Killing Fields & Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Tour Phnom Penh

Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre: the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh

Choeung Ek lies about fifteen kilometres south of central Phnom Penh, a former Chinese cemetery and orchard that the Khmer Rouge used as an execution ground for prisoners brought from Tuol Sleng and other centres between 1975 and 1979. Today it is a quiet memorial park of grass, trees and shallow depressions where mass graves were excavated, with signs and a small museum that explain what happened here. A Killing Fields tour from Phnom Penh usually starts with this site, because it puts the whole story in order before you see the prison in the city.

The drive from the riverside takes about forty minutes through the southern suburbs. Choeung Ek opens daily from early morning until late afternoon; the entrance ticket is paid at the gate and includes an audio guide in many languages, which you can use alongside our guide's explanations. Visitors are asked to dress modestly and speak quietly; most people spend about an hour here.

The memorial stupa and the walk around Choeung Ek

At the centre of the site rises a tall Buddhist stupa with glass sides, built in 1988 to hold the skulls and bones recovered from the graves, arranged by age and sex on shelves that reach many levels high. It is the emotional heart of the Killing Fields, and visitors remove their shoes and may leave a flower or incense at its base. Around it, a marked path leads past the former truck stop where prisoners arrived, the sites of the detention building and the chemical store, the mass graves and a tree with a sign that explains its history.

Our guide walks the path with you, stopping at each point, and gives you time alone where you want it. The site is flat and the walk is short, but the content is heavy; it is one of the most visited places in Cambodia precisely because it is told honestly. The Choeung Ek visit ends back at the vehicle for the drive to Tuol Sleng.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum: the former S21 prison

Tuol Sleng was a secondary school in a residential neighbourhood of southern Phnom Penh until 1975, when the Khmer Rouge turned it into Security Prison 21, the regime's main interrogation centre. Thousands of men, women and children passed through its classrooms, which were divided into cells and used for questioning, before being sent to Choeung Ek. The four school buildings still stand around a courtyard with frangipani trees, and the barbed wire on the balconies is the first thing visitors notice from the gate.

The S21 prison in Phnom Penh is now a museum of remembrance and a documentation centre. Our guide leads you through Building A with its interrogation rooms, Building B with its wall of photographs taken of prisoners on arrival, and the brick and wooden cells of Building C, explaining the record-keeping that makes this site so well documented. The visit takes about an hour and a quarter.

Visiting Tuol Sleng today: the museum, the survivors and the rules

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum opens daily from morning until late afternoon, with the entrance ticket paid on site; an audio guide is available and complements the guided visit. The museum holds the prison's archives, paintings by a former inmate and exhibitions on the trials of the regime's leaders, and in the courtyard there is a memorial to the victims. Some mornings one of the handful of survivors is present to sign books and meet visitors, which many guests find the most moving part of the day.

Photography is allowed in most areas but not of the portraits in close-up; shoulders and knees should be covered, and the museum asks for quiet. Children may enter, but parents should decide carefully, as the exhibits are explicit. Is Tuol Sleng worth visiting on a short stay? Together with Choeung Ek it is the one experience that most explains Cambodia, which is why this half-day tour is among the most booked activities in Phnom Penh.

Sisowath Quay: the riverside meeting point and the return

Guests whose hotel is not on the pickup list meet at 178 Sisowath Quay on the Phnom Penh riverside, the long promenade along the Tonle Sap river opposite the Royal Palace and the night market. It is the easiest address in the city to reach by tuk-tuk, and the riverside is a pleasant place to arrive early, with cafés, the river breeze and views of the boats. The morning tour meets at 07:45 and the afternoon tour at 12:45.

The tour returns to the same point, or to your hotel if you were picked up, about four hours after it began. Many travellers follow the morning tour with lunch on the riverside and a quieter afternoon at the Royal Palace or the National Museum, both within walking distance of the quay; the afternoon departure works well for anyone arriving in the city that morning.