The King and Us....at the Zoo

Day 4 - Cambodia Trip 2014 - Takeo

Awake at 6 am, no one could really get too excited about the fact that we were supposed to be meeting the king today. After breakfast we all piled into a bus and picked up some of the kids from NFO, it was really good to see them opening up and becoming more comfortable around us, we even had a singing competition with them! After a 40 minute bus ride we arrived at Phnom Tahmau zoo and we received some very attractive hats and t-shirts, as we got out of the bus we realised we weren't the only ones. Standing out like a sore thumb we were escorted to our shady front row seats (which was when we realised we were in the VIP tent) where we listened to speeches in Khmer which seemed to go on forever but it didn't matter because we were all in awe of the amazing 'production' right before our eyes. The King came out and walked round the whole arena, blessing and being as close to everyone as possible (at least those who were invited) which was an eye opening thing to witness. After the King had left we had the opportunity to plant our own trees, with our names on, Natalie got to plant two, which she was extremely proud of and the NFO kids got to help us as well. The fact that we were the only Europeans invited to meet the king was fantastic. Ciaran even got to present the king with a pen from our school and boy was he feeling great about that. We all hope the king at least likes the idea that it is Arbor Day and our pen has a jarrah case and box....ironic maybe?

After the whole ceremony was over we decided to have a look at Phnom Tahmau zoo, with our 'tour guides' (some of the NFO kids who thought they knew their way round) in tow we spent an hour walking round the zoo. Hot and tired we all clambered onto the bus and enjoyed an hour in the cool air con.

When we got back to the guest house there was no time to rest as we had over 1000 donations to sort through (that amounted to a record 578 kilos,) Surprisingly we got through it all in an hour which we thought was a record time. Some of us went to drop the donations of clothes off at NFO while everyone else had our usual card game. Dinner was amazing and much appreciated and an early bed was in store for everyone.


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