Are we there yet? Wait, where is "there"?: Phnom Penh...again

Talor: Our return to PP was very brief... just a day and a half to get a Laos Visa then board a bus for the north. This time we decided to try a different neighborhood, the Boeng Kak Lake area, which is the traditional backpacker haunt, famous for cheap rooms and great sunsets. We checked into the Grand View Guest House, where the only

thing grand about it was the view from their 6^th floor walk up roof restaurant. Actually, their Vietnamese coffee was pretty good too. Though the digs were nothing to write home about, they did give us a good price to get our Visas turned around in 24 hours.

With a day to kill, we took a day-trip to the Phnom Tamao Wildllife Sanctuary, an hour outside of the city, where they house animals rescued from poachers and other animal abusers. We spent the day with Watana, our English-speaking Guide, and a French couple on their honeymoon, visiting the different wildlife, some running free within the sanctuary and others in cages. Though at times, we felt sad for the animals, we also felt happy that they had a safe home. We took a break mid-day and had a lovely picnic, and afterwards, Watana gave us a taste of muscle wine (yuck) and betelnuts to chew (double yuck). Then came the highlight... the elephants! It was the first time I had ever seen an elephant up close that wasn't caged in a zoo. And I even got to touch and “kiss” Lucky, an affectionate adolescent female. And I cried when I saw Chouk, a 2-year old, limping around because he lost one of his feet in a poacher trap.

Got back to the city just in time to watch the sunset then got cleaned up and packed before heading to the Lazy Gecko Cafe for “Thursday Night Trivia” where they also sold raffle tickets to raise money for an artificial limb for Chouk. We entered as “Lucky and Chouk,” chugged down 75 cent Stoli & Cokes and had a fun night.

Erik: The rescue center seemed more like a zoo than a sanctuary. I hate seeing animals in cages, but in this case it seemed for the best. (I did find out later, much to my sadness and disappointment, that it really is more of a zoo than a rescue center – see our forthcoming Mondulkiri entry for that...) Chouk's missing foot made me very sad as well. In fact, the more I saw and learned in Cambodia, the sadder I got. It didn't help that I was reading “First They Killed My Father” about a young girl's life under the Khmer Rouge, followed by Graham Greene's “The Heart of the Matter” - another very good and very depressing book – must find some lighter reading to counter all the sad stories I'm hearing here...The trivia contest (and the vodka) helped cheer things up for the evening – we were even tied for the lead at one point before we crashed and burned in the final rounds...