Latagaw Diaries: Toul Sleng Genocide Museum

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum, chronicling genocide, in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol Sleng means "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill". Tuol Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centers in the country, and as many as 20,000 prisoners there were later killed.

Warning: This tour is not for the faint hearted. We started out the tour with a group of three-Ate Venus, Pramil and I but lost each other through the maze. So I just ran from one empty room to another because I was scaring myself and imagining dead people. 

Wear sturdy shoes and bring water.

My biggest regret is not hiring a tour guide to walk us through. Sometimes I'd pass a tour guide and eavesdrop. They have sad stories to tell and I wish I could have heard them all.

Fees:
Admission: 2 USD
Tour Guide: 6 USD

ENTRANCE:

BUILDING A:

A couple of rooms of just this and this and this plus some photos on the walls and some stuff to read.

Children pretending to be a nurse during a visit of foreign dignitaries to Cambodia.

Just a few of the thousands who suffered and died in this prison. No smiles for me on this trip.

BUILDING B:

Women plowing the field and pulling an ox cart.

BUILDING C:

Tiny prison cells.
Therre were made of either wood or bricks. 

BUILDING D:

Of everything related to torture and human suffering. Psychologically disturbing

Instrument of Torture: Used to drill the cranium.

Clothes of the victims.

THE COURTYARD:

The gallows. Prisoners are hung upside down and their head gets dunked into these large urns filled with urine (if I still remember right).

The graveyard.

Tour guides telling stories under the ylang-ylang trees.

The graveyard of those bodies found.

There were two survivors selling a book chronicling their stories.

And sprinklers for the hot weather!