Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh needs 2 days: the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda on one, and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek Killing Fields, testimonies to the Khmer Rouge regime, on the other. November-February brings the mildest, driest weather. It's inexpensive, among Southeast Asia's cheapest capitals. Between 1975 and 1979 it was completely emptied by the Pol Pot regime, which forced its entire population to march to the countryside in one of the most radical urban policies of the 20th century, and today its memorial sites are visited alongside the Royal Palace as part of the same historical circuit.