Day 4 – Conservation of Biodiversity, Butterfly Farm

When we finished our little hike to Kbal Spean, we discussed where to go for lunch.  I asked if the company was paying for our lunch since that is what it said on our itinerary.  Dave said he thought that we were paying.  I mentioned that Den – the coordinator said that when we were out during the lunch time that the company would pay. So Dave called  the company office and they said that the company was suppose to  pay.  It was annoying to have to argue about this but we noticed how cheap Dave was so I wanted to make sure where we stood. It was not as if he was taking us to a fantastic restaurant.  We went to a restaurant which actually looked like someone’s backyard.  We were the only ones there..  Our Cambodian guide, Mr. Sorn, ate by himself which I thought was strange.  Shawn and I  decided to have fried rice as that seemed the safest.  It didn’t cost him a whole lot.  We really didn’t eat much outside the hotels.  We tried to be very careful about eating anything other than cooked food. I was glad that we didn’t have many stomach problems.

When we finished eating we returned to the site where we began our hike.  There was an animal biodiversity conservatory and we had thought about seeing it.  They wouldn’t let you go without a guide.  There were two couples that also joined the group. The animals were all behind wire fences so it was hard to get good photos.  Although the guide spoke English, he was very hard to understand.  That seemed to be the case with even the guides hired by Dave’s company.  You had to listen very closely and sometimes guess what they were trying to say.  It was a very hot day – probably over 95 degrees and 100 per cent humidity. the guide was extremely long winded. We saw some birds – eagle, storks, monkeys, a whole swarm of swallowtail butterflies (not actually part of the conservatory), a turtle and a snake. It was interesting but way too long.  At the end, they take you to this room and make a pitch for donations.

From there we went to the butterfly farm. I probably enjoyed that the most of anything we did that day.  There were lots of unusual flowers as well as some kinds of butterflies I hadn’t seen before.  Here are a few photos from our afternoon activities: