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| Lucky the Elephant |
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| Lucky with our guide |
Today we had a behind the scenes tour booked at Phnom Tamao
Wildlife Reserve, which is run in partnership by the Cambodian government and a
charity called Wildlife Alliance. The
park is not so much a zoo, as a habitat for rescued animals which have been
confiscated from their illegal owners.
Animal trafficking is a huge problem throughout Asia, and animals are
sold for food, as pets, or for traditional medicine. The centre exists not just to house these
animals and keep them alive after they have been confiscated, but also plays a
huge part in educating the Cambodian people about the animals, and why they
shouldn’t buy them for food or pets.
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| Having his prosthetic foot cleaned |
We were picked up by the centres van and headed out to the
bark, which is just over an hour out of Phnom Penh. Once we arrived at the park (which is a huge
area you have to drive around, not walk) we pulled over to the side of the
road, and where greeted by the sight of an elephant barrelling towards us and
trumpeting away, a pretty incredible sight I can assure you! This was our first meeting with Lucky the elephant,
who was rescued as an orphaned juvenile off poachers at six months old. She is a very friendly elephant, and the only
one at the park that visitors are allowed to interact with since she has been
with them so long. We had a big bunch of
sugar bananas and we were all given a few each to feed to Lucky for her morning
snack, which was again an amazing experience.
She is very comfortable around people, and was constantly sniffing us
with her trunk and searching around for more food. It was also great fun feeding her, and it was
interesting how agile she was with her trunk, able to manipulate each little
banana into the right spot and then pop it in her mouth.
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| Painting with Lucky |
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| More painting |
She started off taking one banana off each person, but then
realised it would be much more efficient if she added a couple more as well, so
by the end was taking one banana off three people, before popping then in her
gob, and this was just a snack! She apparently eats over 100kg of food per day! So after we finished stuffing Lucky with
Bananas and she wandered back off to finish her morning walk we headed on
further into the park. Our next stop was
to go and see the rest of the elephants, of which they have 6 in total,
including a couple of bulls and some more females. One of the elephants lost a foot in a snare,
so they have had a prosthetic foot made for him by one of the land mine hospitals,
so we got to watch him having his foot and stump cleaned. He gets around great on it, a little tender
but much better than he would have been without it.
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| A Tiger, just chilling |
After checking out all the other elephants (who don’t come
out of their enclosures as they are a bit unpredictable) we then met up with
Lucky again, who painted T-shirts for all of us while we wore them. This was pretty hilarious, and involves the
keeper giving lucky various colour paint brushes which she holds in her trunk,
and then paints up and down on the white t-shirt we were given to wear. She did get a little enthusiastic with mine,
and I ended up with a bright blue beard as well, but I forgave her. There is quite a sad history of elephants painting
in a lot of areas throughout Asia, where they are often beaten until they do
what the keepers want, however at Phnom Tmao they use only positive reinforcement
(food treats) and voice commands.
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| Big fat python |
From there we moved on to the tiger enclosures and again we
were able to head behind the scenes and had just some metal bars between us and
the tigers. It was amazing being so
close to such incredible creatures, they are enormous, and so beautiful! It did seem a bit sad that they were just
hanging on a concrete pad with metal bars, however they had open doors into
their enclosures, but apparently they prefer to escape onto the concrete in the
heat of the day, as its much cooler.
Fair enough, can’t say I blame them!
One of the tigers appeared to take a particular dislike to me, and every
time I came near it would raise its head and give me this incredibly intense
stare, as well as baring its teeth several times. Pretty bloody intimidating!
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| Mr & Mrs Gibbon |
From there we moved through to see several other exhibits,
including some enormous pythons, some deer, various birds, and some very
entertaining gibbons! I do love monkeys,
and while gibbons and I have a somewhat murky history, this was a pair that
loved to put on a show for people. It
was amazing watching them fling themselves around on their ropes, they are so
agile and never seem to miss a beat, they are also monogamous and mate for
life. After this there was a lovely lady
gibbon who was very friendly, and loves to get a scratch. She comes right up to the wire and hangs
backwards so you can put your hand in and give her a scratch, this monkey and I
seemed to get along a lot better, every time I stopped scratching her she would
look around as if to say, “no you’re not finished yet!”
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| Having a scratch |
From there we headed to the eating area which is a series of
little pagodas which you sit on the floor of to eat, there was a lovely breeze
coming through which was nice. Lunch was
traditional Cambodian but vegetarian, so a variety of rices, vegies and
noodles. Yummy, and very peaceful until
a tribe of macaques moved in and started warring over the leftovers, slightly less
peaceful and a little scary, so we decided to make a move.
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| Sharing our lunch |
From there we wandered through a few other enclosures which
had a variety of other animals including storks, deer, and sun bears as
well. It’s amazing to think that all
these animals have been rescued from somewhere, people can be so cold
sometimes, which is why the education aspect of the centre is so
important. From there we headed back
over to Lucky to join her on her afternoon walk. Again it was amazing just strolling along beside
such a magnificent creature, and it was great to watch her doing some foraging
as well. She was digging up tree roots with her feet, then pulling them up with
her trunk. It was amazing how delicate
she could be, holding down a root with her foot and peeling it up with her
trunk before eating it.
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| Baby Macaques |
Once Lucky was ready to head back, we wandered over to our
final stop for the day, the nursery centre where they keep the baby macaques,
as well as the hairy faced otter, the only one currently held in captivity in
the world. This is a little sad, as he
hasn’t got a mate to keep with him, and they are critically endangered in the
wild, so he is not likely to get one. We
were able to go into the enclosure with the baby macaques which are just
adorable, and once we loaded up on longans they were flying around the cage,
landing on everyone’s heads and shoulders, climbing all over as and just having
a great time in general. It was
hilarious, adorable, and I didn’t want to leave, but unfortunately we had to,
and headed back on the long journey to the hotel to wind down and start to
prepare for our departure the next day to Siem Reap.
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| More Lucky |
We caught the 12.30pm bus to Siem Reap the next day, after
lounging around the hotel and packing most of the morning, and I’m actually
writing this from the bus right now. The
journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap is around 350km and takes about 7 hours by
road. I’ll let you do the math, this is
a seriously slow trip. The road
condition is incredible, sometimes sealed, sometimes dirt, sometimes the pot
holes were so bad in the sealed section, our driver opted to drive in the dirt
beside the road. This is one of the
major national highways, and yet it is in probably the worst condition I have
ever seen a road.
The traffic is again
incredible, and we are constantly swerving back onto our side of the road, or
onto the other side depending on which is smoother, or what the oncoming
vehicles do.
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| Playing with the baby Macaques |
It certainly is an experience,
but at least it is air conditioned… Kind of…. We are about 3 and a half hours
away from Siem Reap now, and should be getting in at 7.30pm, I think the hotel
room will be an even more welcome sight than when we were sick! But it is still
a fun part of the adventure, and a great way to see parts of the country we
never would have otherwise, even if it’s just driving past.
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| More playing with babies |
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| Getting a grooming |
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