Phnom Tamao Animal Sanctuary

On Saturday I went to Phnom Tamao, a wildlife sanctuary about 30 miles outside Phnom Penh. It was an adventure.

We took a tuktuk (a motorcycle pulling a covered trailer) out there, it took about an hour and a half to get there. Most of the ride was fine, although there was a minor traffic jam where construction crews blocked half a bridge. About 25 miles out we turned onto a dirt road (just past the cattle breeding station) and it got very bumpy.

One weird bit was that one the dirt road into Phnom Tamao, there were people sitting all along the roadside. Some of them were waiving, but many were begging. It's weird in that a) it's just a road, no one's stopping; and b) there are so many that even if someone were to stop, they wouldn't stop fourteen times. I think maybe they were just workers in the rice paddies who sat on the road to take a break.

Also, some of the people on the roadside splashed water on the road in front of us, unclear why. Two possibilities we came up with are that either a) they're trying to provide a service (wetting the road so there's less dust) so you'll give them money; or b) they're wetting the road so there's less dust so it doesn't get in their eyes when someone drives by. But then why are they sitting on the side of a dirt road?

The last weird bit on the road: as we were driving along, we saw what looked like giant people standing in the road. It turned out to be performers with giant wooden puppet-costumes--two men stood inside the giant puppets and in their hands, they held large wooden hands. They sort of walked around while someone played a drum. We clearly had to stop for photos and to give them a few thousand riel.

Phnom Tamao is an animal sanctuary and zoo. A lot of animals are rescued from the black markets and others are injured by poachers, and many of them end up here. Many of the animals here, for one reason or another, cannot survive in the wild. The animals are in cages or fenced areas; you could walk through most of it, but it would take a long time and it's hot, so we had the tuk-tuk driver take us to the different areas, and then we walked around in each one.

At the entrance, a group of Cambodians started following us, most of them teenagers on bikes with coconuts. The idea is that you pay them 50 cents and they feed a coconut to the animals. This means they have to convince you 1) to ignore the signs saying "please don't feed the animals"; and 2) the zoo isn't feeding the animals. One conversation: "That bear is very thirsty." "He has a bowl of water." "He doesn't want that, he wants the coconut water." Also they would hold the coconuts just out of reach of the animals so the animals would stretch for them. It didn't seem very nice.

The first area had otters (which are surprisingly aggressive), a bunch of slow lorises, and sun bears. Actually, every area had sun bears--they're frequently sold on the black market and there's an NGO that rescues them, so the sanctuaries are filled with them. Sun bears are the smallest bears in the family, and they're really cute--little brown bears with golden chests.

We also saw a lion and a moon bear (asiatic black bear). Moon bears have the misfortune to have a liver secretion that is prized by traditional Chinese medicine, so they're kept in tiny cages in horrible warehouses while their livers are milked, sometimes for years before they die. Some estimate that there are more than 200 moon bear farms in China.

There were also tigers, a mini-crocodile, and a lion, though the lion was hiding. Also many monkeys, most of which were in the cage, but we did see one that had somehow escaped from the cage and really wanted to get back in. Or I guess he could have been a wild monkey that wanted some food. Then we passed what the map billed as a "minority village", presumably a village built in a style used by one of the ethnic minorities of Cambodia. We didn't go in, it was a little much.

The best part was the elephants. There were a bunch and at first they were just standing around, but they eventually got curious about us and walked out. We were maybe five feet away, and since their trunks are about four feet long, that almost worked out well. One of them threw a stick at us, so we had to be a little careful.

Next stop was the bird area. Besides bald eagles and falcons, there were... pigeons. Urban pigeons. Yes, the dirty grey ones you see on the streets of New York, only these had somehow tricked a zoo into feeding them. They looked so smug. Also there were awesome-looking giant bats.

Finally, we went to an area where you can walk among some animals. There were some very large deer with giant horns--at one point I thought a deer was going to charge me, but then a local boy walked over, pushed its head down, and scratched its ears. Thinking the animals were all so tame, I walked up to a monkey and tried to take its photo. Mistake. The thing bared its fangs, growled, and flared up to attack--the locals ran over and got between me and it, and I backed away very quickly.

In the enclosure were some crocodiles, but they were fenced off--the fence didn't really seem like enough to stop a hungry crocodile, but the locals didn't seem to be afraid. Given how close they were, in retrospect, I should have checked whether they had all their fingers.

Then there were some birds, some very ugly, some less so. Confusingly, some of the birds were free to fly around, while others were inside a large net tent, and there seemed to be no major difference between the groups. A few of the outside birds were trying to get in.

I had brought a baguette and some water for the trip, but when we got back to the tuk-tuk, we discovered that a monkey had stolen the baguette and our driver's bag of peanuts. I had the bread in a plastic bag with a knot at the top, but I guess knots are no match for monkeys. At least it didn't take my water.

The ride back from Phnom Tamao was exciting. I got to try two new foods: The first was palm fruit, which I suppose is the fruit of the palm tree. The fruit looks like a large nut or small brown coconut, the inside is a little white spheroid. It's pretty much flavorless, which I guess is the reason why these things are usually made into wine rather than eaten. The second was roast frog, which was for sale all along the road. The frogs are very large, barbecued, and stuffed with frog meat and some other unidentifiable stuff that included peanuts and herbs. It was pretty good, but not very meaty, the best part was the skin.

A truck filled with large sacks went by. We were surrounded by rice paddies in a rice-based economy where the principle profession is rice farming and most people get most of their calories from rice, so of course I thought it was a pillow truck. I think I spent too much time in the sun.