Tuol Sleng Prison Phnom Penh

Photo: Mark BowyerTuol Sleng prison

Tuol Sleng is one of the most powerful museum experiences in Asia. Its power is founded in part on its subject matter - the monumental horrors of the Khmer Rouge - and in part in its understated efforts to shine a light on all of the strands in the Khmer Rouge story.

The museum's ground floor has two sections - the former torture chambers left largely unchanged since the arrival of Vietnamese troops that liberated Phnom Penh from the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and room after grim room of images of the faces of victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Upstairs, a more recent addition to the museum contains a simple exhibit that provides some background on who the Khmer Rouge were, the mix of historical forces that fueled their growth and most profoundly, the simple men, now mostly returned to their villages tending farms and grandchildren, who were the footsoldiers of the Khmer Rouge.

Photo: Mark BowyerUpstairs exhibit, Tuol Sleng Museum

17,000 prisoners were detained here during the four years of the Khmer Rouge reign. Most died either from torture here or from execution at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek 17 kilometres away. Many travellers choose to also visit the killing fields. For others, Tuol Sleng is enough. Certainly Tuol Sleng needs to be seen.

To read of the ghosts of Tuol Sleng and for a sense of the seemingly interminable delays in bringing Khmer Rouge leaders to justice, see Seth Mydans' 1999 piece from the New York Times here.