As we had managed to not see any elephants in Thailand or Laos we had booked on to a trip to visit a wildlife sanctuary about an hour outside of Phnom Penh.The sanctuary has rescued the animals there from poachers in Cambodia and they have a huge variety with elephants, tigers, crocs and bears to name a few with 90% of them being returned to the wild.Our main reason for going was to see the elephants, as we hadn't experienced them before and we weren't keen to do the usual touristy elephant rides, the other experiences a little over our budget and the other Cambodian elephant sanctuary was closed to visitors due to the monsoon season making it almost impossible to get there.

As we jumped in the back of a leopard print jeep with 3 others we drove the, again, very bumpy but fun journey to the sanctuary.We started with our guide telling us about the place and its purpose and then she took us around the area introducing us to all sorts of animals.She was building up to the elephants with the smaller animals and birds before lunch and then the big hitters afterwards.As we followed her around we felt a little like we were being shown the animals but not really getting involved.We then stopped for lunch - one of the highlights of the day.We were presented with 4 or 5 delicious dishes of traditional Cambodian food, beef and coconut curry, chicken and vegetables, soups and of course rice and chillies.After eating we then had to drink a shot of Hercules Wine, this wasn't too bad but then she got out some banana leaves, some limestone paste and a betel nut and wrapped it all up and told us to chew it.The taste, extreme bitterness. The sensation, like I had had an anaesthetic at the dentist.Thanks!

Once everyone had spat out their betel nut we were off to see the elephants have a bath.Two elephants were there, one with a prosthetic leg, rolling around in the water.She told us that there are only 300 elephants left in Cambodia due to poachers! Watching them play around in the water was very cool, more fun than seeing the big elephant have a poo in the water and the man jumping in and having to fish the massive poos out with is hands.However, the experience was over quite quickly I think we all felt it a bit brief.As we walked around some more looking at tigers and some very funny and friendly gibbons, one of which kept grabbing Liz's hand to make her scratch its head, the Aussie girl asked if we could go back to the elephants.Our guide, eager to get a good review, took us back to see the bigger of the two we had seen earlier and we got to feed and blow down her trunk.This was better as we got to interact with them, which is what we had hoped for.

When we got back to the guesthouse, we realised just how tired we were, not just from the day but also from the last few weeks.We had a quick snack we bought from the supermarket, yep peanut butter and then went to sleep ready for our departure to Ho Chi Minh City in the morning.We have been so busy in the last month or so that we feel we really need to relax by a beach for a few days so, that is the plan towards the end of our time in Vietnam.I know we don't have to get up and go to work each day at the moment but the constant travel and the fact we have slept in nearly 70 different places has started to creep up on us.Roll on the beach!

Sam