S-21 Prison -Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum Tour and Killing Fields – Cheung Ek Genocidal Center

S-21 Prison – Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum

This site is a former secondary school used as security prison 21 during the Khmer Rouge Regime during 1975 to 1979 in Cambodia. This Cambodian Genocide was lead by Pol Pot. During his rule there was 167 such prisons and 343 killing fields. Nearly 3 million people , a quarter of Cambodian population is believed to be killed during this Genocide.

• 

• 

• 

It takes 1-2 hours to complete the tour of the 5 buildings of S-21 prison. You by an audio guide which comes at 6-8 USD and stop at point 1 and press respective buttons to listen to the history around the points. Likewise you visit every point and listen to audio to get more details.

Post your S-21 Prison tour, you eat something outside for lunch and then take a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields

Killing Fields – Cheung Ek Genocidal Center

Killing Fields or the Cheung Ek Genocidal Center is at 11 miles south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Here the Khmer Regime have executed 1 million plus people.

• 

• 

• 

A number of mass graves were discovered around these places post fall of Khmer Regime. They used killing tools , chemical infusion, smashing children against trees to kill.

• 

• 

• 

Now Cheung Ek is a memorial with a Buddhist Stupa of close to 10 meter high and filled with 5000 plus human skulls discovered from the nearby burial pits.

Take an audio guide tour at 6 USD and make sure you have 1 – 1.5 hours to listen to the audio at its designated points to understand the complete history.

In the evening, once you are back to your hotel/hostel after this tour, you will feel disturbed after viewing so many skulls and bones in a day and after listening to those horrifying stories, you would need to take a shower and then do some meditation or listen to some refreshing music to get over the negativity of the field visit