Tuol Sleng

I arrived to Phnom Penh exactly three months ago by bus from Siem Reap. It is a five hour bus ride and they show movies along the way. I usually enjoy films but on this particular bus ride, they showed Zombie movies, a Khmer favourite. I had never seen a zombie movie before, did not in fact know it was a distinct genre, and I am now quite certain I never want to see another. Only marginally better were the karaoke videos played during intermission, at full volume.

When I got to town, I caught a tuk-tuk to the Boddhi Tree Hotel Umma. It is a lovely hotel, with a spacious garden restaurant and large airy rooms. But it is best known for its location. It sits directly across the street from S-21, the former Khmer Rouge prison known now as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where thousands of Cambodians were detained and tortured in the mid to late seventies.

The site is a former high school, comprised of four three-story buildings and a large central courtyard. Today, visitors can walk through the buildings and see the small cells where people lived for months at a time. The fourth building, Building D, is filled with graphic photos of the dead. It is not for the faint of heart.

It took me three months to find the courage to visit this place, as I had heard stories about how awful and disturbing it was. But what struck me most about Tuol Sleng was not the barbed wire, the cage-like rooms, or the photos. It was the silence: It is the most peaceful place in town.