Last weekend we finally made it to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary, just outside of Phnom Penh. We went with one of our favorite tuk-tuk drivers, Phea, his wife, and his daughter, whose name we don’t know so we just call her Phea-chen (which means ‘little-Phea’ in German). The Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary lies 40km outside of the Capital. It is home to a large number of animals who were rescued from poachers or might otherwise be at risk from poaching (so the sanctuary says, which seems plausible enough to us).
One of the great things about the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary is that it isn’t bound by European style health and safety regulations. Meaning you can get pretty close to the action, so long as you’re not worried about risking a bite or two. Phea-chen was perhaps a little nervous about this prospect, as you might expect…
Would you like to stroke the bears?…
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| …or the snakes?…… |
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| Or perhaps you would like to swim with some crocodiles? |
Though to be fair, Chris didn’t appear all that heroic when confronted with an aggressive, 3 meter crocodile, sat angrily behind a mesh fence which wasn’t secured at the bottom and so appeared slightly inadequate to the task at hand!
But not all of the animals were quite so angry. Some were very relaxed…
…others were very lazy…
…and others were just plain cheeky.
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| what could possibly go wrong?… |
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| …whoops |
But Phea-chen’s favourite animals at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary were the wise old elephants, who exuded an air of calm wisdom in everything they did.
All of this excitement was very tiring and so after seeing the elephants it was time to get Phea-chen (and Chris) home for some hot-milk. But everyone agreed they liked seeing the animals and had a very happy day.
THE END.
Have you been to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary? What’s your favourite animal sanctuary?
Hahah poor kid. Looks like a lot of sweet animals though!
Yes, bless her! There are so many more animals actually. Deers, otters, snakes, you name it. My favourite were the cheeky monkeys though who just roamed around freely.
Very cute, I love the last picture of the Elephant!
Thanks Pamela. I loved the Elephants best. They look so wise. 🙂
nice article and must visited place. but if you wanna to explore more and wanna to see some new elephants. than you can also check out here at
Jim Corbett national park
Great photos!