-AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPHER EDITOR JOURNALIST-
Michael Friis Johansen
Hidden City Cambodia
Divine inspiration
The Wat Phnom temple stands on an artificial hill on a site in central Phnom Penh that has been used for Buddhist worship for almost 700 years. The complex has been rebuilt several times, most recently in the 1920s, but it retains features from throughout its long history. It is still actively used for worship, but is also a popular tourist attraction. See photos.
Animal rescue
The Phnom Penh Animal Welfare Society (PPAWS) in Cambodia takes in hundreds of dogs and cats every year. Some are temporary residents brought in by their owners for medical treatment of some kind, but many have been rescued after being abandoned in the streets or at pagodas, like this blind kitten held by a visitor from Indonesia. See photos.
Necessary memories
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in central Phnom Penh has one major goal: To remember a horrific history so as to avoid repeating it. Built to be the Chao Ponhea Yat High School, when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1976 they turned the educational facility into a prison and over the next three years at least 20,000 people died inside its walls. Today it is a museum, preserved as near as possible to how it appeared in its prison days. Warning: Some pictures may be disturbing. See photos.
Riding the royal rails
Railway history was made in Southeast Asia on April 22 when the prime ministers of Cambodia and Thailand inaugurated the reopening of the line between the two countries, which had fallen into hopeless disrepair 45 years earlier. Cambodia's entire railway system had to be shut down by 2009, but since then the country has been steadily repairing old lines and putting them back into service for both freight and passengers. The Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville route was started back up in 2016. See photos.
Messing about in boats
Cambodia is a country of many rivers of all sizes that have been used by the Khmer people and their forebears for thousands of years. Here at two of the country's several river systems, where the historic Tonle Sap meets the mighty Mekong at Phnom Penh and the smaller Preaek Tuek Chhu River in the southeast, the waters are still used for work, for play, as highways and as places to live.