Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center

The best part of our trip to Cambodia by far was our visit to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center. The rescue is located at the zoo, which you could just choose to visit on your own during the day. However it’s all very spread out and there aren’t too many signs to inform you of what you are seeing. The Wildlife Alliance offers a behind the scenes tour and it was well worth the cost. I read through tons of their reviews on Trip Advisor and didn’t come across a single negative one. It’s also a bonus that they pick you up and drop you back off at a designated location in the city as the zoo is pretty far out.

It’s an all day tour so we got up early ate breakfast at our hotel and then set off to meet up with our tour group. Since our meet up, The Blue Pumpkin Cafe, wasn’t too far from our Hotel we decided to take a Tuk Tuk (I figured we needed to ride on one at least once before we left). While we were waiting we saw some Monks walking down the street (Something we don’t see at home).

After driving for quite awhile and getting to know the others in our group (groups are small we had about 8 people in our tour) we stopped at a local market so the tour guides could buy some food for the animals. We didn’t personally buy anything, but some of our tour mates did. One purchased those little bamboo boxes that had mango rice inside and another got those tiny bananas. Once everything was purchased we were off to see the animals.

Next Lucky the Elephant painted some original art on t-shirts for us. He was trained to do this using positive reinforcement. It was quite an experience having an elephant not only paint shirts for us, but he did it while we were wearing the shirts! I mean he’s didn’t paint an actual picture as that would have been amazing, but he is an elephant after all!

Here’s a video of Matt getting his masterpiece painted:

The tour included Lunch which we ate at this picnic area. Something different in Cambodia is that in these areas where people relax and eat they have a pavilion made of bamboo and tree branches to create shade above tons of table all all packed in close together. Above the table hand hammocks for relaxing and on top of the table are rugs because instead of sitting on benches you take your shoes off and sit on top of the tables to eat.

Our meal consisted of cooked rice and veggies a typical Cambodian meal, they even gave us fresh coconuts cut open and a straw to enjoy the coconut water inside. I’m not a fan of coconut water so thankfully there was also some sodas to drink. Matt enjoyed that green apple soda pictured, it was good. Those small round fruits in the picture under the coconut are palm fruits. I believe they grown in palm trees along with the coconuts. After finishing and making our way to see more animals they tour guides bought a bunch of coconuts for all the kids that were hanging around to share.

Another of the highlights of the tour was going on a walk through the forest with Lucky the elephant. I mean it’s not everyday that you can just leisurely walk through a beautiful forest with a huge elephant as your walking partner We also got to feed him fruits and veggies.

And finally the finale of our visit was getting to play with the baby Macaques. They were very cute and very active swinging all over the place. We brought them some oranges to eat and they would just out of nowhere land of you to get the orange you were offering. They were very curious and kept trying to get Matt’s phone from him as he was taking pictures. They also tried to pull the clip that was holding my bangs back out of my hair which is why my hair is all crazy in the pictures. One even started searching through the back of Matt’s hair! It was such a fun experience!

Our day spent at the Wildlife rescue was by far the highlight of our visit to Cambodia and probably one of the top 5 favorites of our entire trip! The organization is doing a fabulous job helping these animals and we were happy to pay the fee knowing the money is a donation to the cause. I would highly recommend everyone who finds themselves in Phenom Penh take the time to visit the zoo and definitely take the Behind the Scenes tour!!

Want to check out our other Adventures in Asia? Head to these posts next Singapore, Cambodia Day 1, Cambodia Day2, Vietnam.

What’s you’re favorite place you’ve visited? Let me know and maybe we’ll add to our Bucket List of places to visit!