Gangsterland

SEE PHOTOS AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Phnom%20Penh%20-%20Animal%20Sanctuary.html

This is Gangster town! Our driver is a gangster. He pays the police $300 a month to stay away from the guest house. The tuk-tuk drivers selling opium in the street are gangsters.

We went to the Animal Sanctuary, way out of town. There were about 10 boys and men who followed us around the sanctuary, acting as guides and carrying coconuts and machetes and peanuts. They cut open the coconuts randomly and handed us pieces to feed the animals (despite the clear signs written in Khmer, French and English all saying not to feed the animals).

We liked the Otters and the Gibbons and the baby monkeys the best, and we discovered that raising your eyebrows at a macaque makes them mad. we met one gibbon who we loved. We thought about the possibility of adopting him and teaching him to play guitar - one with slack strings so that he wouldn't hurt his tiny soft fingers. We could call him Gibson. We decided not to take him with us, understanding that it would be just too hard when he left home to pursue his musical career...

Anyway, back to the real story These coconut men wanted us to pay for all the coconuts. We didn’t want to pay for all the coconuts. We paid for the ones we had asked for, or the ones that we had agreed to, but as we only had $1, $5 and $10 notes (and the coconuts were 2000 riel – or 50c – each), we gave one guy $5 for all of them and then he took off with all the money. The other 9 wanted to be paid too. We told them, as we had told the guy with the money, that it was to be split. They didn’t like it.

They were mocking us (but not directly) and they were all carrying their machetes.

But they showed us around the rest of the animals, and then wanted to be paid for that. We paid two pf the friendlier boys a minimal fee. Tee drove us away swiftly as it began pouring with rain. He told us that he had become very concerned.

Those people at the animal sanctuary were gangsters.