Where the Wild Things Are (Zoo Trip)

I often take adventures here that I would rather not take. Like the time I got my bicycle stolen, or the time a nurse told me it was my job to change a patient's catheter. But a trip to the Cambodian Zoo? That's an adventure I can take. The zoo is about an hour by tuk tuk (taxi cart pulled by a moto) outside the capital city, a is more like an animal preserve than a real zoo. There are usually not many people there, and it costs $5 for foreigners and 50 cents for locals. You can get a lot closer to the animals than you ever could back in the States, and overall the animals are a lot more active than back home.

We decided this was the perfect adventure to take my visiting friend Makenzie to see on Christmas Eve. We started with an exhibit where you can walk around inside a fence with large deer. It was a little scary as the wild monkeys started to follow us around and one of the deer started trying to nudge Makenzie with his head. We were able to evade the animals' advancements, to the amusement of a Khmer man who said, “They are hungry. We changed their feeding time to later in the day.” Good to know.

After that we no longer went in cages with animals, but throughout the day when we would approach cages the animals would come running to the fence to greet us! Even the tiger came to the fence to greet us, which was neat and just a little unnerving. Hope you enjoy the pictures/video from our excursion. 

-Melissa

 

I couldn't tell you the names of some of these animals, but most of the animals are native to Cambodia. Most of the cages didn't have signs. We heard a worker telling someone else that the wild monkeys take the signs off the cages.

 The zoo has random hammocks around the park where you can take a break.