Silence. Hundreds of people. Asian Tourists. Western Tourists. The sort of folks who normally can’t help themselves from jabbering away. All silent. Here in the Killing Fields of Cambodia. This is our guide to visiting the specific sites of Phnom Penh’s Killing Fields, and the history related to that period of recent history. Cambodia is a stunning country to visit, with friendly people, and amazing value places to stay, but there’s also a dark history here, and it’s relatively modern history. And so when you visit Phnom Penh you should make time to see S21 and the Killing Fields, Phnom Penh’s dark and recent history.
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EASIEST WAY TO VISIT
There is no easy way to visit both of these sites, they are both incredibly dark and deep places to visit. This tour, however, makes the transport easy and provides a well-thought-through commentary and understanding.
That silence that I mentioned. It’s unique for a “tourist attraction”. And I hesitate to call this a tourist attraction because it’s actually a grave. These are the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
These locations are also a remembrance site for the more than two million Cambodians who were slaughtered in the country during Pol Pot’s time. The regime that Pol Pot headed, the Khmer Rouge was in control of Cambodia from 1975 until 1979 and during that time almost a quarter of the population was starved, executed, or died of disease. There are killing fields throughout the country, and more than 20,000 mass graves. The largest of the Cambodia Killing Fields was at Choeung Ek just outside Phnom Penh.
This is our guide to visiting the specific sites of Phnom Penh’s Killing Fields, if you’re looking for the best things to do in Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, then our guide is here.
We visited both Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek in both 2014 and 2023. And spent longer there on the second visit. We’ve taken the audio tour and we’ve also taken guided tours twice. I recommend both. I’ll explain why, then I get to the specific site and how to decide whether you take a guide who will talk you through it, or whether an audio guide is better.
First, though a little history to set the scene.
What the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia
Pol Pot and his regime, the Khmer Rouge, came into power in 1975. They abolished currency, religion, and private property and evacuated cities – moving people out of the cities to live off the land.
Dissidents were eliminated. One of the Khmer mantras was ‘To keep you is no benefit – to destroy you no loss,’. Intellectuals and the educated were killed early in the Khmer Rouge regime.
The Khmer Rouge were in power until 1979 when neighboring Vietnam invaded and the Khmer Rouge hid in exile. Pot was never tried for his crimes, although other high-level members of the Khmer Rouge were – 35 years after the fact – in 2014. The Washington Post’s write-up is sobering and reminds us why we should never forget Cambodia’s Killing Fields.
There are two sites in Phnom Penh where you can see what happened firsthand. And speak with those who were in Cambodia when this happened and hear their stories.
Mostly, though, listen to the silence of the more than 2 million men, women, and children who are no longer here
You should start by visiting the S21 Prison, also known as Tuol Sleng.
Klook.comTuol Sleng, aka the S21 Prison, Phnom Penh
This former secondary school still looks like a high school. It was converted into a prison in 1976 and given the name the S-21 prison. There are estimates that between 12,000 and 20,000 people were imprisoned here. Only 12 are known to have left here alive.
This was one of the main prisons for those who were on the opposing side of Pol Pot’s regime. And this didn’t mean that they had to actually have done anything at all. Perhaps they were just a teacher or a musician. Or the child of a teacher.
Prisoners were tortured here and confessed to crimes they didn’t commit, then they were transported to the Killing Fields and executed. At Tuol Sleng, you’ll see photos of some of those who were held here, and some of their guards too. Many were very young. On both sides of the conflict.
We recommend taking the audio tour while exploring the grounds, in addition to stories from survivors describing their horrifying experiences, it contains information on the museum and its exhibits. Alternatively, you can take a guide. Guides cost US$5 per person. And if you only have a short time to visit, it’s a good way to understand a little more.
When to take a guide at Tuol Sleng Prison
If you have limited time, then take a guide. Your tour around, with your guide, will take nearly 1 hour. You pay your guide with a donation of US$5 per person. And yes, you can ask any questions. We’ve taken a guide on both of our visits to Tuol Sleng. And it was a worthy spend, and an extremely interesting hour with the guide giving their own personal stories of S21 and the impact on their family.
When to take the Audio Guide at Tuol Sleng Prison
The audio guide goes into great detail about all of the areas of the Tuol Sleng Prison that you walk around. If you listen to all the main points and then listen to the “additional information” you’ll likely spend 2 hours listening to the Audio Guide. The audio guide is more in-depth if you have lots of time and a deep interest in Cambodian history and the Pol Pot regime.
We took a guide when we entered the prison.
The entrance to the prison is US$5 (2023) without an audio guide. It costs US$8 with an audio guide. You can share an audio guide if you take your own headphones.
A guide costs US$5 per person.
Our guide lost most of her family during the Pot regime, she still speaks of them with emotion and difficulty.
This prison was an old school, prior to Pot’s need for more prisons and education of a different type.
There are still blood stains on the concrete and tiled floors of some of the rooms that we visit.
I feel ghoulish looking at them, more so taking photos. What is this, that the main attraction of a city is where ordinary people were tortured to death?
It’s hard to speak, as I don’t know what to say. Words fail me.
There’s little by way of maintenance here. Curling signage, and old materials. It’s like we’re forgetting Cambodia’s tragic history, as we missed it happening in real-time.
It’s a place where prisoners were given numbers.
And when there weren’t enough numbers they were shared. This more than anything makes me cry. To not even be a number seems so unimaginable.
There were Westerners here too.
Australians, Americans, and a man, no more than a boy really, from Newcastle, England who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. John Dewhirst’s story is here:
How did I not know more about this? How did the world not know more of this? The borders were mainly closed. We didn’t have the Internet. TV wasn’t invasive in our lives.
And yet what has changed? How do I not know more about what is happening right now in Syria (when we were here in 2014), or Ukraine in 2023 for instance? History, it seems, doesn’t provide answers, just more questions and soul-searching.
You can combine visiting Tuol Sleng with a trip to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center – this half-day tour also provides transport between the two sites as well as an English-speaking guide. You can check availability here.
Klook.comHow long to spend at Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh
The first time we visited we spent about 60 minutes at Tuol Sleng. On our second visit in 2023, we spent nearly 2.5 hours here.
- Address of Tuol Sleng S-21 Prison: Phnom Penh, Khan Chamkar Mon, Cambodia
- Opening Hours of Tuol Sleng S-21 Prison: The S-21 Prison is open daily, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
- Entry Fees for Tuol Sleng S-21 Prison: The s-21 prison entry fee is $5 without an audio guide and $8 with an audio guide. Pay for a personal guide at Tuol Sleng with a US$5 donation per person.
If you’re heading on to Siem Reap, then the War Museum there covers more of the history of the Khmer Rouge and the civil conflict here in Cambodia. You can read more about it here.
If you’re on a tour, then your guide will take you straight to Choeung Ek after visiting Tuol Sleng. If you’re traveling independently, then you may wish to take a break and have lunch before heading out.
If you travel independently, then I recommend using the PassApp to hail a tuk-tuk to go out to Choeung Ek. you can read more about transport in Cambodia, including the PassApp in my guide to Cambodian Transport here.
The Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, Phnom Penh
Here, this place that we’re at, is the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. Just 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. On our first trip here we took a tuk-tuk that waited for us until we finished, before dropping us back in the city. Some folks take a final tour of the Russian Market, one of the famous markets to visit in Phnom Penh, but I don’t think we’ll be able to stomach anything else after this.
We also traveled independently on our second trip.
This is a hugely emotional place to visit, if you prefer to go with a guide, then this option will also take you to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum at the S21 Prison in Phnom Penh.
Our tickets to enter cost us US$6 each. We pay in dollars because here in Cambodia there’s a dual currency. ATMs dispense dollars and Cambodian rials, you pay mainly in dollars but small change is given in Cambodian rials.
The US$6 entrance fee includes an audio guide. It is narrated by survivors. It is the reason why there is very little noise here. Listen to it. It is immensely moving. And harrowing. And it reminds me of the narrated audio guide at Hellfire Pass in Northern Thailand.
This is an incredibly uncomfortable visit. It’s not a place for selfies. For videos. Its a place for introspection and listening. And hopefully, learning too.
Klook.comThis place, Choeung Ek is an immensely emotional place to visit and you won’t feel comfortable visiting.
Thousands of men, women, and children died here.
No, that’s wrong, they were slaughtered here.
There was no easy slipping away. They were murdered. And their bones still lie here. You’ll sometimes see some of them working their way up through the soil. You’ll walk over them.
This is a hard place to visit. It was harder, if not impossible to survive it.
There’s one way to visit and that’s silently. There are no loud, noisy tour guides here, there are simple-to-use audio guides with headsets.
The narration is harrowing.
The first-person survivor accounts will stun you to silence.
Partly as a result of the headset and audio guides, this place is horrifically peaceful. Guided through the various areas by the audio tour, the birds sing and the wind sweeps through the trees
But the screaming in my head grows louder the further I walk into the site.
The stupa containing the bones and skulls of victims doesn’t seem real.
It’s the voices on the audio that make it real. The signage gives details of the locations as we walk slowly around.
This, below, is the Killing Tree, where to save bullets, small children, and babies were swung by their legs and cracked against the tree to kill them.
And why? What damage could a babe in arms do?
What was the Khmer mantra to justify this?
“To kill the grass, one must also dig up the roots”
Two million people died in Cambodia. During Pol Pot’s regime.
How can this be just a page in a history book?
How can my consciousness not have not known more about this? I feel myself searching for excuses as to why I didn’t know.
I find none, that silence, the screaming.
This is the sound of the wind, blowing through the trees as we walk around the lake. It seems fitting that this, the sound of silence is my rebounding memory of visiting.
And we leave Choeung Ek in silence – and take the tuk-tuk back towards Phnom Penh. It hasn’t changed since I was here 9 years ago. The silent screaming is still so loud it threatens to deafen me.
The Choeung Ek Genocidal Center is approximately 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the center of Phnom Penh. To get there, take Monireth Blvd south-west out of town from the Dang Kor Market bus terminal, you can take a Tuk Tuk there.
- Address of Choeung Ek Genocidal Center: Choeung Ek Street, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- Opening Hours of Choeung Ek Genocidal Center: The Choeung Ek Killing Fields are open daily, from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm.
- Entry Fees for Choeung Ek Genocidal Center: The Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre entry fee is $6 per person, which includes headphones and a multilingual audio guide.
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Final Words on Visiting the Killing Fields Phnom Penh
Visiting the Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh are harrowing experiences that seem all the more pertinent to remember in today’s world. If you only know a little of the history here, as we did when we first visited, then the audio guides and local guides will explain more. These are difficult places to visit, but important to understand Cambodia.
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7 thoughts on “How to Visit The Killing Fields Phnom Penh’s Dark History”
Great entry, Sarah. I too didn’t know of the killing fields until I saw “The Year of Living Dangerously” and I asked myself the same question- but it is easy Sarah. In the West we live our lives, distracted by the normal routine of the day, and that’s the way it should be. To always be aware and thinking about the evil things taking place in the world we couldn’t function. It would contribute to the evil-doer’s victory.
How many nights do you suggest for PP? We are only interested in the sights you took in also.
We had 2 nights there – arrived mid afternoon on the first day, and got our bearings, spent the next day seeing everything we wanted to, stayed that night and left the following morning.
Thanks. I really appreciate the feedback. Although it is a must stop, I am reading that the safety conditions there for petty theft, dishonesty, etc have deteriorated over the last few years, so we are only planning on spending minimal time in PP. So one full day you can see the Killing Fields and Prison adequately you think? We are trying to fit Cambodia and Laos in two weeks, so every day counts.
We very much enjoyed (if you can call dark tourism enjoyable? but I’m sure you know what I mean..) our time in PP, but it was short. We picked up motorised tuktuks from outside our hotel, and booked them for the KIlling Fields and then from there onto the Prison. Went first to the KF, and did the full audio tour and a lttle bit longer there, then lunch, although we werent particular hungry, and then to the prison and back to hotel. We were back at hotel by say 330pm. It’s an emotionally draining experience, we normally take longer than most visitors around places, and generally go very slow at places like this, so yes both in the same day will be fine. It will be the transport between all your places in Cambodia and Laos that kills the time, the roads arent great, and while it might feel like your transport is going fast… its just the roads!
Thank you so much for this information.
Hi Sarah, I stumbled upon your page by pushing wrong keys. However I took a read into one of the countries you visited. (Cambodia)
I worked with a Cambodian woman in Australia of which we became very good friend On my leaving the job we planned to meet in 15 years time 2033 for a vacation to both our countries. Cambodia and New Zealand.
Im glad I visited this page I learnt lots about Cambodia I never knew thanks