Many families keep dogs and cats around to ward off pests, to eat food scraps and to protect against intruders.
Some families also raise chickens, and every morning I hear the chorus of neighbors' roosters crowing.
Similar to my home in Florida, there are lots of little geckos here in Cambodia, so I barely notice them anymore. Most geckos are out at night, and every evening I see lots of little lizards patiently waiting on the walls for a mosquito or insect to come by. Another helpful insect-eater that I see around town is bats. Thousands of tiny bats come out every evening, and they fly around helping to catch pests like mosquitos and planthoppers.
Unlike where I am from in Florida, monkeys live in my town! At the Kampong Chnnang Provincial Hall, just a two-minute bike ride from my house, the trees surrounding the hall are full of long-tailed macaques. The monkeys are used to being around people, and they are attracted to any location with food. I rode my bike over to the Provincial Hall this week and saw six macaques along the road. But beware... one of my friends was chased by a monkey who wanted the coconut from which she was drinking!
Last weekend I visited Kampot, a coastal town south of Kampong Chhnang. When I was there, I spent a day at the Tuk Chhou rapids. The name translates to "cool water" (tuk means "water", and chhou means "cool"). Not only was the water refreshing and cool, but it was rapid, meaning that the water flowed by very quickly and with a lot of force.
In the morning and early aftrnoon, the water was calm and low thanks to a dam that blocked water from rushing too quickly.
