Monkey See Monkey Do. | Wat Phnom Continued | April 11

The highlight though, of Wat Phnom was on the back side of the hill when we decided to take a break from walking and enjoy a cold soda pop. During our stroll to find a spot to sit, we noticed the many monkeys hanging out freely in the trees above us. Needless to say, they were very entertaining to watch…some mothers with their young, some just scurrying around playing and swinging from branch to branch.

My mother of course wanted to feed them, but we discouraged her from doing so… as after all they are wild animals and well, ya never know what they’re gonna do next.

We found a retaining wall made of stone to sit and enjoy our cold drinks on and watch the creatures play from above. After about ten minutes or so, Will said with a soft stern voice, “Lita, DON’T MOVE and BE QUIET” --- we looked to see, and sure enough one of them was slowly walking up behind her. They were so fun to watch – for obvious reasons, and it was just crouched down looking at us in about the same way we were looking at it. Anyway, while I was doing my best to not scare it away and snap pictures of my mother with the monkey, I glance over at Will, and yet another monkey was sneaking up behind him. The next thing that I watched it do was pick up Will’s can of soda, take out the straw, throw the straw on the ground and started downing the can of pop. It was really quite amazing. Obviously this wasn’t the first time it had done this. Then after he finished with that, he walked over to my can and started drinking my orange Fanta. It was quite the bit of bonus entertainment, and none of us could stop laughing for several minutes. It was the perfect amount of comic relief to break the heat of mid-day and all the walking we had been doing.

. . .

The rest of our time in Phnom Penh, was spent going to the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, which made for a very reflective somber morning, learning about how the old high-school was turned into a center for interrogation during the Khmer Rouge Regime. Then that afternoon my mother and I hit a few of the markets to do a bit of shopping and we called our trip to Phnom Penh, a success.