Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary

We’ve had a fabulous two weeks here at the wildlife Sanctuary. This place has such a feel-good, wholesome vibe and it creeps into your bones and into your soul.

The staff are collectively some of the friendliest people I’ve come across-everything is accompanied with a smile, a laugh, a wave, things get done and nothing is too much trouble. The sanctuary is only 4 years old but already it employs about 50 members of staff who, apart from a handful of Thai staff who have been transferred from the main site in Chang Mai, are all local Cambodians from the village nearby. It is a thriving, breathing, living creature that grows in front of you: We’ve only been here two weeks and there are already new flower beds, more trees being planted, improvements made on the huts, a new enclosure built in readiness in case any more animals are rescued and need an immediate home. It is exceptionally clean, it is tidy, there are fruit and vegetables growing everywhere (the long-term aim is to be self-sufficient), the elephants wonder freely under the watchful eye of their mahout.

There are different teams that work here.

The staff that work with the animals genuinely seem to adore the animals they work with. They are so gentle, so affectionate, it’s actually beautiful to see, and reassures you that these creatures are in good hands.

Below: Little Nout, a rescued macaque with severe attachment issues. 

Naughty little monkeys!

The gardening team are a wonderful bunch of giggly girls who love any kind of attention, especially if you show an interest, or try some of your dodgy Khmer out on them. They adore Brodie and always end up in hysterics when he’s around as he’s always trying to make them laugh. They are affectionate and lovely, and so inquisitive. They cover up from head to toe to avoid getting sun on their skin, and to avoid getting blemishes on their hands (they investigated my callousy hands with horror!). But when I say cover up, I mean they wear woollen gloves all day with a polo-neck jumper, covered with a denim jacket, and a scarf on top!! And then they work in the sun all day!

The kitchen staff are machines. They’re up at 5.30 to clean and prepare, and they are still working when they serve up our dinner with a cheery smile. The food. Is. Amazing. I’ve grown rather porky since being here as I can’t help but go back for seconds (or thirds. And yes, on occasion fourths!).

The maintenance team work their socks off. They remind me of busy bees in a hive, swarming around the job at hand, working away until it’s done.

The Rangers are probably one of the coolest things about this place. They are local boys who have been trained by an army general to protect the 25,000 acres of wildlife reserve from poachers or loggers. Some of them are even ex-poachers. There are still huge problems with both issues here and they are vital to its success-even since we’ve been here, they caught two men attacking the bottom of a tree with a chainsaw, and one of the dogs got caught in an animal trap on one of our walks, so this is an immediate and ever-present threat. The rangers do an amazing job of protecting this already deeply-degraded forest.

Crucially as I mentioned before, the staff here are almost all local, and this is a huge factor in raising local awareness of the issues surrounding the forest and the need to conserve it. This is a wonderful initiative and we are extremely grateful to have found ourselves here and to be part of it.

Here are some piccies of what we've been getting up to...

The Khmer Academy (aka Brodie's new friends)

This is Bro's new boyfriend...it started with a bum scratch, and the B-man gets a free 20 minute head massage and nit-pick which sent him into a weird zombie-like trance! 

Yes I do have photographic evidence of this for future blackmailing purposes.

One of our tasks was tying orange scarves around trees. Yes I know this sounds ridiculous. We do this is because the Cambodian people are mostly Buddhist and these scarves are in fact strips of old monk robes which have been blessed by the monks themselves. The local people are afraid to cut down trees that have been blessed by the monks, so it is a way of protecting them from being felled. And I think they look rather pretty!

Nick doing another monkey impression...

Khmer lessons with Nick and Samban

Our names written phonetically, first in Thai and secondly in Khmer (the language spoken in Cambodia). I think the writing is beautiful

These 5 words are all pronouced as "Gai" with a slightly different intonation, however, they mean (in order)...Trigger > Chicken  > Close> Guide > Ignore. Sounds to me like you could get yourself into quite a pickle if you happened to prounounce them wrong...

These are some basic phrases in Khmer...Samban was rather insistent that we pronounce "tukadow" (hot water) correctly and spent a good 5 minutes getting us to say "tuk-a-DOW"...when we asked him why he giggled and said "because if you pronounce it wrong it means "penis water" (semen). Right then...might not be asking any waiter for a hot water any time soon...

Cutting sugar cane

Teaching an English lesson at school

Destroying a perfectly good plant for the sake of looking pretty...

JUNGLE SPEED!!

An English lesson with the Rangers

 If you would like to volunteer at the Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary, or at the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand, have a look on their website here for more information.