the globe rover

Denver, CO

ABC.com news story:

“EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Employees Claim ‘Horrific’ Treatment of Primates at Lab”

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Several people in our group had booked our Intrepid Trip (The Great Indochina Loop) primarily for visiting Angkor Wat. I, again, have to admit that I was not as knowledgeable about Angkor Wat as I should have been. That said, again I put my reading and inquisition skills to work and learned as much as possible about these ruins.

Angkor Wat is a series of temples outside Siem Reap that date back thousands of years. The various temples and sites have gone through much devastation through Cambodian wars and are still in the reconstruction phase. The complex of temples is huge and spans hundreds of kilometers.

Our trip included a three day pass for touring Angkor Wat of which we would use two with a local guide. Upon arrival in Siem Reap, we stopped at the entrance to Angkor Wat and had to get a photo ID made for our passes. Our leader decided that we were going to pull faces in our pictures in a friendly competition. Needless to say, there were some good pics going around (I choose the “my mommy says fat people can’t smile” look).

The first day of touring for our group was Wednesday. Unfortunately, I had been up all night the night before with some type of 24 hour bug. The loss of everything in my system and lack of sleep caused me to be exhausted and not able to make it through much of the day. I did make it to the first set of temples at Angkor Thom as well as by the Elephant Terrace and Bayon. Within a couple of hours I was exhausted and made my way back to the hotel for an afternoon of sleep. The rest of the group continued on a 3-4 km walk to Bayon and then to the Jungle Temple (one scene from “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” was filmed there). They finished the day with a sunset view over another temple sans the sun.

Day two was an extremely long and eventful day. We started at 5 am with a sunrise tour of the main temple at Angkor Wat. It turned out to be a beautiful sunrise and hopefully created some great photos. But the star of the morning had to be one of the temple monkeys that had a liking for one of our group members, Achem from Germany.

It was quite entertaining to watch the monkey groom Achem as they do each other looking for bugs and cleaning. He stuck around and also enjoyed some of our tea and anything else he could find. I had fun taking pictures and following him around loving time with primates. It was unusual as the monkeys usually don’t come out until the afternoons.

The tours of the temples were amazing. Mostly because of our guide, Ly, who is a local Cambodian (about 28 years old). His knowledge of the history is amazing. He shared all kinds of info with us about the history, the fighting, the symbolism, and the religions related to the temples. They are truly an amazing sight and learning ground for the history of Cambodia. They are all in a process of being reconstructed to a better state. It has been slow though due to the excavation which entails digging through potential land mines and then determining what goes where. As well, some of the statues and stones have been destroyed and need recreating.

The temples are made out of two types of stone: limestone and volcanic stone. The volcanic stone is used for the sturdy foundation whereas the limestone is used for engraving. The engravings are amazing and tell all types of stories, have great statues, and include sanskrit that a limited number of people can read. There are various types of temples include traditional looking Wats (or temple) as well as pyramid styles. And the temples represent a vast array of things including the three Hindu gods.

The second afternoon, only three of us opted to continue on to more temples. It was an incredible afternoon as Ly shared all kinds of information about life in Cambodia as well as real estate and land ownership. We had fun touring and understanding more about the local life.

After visiting the temples first hand, I can understand why the Cambodians believe the temples should be one of the seven wonders of the world (although they struggle with the internet voting as such a low percentage of Cambodians have internet access). If you have a minute, check them out and then vote here (all the peeps in Cambodia would appreciate it).

The temples are truly unique and amazing to visit. Angkor is a great place to learn more about the Cambodian history as well as plenty of religious insight. A recommended stop for anyone in Southeast Asia.

Primates that is.

I had the most wonderful breakfast ever today after deciding to join the Jungle Breakfast at the Singapore Zoo. It was worth every penny of the SD$15 entry plus SD$18 for the breakfast. And it wasn’t so fantastic because of the food.

The draw for me was the Orangutans due to my passion for primates. I had imagined that the Orangutans would be brought out and put in an area near us for us to observe from afar. But they were actually put on some tree branches at ground level about two ten feet from my table (a great couple from New Zealand and their daughter invited me to join them - thanks to Jody, Jot, and Teegan). And not only did the orangs stay there the entire breakfast, but we also got to go up and have our picture taken literally right next to them. We weren’t allowed to touch the orangs (this stopped some years ago due to the bacteria and infection that can spread so easily from humans to orangs) but we could feel their movements.

The stars of our breakfast were Binty and Banto, which were a mother and baby. They were amazing to watch and so well behaved (hard to believe they were wild animals). They were busy eating their fruit while all the humans were coming and going next to them to have their pictures taken. I was enthralled to say the least to be so close to such a fantastic animal. Talk about being a little kid - I think I beat out most of the little five years old today!

The Singapore Zoo has the only free-range Orangutan exhibit in the world. There is some controversy from Americans and other Western primatologists regarding the enclosure due to the “handling” of the Orangutans from the zoo. I spent a good bit of time with one of the senior zookeepers, Jackson, today picking his brain about the animals. His perspective is that the animals don’t do anything they don’t want to and wouldn’t naturally. The animals come down out of the trees at certain times for pictures and at bedtime. But if they don’t want to come down, then they don’t have to (an orang or two has been known to stay in the trees overnight without any food). As well, this zoo is a breeding zoo (they have had 33 orang births since the opening in 1974) and thus, these endangered animals are not released back into the wild.

No matter the opinion on the handling of the orangs, the Singapore Zoo provides a unique perspective and way to observe these beautiful creatures. 

The remainder of the zoo was quite good as well. The entire zoo feels very open and like a walk through the jungle and rainforests with a few footpaths and exhibits placed here and there. The zoo is heavy on primates (great for me) but also had some other interesting animals such as the Asian elephants (we watched the elephant bath in the morning), white tigers, pygmy hippos, and plenty of other “standard” zoo animals.

What a fantastic way to spend the day and a big thanks to the great and friendly zookeepers at Singapore Zoo!

Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia
Sunday, September 24th, 2006

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an affinity for animals and especially primates. So as I always do in a new city, I joined the Sydney Zoo and started to pay attention to their special events. Last night was one such event which was a unique and exciting time…I slept at the zoo! The event is called Roar and Snore and most nights during the season they allow 20-30 guests to camp out at the zoo and do some neat behind the scenes stuff. So a couple of friends from work and I packed up our overnight bags and headed to the zoo. Easy camping, an adults only night, and an adventure with the animals here we come!

We started the afternoon with Bedtime for Chimps (another Taronga Zoo Member event) which allowed us to go to the back of the exhibit to watch them be put up for the night. Amazing to get so close to 19 chimps ranging in age from 2 ½ to 59.

They are amazing and playful creatures and made us all smile as they ran around their den eating their last meal of the night and using the shredded paper to make their nests. The rest of the evening was spent touching and learning about different animals such as crocodiles, lizards, snakes, insects, wallabies (the one we played with was eight months old and great fun) and then a night tour through the zoo in the dark. Very cool to see the place after hours and get a glimpse of animal behaviour at night (and no kids running around screaming). Then this morning we had another animal visit with a very friendly koala and then another tour through the zoo before hours.

The most unique thing we got to do was go into the giraffe exhibit and feed the five big giraffes carrots! Their tongues are long and slimy but they are amazing animals.

It was such a fun and different way to spend a Sunday night/Monday morning and I feel so enriched having learned about animal conservations and the lengths the Taronga Zoo goes to in order to make the environments as close to the natural habitat as possible. Good stuff and a highly recommended event for animal lovers!