Tamao

The second part of our Sunday trip is to the Tamao Animal Sanctuary. At the end of the day Sandra’s digital camera is full and I upload all her pictures to our laptop to burn a CD for her. In exchange I get to pilfer some images of the zoo from her.
We weren’t sure what to expect of a zoo run by private funding in a jungle in a developing country. But given the mandate of Tamao we expected, as bad as conditions could be, these animals would be in better condition than without the zoo. But by and large it turns out to be a good zoo. Most animals have the run of an area where we interact with them. You can pet them if you can catch them; and some are quite friendly. Obvious exceptions are the bears, tigers, elephants and alligators.
In addition, a number of enterprising local boys have become unofficial liaisons between the animals and the public. Being a bit dim-witted, I originally thought they were zoo staff; they were feeding the animals, carried knives, knew the animals by name—personal and zoological. Trotting around the yards with small machetes and coconuts, they latch onto visitors, offer a wealth of information about the animals and, for a dollar, to throw a coconut toward the animals so we may watch them eat. A symbiotic, Pavlovian relation has developed; the animals knowing the boys are a source of food, the boys coaxing us to pay up. “Look, the animals are hungry.”
The sun bears are quite interesting. They are an endangered species, a small, elongated black bear with a dog-face and a pale yellow crescent on their chests. They are quite comical and seem easy-going. Until someone throws a whole coconut over the fence. Suddenly, three-inch claws come out and the bear that wins the catch rips the coconut open in one casual swipe.
Also of interest are the storks, completely unrecognizable as the Warner Bros. baby carriers. These are massive, heavy, ungainly things that look like they shouldn’t be able to fly, except some are perched atop trees, where they have eaten the eggs out of other bird’s nests. The male has a crop that must weigh in at 30 kilograms.
The road to and from the sanctuary is also of interest. Stunned on the drive in, on the drive out I count sixty-six beggars. Equally spaced down the lane from the highway, they splash (ditch) water from a bowl or bottle in front of the truck tuk and hold out a hand beseechingly. The vehicle in front, a large black SUV, pulls up at each beggar and passes a small stack of riel out the window.