Monkey Mountain: An Eerie Hike with Ravenous Wild Monkeys

During one of our weekends off from school in January, Matt and I decided to go to Monkey Mountain, which was luckily only a couple of Song Tao rides away from our apartment. We heard about it from a couple of foreign teachers from our school and figured, hey– we don’t have anything to do today. Let’s go hang out with some wild monkeys on a mountain.

And so, we did. We hopped on one Song Tao in the stifling heat and humidity, sticking to the plastic seats and not receiving much recourse from the wind as we drove. Eventually, we got off by Bang Saen beach and walked a bit to find the blue Song Tao, which would take us in the direction of the mountain. When we told the driver that we wanted to go to Monkey Mountain, he understood (surprise!) and took us there. But, he didn’t stop to let us off, which we assumed he would do, considering we didn’t know where the mountain was or when or where to get off. He drove past macaque monkeys, other cars stopped with monkeys on their roofs, and scattered older Thai women with straw hats selling bushels of miniature bananas. But he didn’t stop. After turning right and making it back to the main road, Matt and I realized the driver wasn’t going back, so we pushed the buzzer above us to signal him to stop and we stepped off.

Already soaked with sweat, we walked at an incline back to where we drove past the monkeys. And we sweated even more. Finally, we reached the starting point of monkey mountain and yes, just as you may have imagined, there were monkeys everywhere. 

We approached one of the Thai women in the straw hats and bought a bushel of bananas to feed the monkeys. While purchasing the bananas, we noticed two things: 1. the lady was nice and spoke a bit of English, since she said “Oh my god!” when I dropped money on the ground and it was hysterical; and 2. her teeth were as black as night. I mean, they really were! I have never seen teeth that rotted before.

Anywho, we decided to climb the mountain via the sidewalk rather than the road, since there were cars coming and going there. While walking along the sidewalk, we noticed it was scattered with monkeys. As we walked along, we would hand a monkey a banana and watch as they took it from our hands and quickly ate it right in front of us.

A couple of monkeys; me handing a banana to a monkey; monkeys along the sidewalk

After a few minutes, we couldn’t shake this eerie feeling that all of the monkeys were watching us from all angles. From the sidewalk, from inside the bushes, and from the branches on the trees above us. And they really were.

It grew more terrifying as we realized that we were the only ones walking on the sidewalk. Everyone else was below us on the street, but in their cars. No one stepped out of their car. Not one person.

We continued to walk on, handing out bananas as we went. Eventually, the sidewalk ended with a staircase winding down to the road. We walked down it and had to walk the rest of the way up via the road.

A monkey sitting on the road

We also had given all of our bananas away, so we had to buy some more. However, the next Thai lady that was selling food to give to the monkeys only sold small straw-woven bowls of peanuts. So, Matt purchased one.

Monkeys, cars, and the Thai lady we bought the peanuts from (in the pink)

He walked not even ten feet and three monkeys were surrounding him and staring at the basket of peanuts with hungry eyes. He tried handing them out to the monkeys, but he wasn’t giving away enough for them. More monkeys appeared as if from nowhere, badgering Matt for the peanuts. The woman who sold us the peanuts came over and tried to stop the monkeys from overwhelming Matt, which worked for a few seconds, but once the lady walked away, they came back for more. Matt said, “Fuck this!” and placed the bowl on the ground and speed-walked away, leaving a mob of monkeys gorging themselves behind him.

We continued up the mountain, still frightful of the conniving primates, but desperate to finish the climb that we started. Dripping with perspiration, we eventually made it to a false peak, which was surprisingly beautiful. It had some steps, leading to an aged platform that looked out onto the shimmering Gulf of Thailand. It was a wonderful place of refuge!

After that, we made our way to the actual top of the mountain, which actually wasn’t as magical as we had hoped. Just more monkeys, which were crazier than the others in that they were all aggressive towards each other, tackling and biting each other, and a collection of Thai people and their cars.

We glanced at the view and continued on the road back down the mountain. After waiting several minutes, a blue Song Tao picked us up.

And what do you know? It took us past Monkey Mountain! This time, we didn’t even look at them. We just kept our wet heads inside the pickup truck and anxiously waited to leave the mountain behind.

What is your experience with wild monkeys? Where were you when you experienced them?

An Ode to Our Not-So-Wild Wild Thai Dogs

In case you weren’t already aware, there are wild dogs everywhere in Thailand. They are on every street and they’re usually in packs, rummaging around through piles of garbage. That may sound relatively terrifying, but they all tend to keep to themselves for the most part. Most of them are even nice to people! And even adorable!

As for the wild dogs by our apartment building, we were fortunate enough to be surrounded by the kind and cute ones.

I’ll give you an idea of our apartment building area just to help clarify where the wild dogs were located. We had a four floor apartment building called the Ing Swiss (who knows what they were going for with that name) and underneath it was a small, open parking lot/garage where the owners/workers lived and worked and tenants parked their cars and motorbikes. To the right of our apartment building was a very loud and bumpin’ brothel. Yes, we lived next to a brothel. Very enthralling! The owners of our apartment building also owned the brothel, so there was a pathway between the two buildings.

Most of the adult dogs lived under our apartment building in the parking lot and the one puppy who was born in early January lived in the pathway, but hung out with the other dogs in the parking lot/garage.

Okay, so basically, we had four dogs of our own! And they were all very loving and sweet and always close by.

And now, without further ado: pictures of our fur babies!

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Tao

Tao was maybe three or four years old. He was a bit mangy and when you scratched his head for even a moment, your fingertips would come up black with dirt. However, he was one of the most protective and sweetest dogs I’ve ever met. When we walked down the road to have dinner or even walk to school, he would trot in front of us and continually look back at us to make sure we were alright. He would actually walk us all the way from our apartment building to the restaurant or school. It was amazing to us!

Occasionally, we would sit outside of the Italian restaurant, Granchio’s, across the street with a couple of other foreign teachers for drinks and food. And Tao, being the big sweetheart he was, would always join us. He would sit by us and try to play bite us (he did that all the time, but never hurt anyone) to get us to pet him. He was such a sweetie.

Tao hanging out with us and a couple of friends at Granchio’s, begging for attention

Happy

Happy and her baby, Lulu

Yes, there was a dog named Happy! She was named “Happy” because she had a mean underbite and our apartment building’s owners were clever enough to come up with the ironic name. Plus, she was a very tranquil and loving dog.

She lived under our apartment building. She literally never left, so every time we came home from eating or school or traveling, she would waltz up to us, wanting food and affection. She was incredibly skinny and mangy, but loved a good headscratch.

Happy was Tao’s baby mama, by the way. Numerous times! She had a litter of puppies before we arrived and, apparently, all of her puppies died for various reasons. How sad! Then, she had another litter while we were there, but only one puppy survived: Lulu.

Lulu

Lulu was the baby of the dog club at the Ing Swiss. She was white, just like her mom, but was just as sweet as both of her parents. She was always playful (I mean, come on, she was a puppy) and loved to be held and petted. Lulu was also the cleanest of all the dogs, so obviously we all had no problem holding and petting her constantly!

I would elaborate on how adorable she is, but I think the pictures will speak better than I can!

Our foreign teacher friend, Cholla, with Lulu when she was a couple of weeks old; Matt and Lulu

Lulu; Matt with Lulu and Tao 

Lulu = Simba (sorry it’s such a short video)

Lucky

Lucky (top) and Lulu (bottom)

Last, but certainly not least, Lucky! Lucky was adopted by the two workers at the apartment building in the first couple of weeks of our living there. He was just a little puppy then and so sweet! And he was generally clean!

The workers who owned him kept him chained under the apartment building. But, maybe that was to keep him safe because Tao was a rather territorial dog and probably wouldn’t be a fan of another male dog around.

But, at any rate, Lucky was so precious and sweet! He, just like the other dogs, desired attention and to be petted. So, he would get a little jealous when we were petting Lulu, Tao, or Happy, and would bark at us until we went over to him and played with him.

Lucky as a puppy when he first arrived

All of our dogs were incredibly loving and changed the stigma I had about wild dogs. They also helped in showing me that, although Thailand holds some of the kindest people, Thailand holds some of the kindest dogs, too!

A video of Lulu, Happy, Tao, and Lucky, who is barking in the background for attention!

What is your experience with wild dogs abroad?

Pork Larb with White Rice

This is one of those dishes that I’m profoundly disappointed in myself for not discovering earlier.

During our visa run to Laos in January, Matt and I went to the restaurant in the lobby of our hotel for dinner. While flipping through the menu, we found that there was an extensive amount of Thai food options, but considering we were in Laos, we wanted to try a Laotian dish. After flipping through some more, we found “larb,” which, according to the menu, was a popular Laotian dish. Exactly what we were looking for!

We ordered it and weren’t quite sure of what to expect when they brought it out to us. But, when they finally did and we took a bite out of it, we were astonished at the amazing flavor! It was spicy (I’m not a huge spicy fan, but it was somehow perfect here) with chilies, ground pork, fried basil, garlic, and white rice. Sounds simple, but it was packed with flavor.

The only downfall of this flavorful meal was that it was a small portion. However, that’s how Thailand’s portions are as well, so we were used to it by then…kindof. We still wanted more!

Fortunately, after returning to Thailand, Matt and I found larb on the menus of a few other places in which we ate! It was a wonderful discovery and was just as delicious as this larb! I hope I am able to try this again some day soon. But, I hope that you are able to try it for yourself some day sooner!

Thin Noodle Stir-Fry

Stir-fry is always a delightfully delicious meal, but it is particularly mind-blowing when it’s made in Thailand. And Thai stir-fry is even better– even when you thought that it was impossible– when it’s made by street vendors.

After going to the Chonburi mall one weekend, Matt and I decided to grab dinner from a street vendor before going back to our apartment for the night. While perusing the various carts, we weren’t quite interested in anything because a lot of carts were selling more snack-like foods. Eventually, we stumbled upon a cart with three workers, presumably mother, father, and daughter, working two large woks. We came to a sudden halt to admire the concoctions being made within the woks. The daughter was stirring some thin noodles with soy sauce, fish sauce, oil, egg, chicken, and a mystery vegetable (maybe bok choy?). We were drooling. I quickly ordered “song,” which is “two” in Thai, and we sat down, salivating at the thought of some stir-fry.

After a couple of minutes of sitting on backless plastic chairs, the daughter brought over two bowls of stir-fry. And we enjoyed every bite of it. Every ingredient in the meal was so fresh, flavorful, and juicy, it was magical. It was perfect and melt-in-your-mouth worthy. I still look at the picture of it now and drool a bit.

Oh so delicious street stir-fry

A Couple of “Fun” Days for Teachers and a Visa Run to Laos

January 7th, 2015

Ah, yes. Teachers Sports Day. On the same day that we had to leave for our Visa Run to Laos, we had a lovely day off from school dedicated to teachers participating in a sports day. Four schools, one of them being ours, competed against each other in a number of predetermined sports.

The sports (at least, the ones I could recall) were volleyball, basketball, chairball, and some sport where it’s basically volleyball and soccer combined. Oh, and if you don’t know what chairball and the second sport are, that’s totally normal because these sports are pretty much played in only Thailand (as far as I know, anyway).

During the indoor volleyball match, all of the Thai and foreign teachers who weren’t participating in any sports had to sit in the bleachers, holding spray painted cardboard, which when placed together, made the Thai flag. And we had to dance with our white glove covered hands and pom-poms. And cheer…sort of. We just sang and moved our pom-poms around. Our school was honestly more obsessed with our cheering than the actual game. Odd, coming from America where winning in sports and cheering people on in them is so common.

Oh, and a few of the Thai teachers, both men and women, wore some interesting outfits to get us to cheer louder.

Eventually, us foreign teachers got bored and decided to walk around the premises, which was actually a lovely park that contained the Chonburi Football Club stadium and various other buildings and courts where the Teachers Sports Day was held. We watched some chairball, which is kindof like basketball, except there’s no dribbling, only passing, and instead of baskets, they have people standing on chairs, holding actual baskets above their heads. That got boring eventually, so we watched the volleyball-soccer games, which were surprisingly very entertaining! The Thai men who were playing were extremely skilled at the sport! It was my favorite sport to watch there.

Then, we moved on and watched basketball because they had one of the foreign teachers playing for our school! He was the only foreign teacher to be able to play (of the games I watched, anyway), so we obviously all had to watch. And guess what? We won!

The Director of our school (in dress pants) posing with our winning basketball team

After that, Matt and I grabbed our heaping backpacks and headed out to Laos!

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Visa Run to Laos: January 7th-January 9th

Alright, I have to be entirely honest with you: our excursion to Laos wasn’t exactly as exciting as you may think or hope it would’ve been. So, in order to keep you interested, I have decided to just make a short list of things we witnessed and did both in and on the way to Laos.

1. We took a 12-hour bus ride there. Yes, yet another forever-long bus ride.
2. We hardly slept at all on that bus because of the screaming Russian women at the front of the bus.
3. We arrived at the border before dawn and waited a half hour for the gates to allow us (and about fifty other people that were there!) to cross over.
4. Passport control will always have a long line, apparently even at the Laos border at six in the morning.

After passport control on a bus into Laos (notice the impending sunrise)

5. Laos looks a lot like Thailand, from the vegetation to the buildings.
6. I passed right out in the passenger’s seat in a minivan full of strangers (and Matt).
7. The Thai Embassy looked real fancy!

The Thai Embassy; Elephants on the wall of the embassy

8. Laos has SANDWICHES. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but since Matt and I are such huge sandwich lovers and Thailand doesn’t have any anywhere, it was pretty exciting.
9. The agency that we went with to take care of our Non-Immigrant B visas was fantastic. They did literally everything for us while we basically tagged along. I gotta give them big kudos for that.
10. We were finished with our visas for the day and, when we arrived to our hotel, we immediately took a five-hour nap. It was magical.
11. We attempted to walk around our block after we woke up, but there was honestly nothing where we were. There were buildings and cars all around, but nowhere to eat or even just go except in our hotel.

Tables outside of our hotel; the hotel itself from the outside

12. We had some amazing food for dinner from there, though. It was called larb. It was spicy with ground pork, rice, basil, chilies, and deliciousness. Would definitely recommend to a friend.

Larb (so good)

13. Fun fact: Laos accepts Thai baht (ya know, their currency)! Super convenient. And we got Laotian currency in change!

Laotian currency

14. After hanging out in the lobby of the hotel and speaking occasionally with some kind and outgoing Korean twenty-somethings who were there for school, Matt and I went to sleep for an absurd amount of hours until the morning, when we needed to leave with our agency to collect our passports with our new visas from the Thai embassy (hello, run-on sentence).
15. We got our new visas with no problems!
16. We immediately headed back to the border for another forever long ride back to Bangkok.
17. There was traffic at 2 a.m. in Bangkok after another exhausting trip. We took a cab from there and ended up walking into our apartment in Chonburi at 3:30 a.m.

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Teacher “Appreciation” Day!
January 16th

Apparently in Thailand, there are two holidays dedicated to teachers during the school year: one where the students “appreciate” their teachers with gifts and other fun things and another where the teachers and students have the day off, but the teachers congregate in a specific school, listen to Buddhist monks pray and sing, sing karaoke, and eat mountains of food.

We celebrated the latter.

Here is the layout for the day’s very interesting events:

• Arrive at our school with other Thai and foreign teachers
• Hop into a line of minivans and travel an hour away to some school in the middle of nowhere
• Take swigs of other foreign teachers’ incognito alcoholic beverages
• Arrive at middle-of-nowhere school
• Eat some rice soup for breakfast (just like our school had for almost every morning. We weren’t enthralled).
• Sit and wait for some instructions
• Walked around out of boredom

The school grounds

• Took more swigs of alcohol from fellow kind and generous foreign teachers all while admiring caged roosters, which were used primarily for cockfighting

• Sat in a large auditorium, listening to monks sing and pray for a couple of hours in pure confusion, and watched Thai teachers accept awards

   

The auditorium with monks at the front; Matt and I; our foreign teacher friends; more monks

• Got soaked in holy water from a monk

• Got yelled at by the head director of our school for talking too loudly
• Congregated under a large tent with numerous tables and chairs
• Sat with some foreign teachers (we had to split into two tables, unfortunately) and ate a plethora of flavorful Thai dishes, including grilled whole fish with chilies, soup, fried rice, and so many more that I can’t remember or explain. However, it was hands down one of me and Matt’s favorite meals in Thailand. We honestly couldn’t get enough!
• Listened to random Thai people dance and sing karaoke while we shoveled spicy and delicious food into our faces. And one of those people singing was the director of our school! It was hilarious, to say the least.

Thai dancers (I’m so sad I didn’t get documentation of our director singing)

• Eventually, we headed back to our school with full bellies and fuzzy heads (from alcohol and confusion from the day). Then, headed back home.

All in all, the three adventures were awesome, hilarious, confusing, and amazing experiences.

Thanks for reading, guys! 🙂
Next post: Our Wild Dogs!