Tourists for the Weekend
On Saturday (after Jonny finally relented from my non-stop pestering - we couldn't come all this way to Asia and not see the animals!) we set off for the day to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, which is 25 miles south of Phnom Penh. Over about 6,000 acres, Wildlife Alliance cares for and rehabilitates something like 1,200 animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. The animals that we saw had either been terribly mistreated, were highly endangered and at risk of poaching for their furs or skins, or had been rescued just in time by police from poachers (such as the aptly named Lucky the elephant).
We chose to have a guided tour for the day as there is very little signage at the centre (it's not a zoo!) which was a great decision. Sam was a hilarious Khmer woman who provided lots of entertainment as well as knowing many of the animal's names and personalities. One gibbon turned out to be partial to a back scratch, offering his back for a little massage! When Sam said 'sexy leg' he'd extend his little leg out of his enclosure for more scratching!
We'd stopped on the way in at a little market to buy some bananas and peanuts for the animals, and this was just as well as the whole site was overrun by little families of monkeys, who would follow us around incessantly wanting more treats.
By lunchtime we were pretty exhausted by the heat, and right on time were offered some hammocks to lounge around in for a while. We were brought a delicious Khmer lunch to share with our (lovely) tour group including sweet and sour vegetables, Cambodian chicken curry, and frogs (only Jonny was brave enough to try these).
Being a huge lover of elephants (read 'Leaving Time' by Jodi Picoult if you haven't before!) and yet never having seen one in real life before, Amy's highlight of the day had to be saying hello to Lucky the elephant, who was graceful, majestic, and cheeky!
We'd never seen lions as close up before as we did here. A family group of two brothers and a sister playfought together and watched us curiously right by the fence. When Amy walked along the side of the enclosure, one followed, which soon turned into a running game with the lions running alongside and mimicking Amy's changes of direction. To interact with big cats was amazing.
Unfortunately the conservation centre was a haven for mosquitoes, and Amy got some nasty ones on her legs despite being covered with jungle formula insect repellent and wearing long trousers - how?!
Whilst we had such a fun and uplifting day at the sanctuary, travelling there and back through a more rural area of Cambodia was a different experience. The infrastructure falls away as soon as you leave the city, with one dusty road leading to the south, and little more than tin shacks and stalls lining the sides of the road, becoming more and more sparse the further out you go. Much of the ground turns to marshland and homes become raised on poles. Whilst poverty is so evident in the city centre, it is all the more obvious out here. The poverty seems more helpless somehow as there is absolutely no scope for employment or trade. Rickety, fly-ridden stalls set up miles away from anyone on a fairly high-speed road makes you wonder how (or if) they get any custom at all. In steps garment factories. It makes it all the more obvious why people 'choose' to work in these places (aside from the massive debt issue for many families in Cambodia). Despite my (Jonny's) pestering this time, we could not get too close to the factories themselves but the glimpses we did meant that we got the idea. Vehicles ferrying workers out of the factory at closing time made me promise to myself that for a good 2 weeks I would not complain about being cramped on my train into London. There must have been 50 odd workers all standing in the back of one very average-sized truck. Fills you with confidence that the conditions inside the factory are tip-top...
We knew we couldn't stay in Phnom Penh for this long without taking the time to go to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It's not exactly a visit to look forward to, but with so much of the city's recent (incredibly) recent history tied up here, we wanted to feel a bit more educated about the atrocities so headed there on Sunday. The Museum is actually the site of a former high school used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime, where an estimated 17,000 people from all walks of life were tortured and murdered. It doesn't feel as though the place has changed much at all since the regime fell in 1979; it's truly harrowing and heartbreaking to walk around and see the cells, the chains, and the photos as people were 'admitted'. It's very much set up as a place to honour and remember the victims, and to acknowledge what happened with the hope that nothing like it will happen again.
We chose to have a guided tour for the day as there is very little signage at the centre (it's not a zoo!) which was a great decision. Sam was a hilarious Khmer woman who provided lots of entertainment as well as knowing many of the animal's names and personalities. One gibbon turned out to be partial to a back scratch, offering his back for a little massage! When Sam said 'sexy leg' he'd extend his little leg out of his enclosure for more scratching!
We'd stopped on the way in at a little market to buy some bananas and peanuts for the animals, and this was just as well as the whole site was overrun by little families of monkeys, who would follow us around incessantly wanting more treats.
By lunchtime we were pretty exhausted by the heat, and right on time were offered some hammocks to lounge around in for a while. We were brought a delicious Khmer lunch to share with our (lovely) tour group including sweet and sour vegetables, Cambodian chicken curry, and frogs (only Jonny was brave enough to try these).
Being a huge lover of elephants (read 'Leaving Time' by Jodi Picoult if you haven't before!) and yet never having seen one in real life before, Amy's highlight of the day had to be saying hello to Lucky the elephant, who was graceful, majestic, and cheeky!
We'd never seen lions as close up before as we did here. A family group of two brothers and a sister playfought together and watched us curiously right by the fence. When Amy walked along the side of the enclosure, one followed, which soon turned into a running game with the lions running alongside and mimicking Amy's changes of direction. To interact with big cats was amazing.
Unfortunately the conservation centre was a haven for mosquitoes, and Amy got some nasty ones on her legs despite being covered with jungle formula insect repellent and wearing long trousers - how?!
Whilst we had such a fun and uplifting day at the sanctuary, travelling there and back through a more rural area of Cambodia was a different experience. The infrastructure falls away as soon as you leave the city, with one dusty road leading to the south, and little more than tin shacks and stalls lining the sides of the road, becoming more and more sparse the further out you go. Much of the ground turns to marshland and homes become raised on poles. Whilst poverty is so evident in the city centre, it is all the more obvious out here. The poverty seems more helpless somehow as there is absolutely no scope for employment or trade. Rickety, fly-ridden stalls set up miles away from anyone on a fairly high-speed road makes you wonder how (or if) they get any custom at all. In steps garment factories. It makes it all the more obvious why people 'choose' to work in these places (aside from the massive debt issue for many families in Cambodia). Despite my (Jonny's) pestering this time, we could not get too close to the factories themselves but the glimpses we did meant that we got the idea. Vehicles ferrying workers out of the factory at closing time made me promise to myself that for a good 2 weeks I would not complain about being cramped on my train into London. There must have been 50 odd workers all standing in the back of one very average-sized truck. Fills you with confidence that the conditions inside the factory are tip-top...
We knew we couldn't stay in Phnom Penh for this long without taking the time to go to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It's not exactly a visit to look forward to, but with so much of the city's recent (incredibly) recent history tied up here, we wanted to feel a bit more educated about the atrocities so headed there on Sunday. The Museum is actually the site of a former high school used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime, where an estimated 17,000 people from all walks of life were tortured and murdered. It doesn't feel as though the place has changed much at all since the regime fell in 1979; it's truly harrowing and heartbreaking to walk around and see the cells, the chains, and the photos as people were 'admitted'. It's very much set up as a place to honour and remember the victims, and to acknowledge what happened with the hope that nothing like it will happen again.
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