- Join for free
- Sign In
Latest Phnom Penh hotel reviews
We spend more than a hour to understand what had happened in the country, the history. Buy a book at the entrance if you do not have a guide. Do stop at displayed reading materials and the sad story about the victims display. It was a sad history. Underage and older must be told first as the scene are all very horrible.
Updated Jan 30, 2012
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Helpfulness
This former high school became the main torture and interrogation centre for the Khmer Rouge and was the former S-21 Prison for individuals who were against the Angkor regime. Children between 10 and 15 years were selected and trained by the Khmer Rouge to work as guards and subsequently became cruel and disrespectful towards the prisoners. Many different nationalities from all over the country were taken prisoner here as well as their families and there were as many as 5,765 prisoners by 1978. Prisoners were shackled with chains or iron bars and were subjected to a harsh regime with many rules. The museum opened in 1980 after the fall of the Khmer rouge regime and you can see the torture rooms, photos and biographies of some of the prisoners and the cells. It is a place that some may find distressing, but is interesting nevertheless.
Updated Apr 4, 2011
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Phone: 855 23 300 698
Helpfulness
In 1975, Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21 (S-21). This soon became the largest centre of detention and torture in the country. Between the years 1975 and 1978, more than 17,000 people held at S-21 were taken to the extermination camp at Choeung Ek.
S-21 has been turned into the Tuol Sleng Museum which serves as a testament to the crime of the Khmer Rouge. It is usually possible to visit any time of day, despite the official opening hours (8am to 11:30am and 2pm to 5:30pm). It costs USD5 to take in a video camera. Admission is USD2.
Updated Apr 4, 2011
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Phone: Nil
Helpfulness
This is a well presented museum that shows the horrors of genocide. I have been to Auschwiz, but this place I rate more highly. It's thought out and informative... I was moved to silence as I walked thru.. A must see....
Updated Apr 4, 2011
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Former Khmer Rough Concentration Camp, Security Office 21 (S-21). During 1975-1979, innocents were tortured, interrogated & executed here. Their bodies would be buried at Choeung Ek mass grave.
After the liberation of Phnom Penh, only 7 survivors were found in Tuol Sleng.
Updated Apr 4, 2011
Phone: 855-23-300-698
Be prepared to feel, see, smell the horrors that happened here..
Between 1-2 million Cambodians and many thousands of foreigners were starved to death, tortured, or killed, during this reign of terror.
When the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979 the S-21 prison staff fled, leaving thousands of written and photographic records. Altogether more than 6,000 photographs were left; the majority, however, have been lost or destroyed.
Admission $2.00
Written Mar 12, 2011
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Website: tuolslengmuseum@online.com.kh
Helpfulness
This is the site of the S-21 dentention center. Once a school in the middle of the city it became in 1975 a center or torture and death.
For some horrific reason the Khmer Rouge deemed it necessary to photograph each victim before they were killed.
Today their face line the walls of the Museum and help us to visualize this sad a shameful time in History.
Admission $2.00
Written Feb 16, 2011
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Helpfulness
TUOL SLENG S21 I visted the "Tuol Sleng" Museum while in Phnom Penh and the Museum is part of ,and situated in the Genocide Prison that what was known as "Kampuchea Democratic Office number S 21" ..Created and put into operation by Pol Pot the so called Office of S 21 and was designated for the detention of people arrested , and who were mostly government workers and all of the educated population were detained by political police (soldiers) photographed, interrogated and then brutally tortured until a cofession was obtained ,these mostly completely innocent people that had been detained and for those who did not succumb to the torture were then killed either at S21 or taken by truck on the outskirts of the city to the notorious "killing fields" at Choeung Ek..
Set up on the seventeenth of April 1975 as a detention Centre for political prisoners this previously was the Tuol Sleng Primary School and also the Tuol Svay High School and had four major buildings that were designated A,B,C,D and most were divided up into different rooms for interogation and detention some were fitted with panneled windows to reduce the noise made by the prisoners while being tortured...
My arrival on a very wet and overcast day was to first see this grey walled prison with its barbed wire and previously having second thoughts of my visit here, I thought I knew what to expect but , was really amazed at the sense of forboding that I felt upon entering the gates and immediately looking at the surrounds I thought how different it was for me to just walk in and out , compared to the terror the detainees must have endured upon entering this frightening establishment..So many innocent men women and children..
The different buildings here are open for visitors and contain the photos of the many thousands that were detained and died here, some, just innocent travellers...backpackers and the like..so noticeable it is that this is an extremely eeriely quiet place and that while looking at all the different rooms of torture and the implements used, the many visitors that are here this day are all quietly in awe of their surroundings and noticeably disturbed by what they are viewing..A truly mind altering experience..Some 20,000 people died here.. A true view of mans inhumanity to man..
There is an admission fee of US $ 4.00..goes to aid museum upkeep and poor childrens education..
Updated Sep 30, 2010
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Phone: (+855) 023 216 045
Website: tuolslengmuseum@online.com.kh
Helpfulness
These are some photos of the tiny prison cells that were built in the former schools classrooms using bricks and wood fashioned into cell walls in a hurried fashion. A typical cell measures about 2ft wide by 5-6ft long. You'll also find passageways knocked through the interior walls from one classroom into another in order to provide access for the guards instead of using the external balconies.
Updated Jun 16, 2010
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Helpfulness
Security Prison 21 (S-21) or Tuol Sleng (meaning "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill") was the Khmer Rouge's primary interrogation and extermination centre, designed to purge anti-Khmer Rouge elements from the new society Pol Pot and his henchmen were hell-bent on creating. Before the 1975-79 regime, the building was the Chao Ponhea Yat High School, named after a Royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk. Smaller interrogation centres were scattered across Cambodia, but S-21 was by far the largest and most important. All of the classrooms were converted either to tiny prison cells or interrogation rooms, while the upper balconies were covered in barbed wire so that prisoners could not kill themselves by throwing themselves off.
Like the Nazis before them, the Khmer Rouge were meticulous in their record keeping, taking photos of every new arrival and painstakingly retaining detailed confessions made by prisoners. Many of these haunting photos are displayed in the museum along with torture equipment such as a water board where the prisoners legs were shackled to a bar, their wrists restrained to brackets and then water was poured over their face.
Up to 16,000 people were interred, tortured and eventually executed here or at the nearby killing fields. Victims included Khmers, Vietnamese, Laotians, Thais, Indians, Brits, Pakistanis, Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders and Australians. The vast majority, of course, were Khmer, and many were former Khmer Rouge themselves, victims of the regime's systematic and paranoid internal purges.
When the Vietnamese ousted the Pol Pot regime, they arrived in Phnom Penh far faster than expected and the authorities at S-21 barely had time to execute the last prisoners before fleeing. The first row of cells on the left as you enter the school have been left largely as found by the Vietnamese, including photos of the remains that were found in each cell. At the time, the Vietnamese kept S-21 largely as it was as a means to justify their invasion.
While it makes for a rather grim couple of hours, a visit to S-21 is an integral part of understanding what happened during the Khmer Rouge period.
Open: 7-11.30am & 2-5.30pm. Admission: $2.
Written May 2, 2010
Address: Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Sponsored Links
Raffles Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh
9 Reviews and 367 Opinions Raffles Hotel Le Royal is the premier hotel in Phnom Penh. The hotel was first established in 1929...
See all 126 Hotels in Phnom Penh
Sunway Hotel Phnom Penh Phnom Penh
7 Reviews and 176 Opinions Spent 2 1/2 weeks there this summer on business. The rooms are average and the decor is a tad...
See all 126 Hotels in Phnom Penh
Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor Phnom Penh
1 Review and 371 Opinions it is very near to the river fr0nt and the royal palace, not to mention near the stinky market....
See all 126 Hotels in Phnom Penh
Corner of Street 113 and Street 350
Tuol Sleng Museum tips and photos posted by real travelers and Phnom Penh locals.
Write a ReviewSecurity Prison 21 (S-21) or Tuol Sleng (meaning "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill") was the Khmer Rouge's primary interrogation and...
62 members live in Phnom Penh
Q: Hi! I found Mei Hua Guesthouse and am contemplating whether this is a good place to stay during my trip. It's at 27, Monivong...
A: Lilian, I am not familiar with the Mei Hua Guesthouse; however, my Cambodian friends told me that you need to be a little careful about the neighborhood by the lake. It...
Read 3 Replies
1
Phnom Penh offers a chaotic sensory assault with its odd mix of gentle Asian beauty and raucous Wild West sensibilities. From the clandestine tourist areas to the squalor of its backstreets, one is......
2
You can sit in the Foreign Correspondants Club, look out over the Tonle Sap river and think all is well. . A PROJECT WORTH SUPPORTING: Visual voices from Cambodia The British nonprofit PhotoVoice has...
3
Gary lived in Cambodia for a year back in the early nineties. So many many years later it was time to go back. That was my first visit. Since then we have been to Cambodia three times and will no...
4
Phnom Penh is named after the temple, Wat Phnom Daun Penh which was built after a wealthy widow Daun Penh found a hollow Koki tree with 4 Buddha statues inside it . She originally built a small temple...
5
Kingdom of Cambodia's Capitol City
Marc had been talking about Vietnam and Cambodia ever since we canceled Venezuela but as we looked into last minute flights it just didn’t seem financially possible. So we concentrated our efforts...
Build your own Phnom Penh page
Sponsored Links
