Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

After a long day yesterday , exploring temples and trekking in the jungle heat, today was relatively slow and easy and very focused on nature, which always brings joy to this crowd. Our guide took us to the Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity . This is an animal rescue facility near Siem Reap. They collect animals that have been hurt in the wild or abandoned as pets. To the extent possible, they use breeding pairs from this population to help repopulate endangered or threatened species in the surrounding territory. If you're inspired, you can donate to them (for context, their requested donation for visitors was $5 each). After our tour, our teacher shared some turtle shells and other specimen while discussing how certain animals are hunted (sometimes aggressively) for their medicinal benefits.  Just add water! Snake-infused water is believed by some to have powerful healing benefits. From ACCB, we drove about half an hour to the Bantre...

This was a day when we did way, way too much. Part 1: Singapore Zoo. We signed up for breakfast at the zoo. This meant being in a taxi at about 8am in order to reach the zoo between 8:30 and 8:45 in order to be seated at breakfast by 9 in order to have an Orangutan encounter at 9:30. And yet it was worth it. Breakfast was an easy win. Our epic walk around the rest of this excellent zoo was also epic but not so much of a win. In particular, our goal was to find the zoo's waterpark. We found it but then we found out that it was closed, nominally for maintenance but probably because the Covid-19 travel ban in China has reduced demand beneath the point of justifying the staffing! Regardless, we had some terrific experiences around the zoo. Part 2: Little India Yeah, that was just part 1. We had walked about 6,000 steps at the zoo! Next, we took cabs to Singapore's Little India. In blogs, podcasts and travel guides, the consensus is that Sin...