After a nice breakfast with seconds on the cappacinos, we walked over to the Wat Phnom, the largest Wat (Buddist Temple) in Phnom Penh. It is a huge park and you pay only $1 to get into the temple area. Many people 'selling' little birds, wrens, chicadees etc. You pay $1 (or less) and it is good luck to free the bird. Some people buy the whole cage full. They just shove the little bird in your hand and you let it fly away. Mine was so comfy, he didn't want to leave me.
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| making friends with my little bird |
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| Trying to free my bird but he was happy just resting in my hand |
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| Friendly Macaque with a banana he stole |
The joke is that of course, the birds return and are sold again and again. Then we watched the macaque monkeys for quite some time. They are so cute and have nbo fear of people. The steal bags of peanuts from little children and when I would squat down to watch them, they jumped right on me. Playfully but they have bitten kids so I wasn't happy about them hanging on my arm. I took some movie clips of the baby macaques playing. Sara bought nuts and we fed them from our hands. So cute.
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| Taking nuts from Sara's hand |
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| Taking nuts from Sara's pocket |
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| Drink milk he stole from a child |
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| Felt so sad for this elephant. See how she hold up her sore foot |
We then went to see the poor pitiful elephant. 51 year old Samba has been giving rides at Wat Phnom for 20 years. Her feet hurt so much, she keeps lifting them and wrapping her trunk around her leg to try to ease the pain. She has shoes on her front feet and you can see the bruises and sores. My heart ached for her, but Sara paid to feed her and climbed on Samba's back for photos.
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| Sara getting a hug |
Sara then went to the eyeglass store to buy some new glasses while I went to the 'Seeing Hands Massage by Blind People" for a one hour foot massage $6. There are several Seeing Hands locations around and it was recommended by Lonely Planet.
With my renewed feet I went to the Central Market, another huge, partially covered market with crowded row upon row of deals. When I got back to the hotel, Sara was there and ready to go back to the market where we bought more stuff we didnt need but who can pass up a $4 golf shirt?
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Central Market in background. Foreground is a fridge being loaded on a cart for delivery
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| Central Market |
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| Sara dreaming about the tasty dried fish products |
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| Snake in a bottle of whiskey (or some kind of alcohol) |
Off to Battanbang tomorrow.
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