Today we had an included tour of Phnom Penh. First we were heading to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda.

From here we continued to the Independence Monument and then to the darkest reminder of Cambodian history – the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

This place used to be a high school – however in 1975 it was taken over by Pol Pot’s forces and turned into Security Prison 21 (S-21) – or the biggest of the Khmer Rouge’s torture and detention centers. More than 17000 people passed through S21 in the period from 1975 to 1978 – before finally being killed in the Killing Fields (or extermination camp) of Choeung Ek. The killing fields were then the our final stop of the tour – understandably the group mood had turned somewhat depressive – which we had to cure of at the Foreign Correspondents Club.