• Chimpanzees

    Chimpanzees live in the forest eating figs.

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    They are hard to see from the ground when they are up in the fig trees eating.

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    But with binoculars you can find them.

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    But mostly they were just busy eating and didn’t care about us.

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    The males were done eating for the day and were down on the ground sleeping much closer to us.

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    And grooming each other.

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    There were old ones.

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    And younger ones.

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    They were mainly lying around trying to take a nap after a busy morning of eating.

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    They were interested in what we were up to as well.

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    But not enough to do much more than yawn and lay around.

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    It really is a lot of work being a chimpanzee.

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    They have really big mouths.

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    It can look scary but it is just a big yawn.

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    Still we would not want to ever be on the bad side of a chimp.

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    More likely just join in the nap session.

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    Or just relax in the forest as it was pretty hot out.

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    The facial differences are quite interesting and the guides can tell who is who.

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    Most have a good temperament.

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    Like this guy.

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    There is one that you have to look out for. This is not him.

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    This guy was mainly yawning often.

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    These two were grooming almost the whole time we were there.

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    They groom all over, even behind the knees.

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    Their nails stay quite short with all the climbing and walking around.

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    Their nails look cleaner than ours sometimes and they are walking around in the dirt most of the time.

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    This chimp was easy to identify because he had a damaged eye, or a cataract. We couldn’t tell from where we were.

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    This ones eyes were fine and look around at all the stuff going on, including all us tourists.

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    This female had a red bum because she was ready to mate.

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    This caused a fight between the males which was very exciting. Sorry for the lack of videography skills.


  • Private Pool

    This is our hotel room in Cambodia.

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    It has a fenced backyard with our own private pool.

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    Because the big shared pool out front is for losers that can only afford to pay $40/night instead of $50/night.

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    The room was huge.

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    So was the bathroom.

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    It had a big bathtub and a clothesline.

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    We did have a small problem because the doors did not seal, allowing uninvited visitors to sneak in.

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    On the full moon that meant a lot of crickets. They started pouring into the room about 8:00PM by the hundreds. Matt ran around with a wet towel swatting them. The entire floor was sticky with cricket guts when he was done.

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    This is Matt shaking out the towels that we used to block the gap all night.

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    This is a glass in which Matt caught three crickets last night. There is now only one cricket, and three legs. Apparently crickets are cannibals.

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    But we had a private pool, so it was totally worth it.


  • Preah Khan

    The last temple we visited in Cambodia was Preah Khan.

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    It was one of our favourites.

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    It was a huge complex.

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    With little reconstruction so it was still largely ruined.

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    Sections were even unfinished by the Khmer, like this window that is not yet barred.

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    There are giant trees growing out of the walls like at Ta Prohm.

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    A lot of the site was just grown over piles of fallen stones.

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    Which were fun to search through to find the carvings.

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    Some of the passageways were completely impassable.

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    Even some of the ones that were originally quite wide.

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    The piles of collapsed stone stretch out into the jungle.

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    The entranceways were guarded by giant men.

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    Who had giant feet.

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    But they weren’t as good at guarding the passageways as the piles of stone.

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    Which made visiting quite an adventure.

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  • Cambodian Creepy Crawlies

    (Pre post note, try to guess when it got really late and way past bedtime but this was going to go up tonight no matter what.)

    Cambodia has a lot of dragonflies. Sometimes the swarms looked like stars in the sky.

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    There were some prickly caterpillars.

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    And lots of termites.

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    And ants.

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    And beetles.

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    And rolly pollies that were scared of Matt. (Of course not Kerri who was almost poking it with the lens of the camera).

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    And beetles being eaten by ants that are fighting with other ants.

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    There was also this weird blue thing. It was very pretty but we were afraid to get too close in case it stings.

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    There were lots of butterflies.

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    And grasshoppers.

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    And weird beetle like creatures.

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    With creepy eyes.

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    This is a millipede.

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    He does not have giant pincers, that would be a centipede.

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    These are bats. They neither creep nor crawl, but Calvin called them bugs so here they are. It’s also not a very good picture. But Kerri put it in here anyway for some reason. Bats are hard to get good pictures of because they like the dark.

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    This is a weird polka dotted beetley thingy.

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    I bet this commentary is really helpful, isn’t it.

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    This is a long fingered breathy pouched thingy.

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    These things are weird. They look like butterflies flying around, but they fly funny, and they look more like dragonflies when you get a better look.

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    This is a long fingered pouchy thingy with an uninflated pouch.

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    This is a skinky thingy.

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    These thingies are red. They live in colonies.

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    This butterfly is not and does not.

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    The butterfly is looking at you.

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    So is this one.

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    This one is not. Though the spots on the back of it’s wing are to make you think that it is.

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    This thingy spins webs but seems to only have 6 legs.

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    This thingy is watching you. Posting is fun at Midnight after a morning on the bus and a afternoon and evening of shopping. Bedtime! 🙂

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