Our professional tour guide and driver are going to pick up you at the lobby of your hotel and transfer to visit Tuol Sleng S21 where it was the main political prison, and was where suspected enemies of Angkar were sent. As Pol Pot and the top commanders’ paranoia spiraled, so did the number of Cambodians detained here. Once inside, prisoners were either tortured to death or sent to nearby Choeung Ek for re-education – meaning execution. An estimated 12,273 were detained at S-21, with only seven known survivors.

Then, we travel out of town to the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek. Between 1975 and 1978, some 20,000 people held at S-21 were taken to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge leaders were meticulous in keeping records of their barbarism. Each prisoner who passed through S-21 was photographed, sometimes before and after torture. The museum displays include room after room of harrowing B&W photographs; virtually all of the men, women and children pictured were later killed. You can tell which year a picture was taken by the style of number-board that appears on the prisoner’s chest. Several foreigners from Australia, New Zealand and the USA were also held at S-21 before being murdered. Return to your hotel and drop off.