A trip to the zoo

Hey!

So a few weeks back i got an email from Tess asking if I wanted to meet up with Banno and Alanna (some peoples from Oz) as they would be in Phnom Penh on holiday. Eager to have visitors I headed up to meet them. I thought I would tie it in with brekkie with Vannak (one of the ex drivers here i stay in contact with) so that added up to an unholy 5am start from Kampong Speu on a Sunday!

Anyway the long and the short of it is we ended up at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary in Takeo Province. When they suggested I was a little bit I can't be assed going (cos its about 30km away) but I am so glad they convinced me to go cos its been on my to do list for a while (I just lurve zoos!)

So we hired a taxi and set out. The place was set up as a place for animals rescued from trafficking or exploitation to be able to live. There used to be tonnes of mini-zoos in Cambodia with really appalling conditions or animals were poached (sun bears, elephants, tigers etc.) mainly for traditional Chinese medicine.

The first part is a kind of open air enclosure where birds and deer kind of roam around and other animals are in smaller enclosures inside of it...Nice!
Oh and this is what a Mongoose looks like! ( I must expect for its reputation for eating Cobras I was a little underwhelmed!)
And this deer spent its days fighting a branch... i wonder who won in the end?
And just like most Asian zoos there was the old jabbing animals with sticks or selling food to you to give to them, take these otters lined up watching the woman selling fish a few cm away. Still at least there was no smoking monkey like in Ho Chi Minh.


There was also quite a cool Sun bear exhibit set up by some Australian lady. From what I understand Sub Bear bile is used in chinese traditional medicine so they spend their whole lives stuck in small cages with catheters. And they are so darn cute!
It was at this point our self appointed guide (gotta love em) was attempted to be hustled out of being our guide by some older kids (so they could get the tip) but luckily my crappy Khmer was good enough to figure out what was going on and insist we keep the little guy. Awww


The tigers were great...


As were the elephants.


This little one had its foot removed from some reason (probably by poachers or he was caught in a trap or something).


This elephant was a mighty angry one (probably with good reason). Our guide took us round the back of the enclosure to see this one locked up by its own and there was a sign about five metres from the actual fence saying don't go any further. So predictably we did and it raised up attempted to get over the fence and stomp on us. Me and the guide shit ourselves, Banno and Allana seemed pretty non-plussed. Got to wonder whats happened in its life to make it so angry...
Another Box Ticked!