became the place where most of those held at S-21 were taken. It is one of several hundred such sites across the country. It is the one that has been made into a memorial.
Today it is a quiet field with a lake, footpaths and the shallow depressions left where mass graves were exhumed. A memorial stupa in the centre holds several thousand skulls behind glass, arranged and labelled. After heavy rain, fragments of bone and cloth still work their way to the surface of the paths, and there are signs asking you to stay off certain ground for that reason.
What the visit is like. Less confronting than Tuol Sleng in some ways and harder in others. The audio guide here is again excellent, with survivor testimony and a section of music at the end that most people sit down for. Allow ninety minutes including the drive time at each end.
Cambodians visit as mourners. Behave as you would in a cemetery at home: quiet voices, covered shoulders and knees, phones away, and no photographs of the stupa interior beyond what feels respectful to you.
How we place them in a week
These are the rules our consultants apply to every Cambodia itinerary, and they exist because we have watched what happens when they are ignored.
Both sites on the same morning, in this order. Tuol Sleng first, then Choeung Ek. The chronology matches and the second site is the quieter of the two, which is the better way round to end.
Keep the afternoon light and unstructured. No museum, no temple, no long drive. A slow lunch, the riverfront, a swim. Most people want to be quiet for a few hours and then want company.
Never on a departure day. Flying out of the country three hours after Choeung Ek is a poor way to end a holiday.
Never immediately before a beach or island transfer. The gear change is jarring and it damages both halves.
Not on the first morning of the trip either. Arrive, sleep, see the city and eat well, then go. Context helps.
Give Phnom Penh two nights rather than one. This is the single most useful change we make to most draft itineraries. One night forces the hard morning against a travel day. Two nights gives it somewhere to sit.
With children
We take this seriously and we discuss it properly with every family rather than putting it in a document and hoping.
With younger children we do not include the sites. We build an alternative morning, and where the adults want to go, we arrange for one to visit while the other is with the children, on separate mornings if both want to.
With teenagers we brief them beforehand, tell them honestly what is displayed, including photographs of victims, and let them opt out on the day with no pressure. Some are ready and take a great deal from it. Some are not. Both answers are fine, and our Cambodia with children article goes into the age-by-age detail.
The rest of Phnom Penh, which deserves the second day
Phnom Penh is not only these two sites and it would be a poor trip that treated it that way. It is a river city that has changed enormously in a decade and it is now one of the better places to eat in Southeast Asia.
The National Museum holds the pre-Angkorian and Angkorian sculpture that gives the temples their context, in a beautiful terracotta building around a courtyard. An hour and a half, and best before you go to Angkor rather than after.
The Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, with a floor of five thousand silver tiles, in the morning before the heat. Shoulders and knees covered, and it closes over lunch.
Wat Phnom, the small hill temple the city is named after, and the riverfront at dusk, when the whole city walks.
The Russian Market for eating and for the workshops in the streets around it, and the Central Market for the architecture as much as the goods.
Dinner, which is where Phnom Penh has moved fastest: a serious modern Khmer scene at $30 to $60 a head, and superb street eating for a tenth of that.
Two nights carries all of this alongside the memorial morning, and that is how our classic Cambodia route is built.
Plan this trip
Tell us your dates and we will build a Cambodia route with the difficult day in the right place and the rest of the week around it. Free first outline, no obligation.
Keep reading
- Cambodia, the complete guide to planning your trip
- Cambodia with children: what works, what does not
- Cambodia for the first time
- Cambodia beyond Angkor: Battambang, Kampot and the coast
- Classic Cambodia in 9 days
- All our Cambodia trips
Frequently asked questions
Should we visit at all?
Guide or audio guide?
How long do we need?
Is there an entrance fee?
Can we do both in an afternoon instead?
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