Day 17, Wednesday 8th April, An Excellent Day with Elephants and Rats

Today is our final day of exploring Cambodia, before we start our journey home tomorrow. All four of us decided to go on a tour to an Elephant sanctuary. The sanctuary was about a 45-minute drive from our hotel. We were picked up by a people mover and there were another 7 people joining us. The sanctuary was small and looked after 3 female elephants. These elephants were once working elephants used by the farmers in small villages to haul things and work on the farms. A young woman did a wonderful job explaining how elephants were used just like horses, bullocks, camels etc. were used in the past to help on the farms. There are still a few small villages that use them but now the elephants are being rescued and as they can’t go back to the wild, they are put in these sanctuaries. Cambodia now has only about 500 wild elephants, and about 75 in sanctuaries.  Our tour started with us making banana rice balls to feed to the elephants. We had big bowls with rice, bananas and rice husks which we kneaded together and then shaped into balls. We fed these to the elephants, along with some fruit. The elephants then went for a walk and we followed them, first to watch them in a mud-bath and then on to the river where they waded and squirted themselves with water. Rob and quite a few others from the group, waded into the water to pour buckets of water over the elephants and rub and wash the elephants with small brushes. From here the elephants, wandered back to the small, raised hut where we started the tour,  to enjoy eating some delicious fruit. The elephants were happy for us to feed the watermelon rind and pineapple skins to them.  We returned to the hotel and after a short break for lunch, we headed out again in a tuk-tuk to visit the APOPO Cambodia centre to view the rats which can detect the many landmines which have littered the land in Cambodia since the Vietnam war and the reign of Pol Pot. The giant African rats are trained in Tanzania and imported to Cambodia to work. Between 2016 to 2025, 66,566,428 square metres were cleared by the rats and dogs and 60,020 mines were detected. This year alone, 3,608,239 square metres have been cleared and 220 items found.  The session started with a talk explaining how the rats and dogs work and the role of APOPO.  We then saw a demonstration of a rat finding a landmine in the sandpit, before being able to hold one of these large rats. We finished the session with a film about the rats. More videos can be found on You-tube, if you google APOPO.  A wonderful way to finish this great holiday.





























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