Monkeying Around.

This is the first post I have written in my new blog, that wasn’t transferred from the old one.

In copying all of those old posts, and rereading them as I went, I realized that there was a bunch of medical problems and relatively serious shit in there. I need to remedy that with something more lighthearted and fun.

And, what could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

There is a temple close to our apartment here in Hua Hin that has a literal shit-ton of monkeys. Long-tailed macaques, to be specific. It is a temple on a mountain of a granite dome, overlooking the sea. It is, rightly so, called Monkey Mountain. The monkeys here are a spoiled, entitled lot, that get super aggressive, sit around all day, and demand food when you walk by. Most of them also sit around having a very public, very earnest wank, unless they are engaging in very public, very earnest hot monkey love with another monkey, so if you aren’t into gratuitous monkey porn and fending off monkeys with a stick, this is not your temple.

Yes. It is a Buddhist temple.

I’m not sure who this is a statue of. It does not look like any classic image of the Buddha to me, but you see here on Monkey Mountain, even this guy finds it necessary to carry a rolled up umbrella and a stick to fight off the monkeys.

Don’t mess with this one. He was pretty jumpy. And, of course, some hot monkey love going on in the background.

Interrupted this guy mid-wank. He is like, “nothing to see here mate. move on and let me finish my business”.

This little ass. He stole my helmet off the motorbike, and it took about five minutes of chasing and battling with him to get it back. He was screaming at us, baring his teeth the whole time. I was pretty convinced I was going to get torn to pieces, and probably end up getting some more rabies shots. In the end, I tricked him into letting the helmet go, with no bloodshed. On either side.

They really have taken over the entire temple. They are on every building and statue. This one has the best spot, right on top of the dragon’s head. Little bugger is probably having a wank up there.

In spite of all the bad monkey behavior, you just can’t be around them without admitting that they are ridiculously cute. They really are. Except for all the bad behavior.

And, just the other day, a friend took us to this great overlook park above Hua Hin, where you can buy monkey food (tortilla chips), and feed and hang out with even more monkeys. These are also the long-tailed macaques, but unlike the monkey mountain crew of rapists and pornographers, these are a really sweet barrel of monkeys (a group of monkeys really is called a “barrel” of monkeys. I looked it up). Maybe its because they aren’t so spoiled living the good life at the monastery.

Some of the monkeys are less gregarious, and they find the most entertaining ways to hide from people.

This beautiful mother and brand-new baby. It amazes me that the little guys can hang on while mom races up tres and makes ridiculous leaps. You can see her in mid-air, put her arm around the baby to support it, then let go in order to catch a branch to land on. The babies never seem to fall.

Contemplating the universe, it seems, and having a snack.

All the macaques at the overlook were so polite. Always very gentle when they took a chip from your hand, and other than the natural pecking order (the alpha males eat before everyone else), they all took turns. Well, there was this one guy that decided it would be easier if he just took the whole bag from Tam. I wondered if maybe he had come over from Monkey Mountain somehow.

It is so easy to get lost in how cute these little guys are. We tend to anthropomorphize them, and forget that this isn’t a smile, but a warning. He is still ridiculously cute though.