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

The Urban and Rural Province of Nakhon Si Thammarat in Thailand

Hello! I’m so sorry for the late post. It’s just that I’ve been profoundly lazy this past week and, I can’t lie to you, it’s been fantastic. But, I’m here now!

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 The red area is Nakhon Si Thammarat province in Thailand

As I was saying in my last post, Matt and I decided to leave Koh Samui to go to Nakhon Si Thammarat, which is the closest province to Koh Samui, because everyone else from our agency was going there. The reason for that was because our agency had promised most people jobs within that province, so everyone figured why wait for them to tell us to travel there when we could just show up there and force them to do their jobs now rather than later? Considering this was a decent plan, especially since our bank accounts were draining more and more each day on the expensive island, Matt and I decided to follow suit.

Upon arriving to the hotel in Nakhon after around five hours of ferry and minivan travel, we dropped off our stuff and decided to walk and find some food, since it was now lunch time and we were incredibly hungry. While walking around, we noticed that for the first time, there was nothing in English at all and no one—literally not a single person—knew a word of English. We also noticed that everyone was gawking at us—and I mean, everyone. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re a white person in a province with zero white people.

Oh, and there was virtually nothing in our area of the city. There was a mall and a McDonalds about a half hour walk from our hotel. That was about it.

During our week stay in this boring city where no one spoke our language, we regularly spoke with a woman who was supposedly from our agency (you know, the lovely Island TEFL) and was responsible for our placement. At one point, she had taken everyone to their placements in the province, including where we would live and teach. One day, she took Matt and I to ours.

We hopped in her car and she drove us about 45 minutes from the city to an area where there was virtually no one. There was only a shack about every minute or so. There were no stores, no places to eat, nothing. Eventually, we came upon this relatively large pink house with a smaller brown house attached to it. Our new agent told us that we would live here– not in the pink house sadly, but the brown one– and we would share it with other teachers at our school. She then informed us that the two houses belong to the director of our school.

Pretty sketchy, we thought, but decided to continue on to see the school anyway.

Next, the agent took us to our school, which was about 15 minutes from the director’s house down a small, curvy deserted road. The school was very small and in terrible condition. It had no air conditioning, hardly any grass for the kids to play on, cracks in the walls, and stained black mildew on the two buildings.

Okay, so the school was sketchy, too, basically. We then decided to ask our agent about other possible apartments because sharing a house with the director and other strangers didn’t sound too appealing. She then showed us another living quarter possibility. She took us to some random Thai guy, who rolled up a door much like a door for a storage unit in a small building across from the school. When we walked inside, it was an unfurnished cement room. Beyond that, there was a much smaller room with a squat toilet. Oh, and a 2×4 rotted wooden balcony beyond that.

And no shower. And no furniture. And no running water. And no electricity. Matt and I literally laughed and walked out of the place. Can you blame us?

We didn’t tell our agent that we wanted to work there, nor did we tell her that we wanted to work there. We told he we’d think about it and let her know (even though I was sold on absolutely not going there from the start).

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So, we wasted about a week in the city, dicking around and wasting time with other agency members that were equally pissed about everything.

After a while, it turned out that the scam wasn’t quite over. There was no promised placement for any of us and we would have to wait until December 1^st to start teaching. The school semester had already started for most schools in Thailand (November 3rd) and we wouldn’t be teaching maybe until December 1^st!?

So, naturally, everyone was even more enraged. We all ended up going to a hotel in the middle of nowhere in Nakhon province where the cost was cheap, according to our agent, and there was a beach. She wanted us to go there to “relax” and “not worry about our placements.”  We all figured, hey, there’s a beach. Why not?

We all squeezed into a minivan with our belongings and took a two and a half hour ride to our new hotel in a town called Khanom, which, by the way, was literally in the middle of nowhere. There were even cows grazing outside of our window (which had a beautiful view, though. I couldn’t complain about that).

Matt sitting in front of the window in our hotel in Khanom

Once we dropped off our stuff, we decided to go to the beach, since we had nothing else to do and it was a ten minute walk from our hotel. The beach was completely deserted and beautiful. The beach was filled with coconut and palm trees, and there were mountains around us and crystal blue water in front of us. Oh, and a little hut that served American food. It was a haven for us, really.

The beach; one of the huts on the beach to eat inside; a beach swing

Eventually, we had to leave our paradise and returned to our room and said, “Okay. Let’s find other jobs because fuck Island TEFL.”

We had heavily researched before in the city of Nakhon, but didn’t find too much. However, as a last resort, we looked on Craigslist that night (this was November 12^th). Matt found an interesting ad for a teaching job in Chonburi, Thailand (about an hour Southwest of Bangkok along the coast of the gulf) looking for two English teachers. So, Matt and I contacted them and they immediately e-mailed us back with interest. The person, named Omar, was messaging Matt and told us to skype call him that night. So, we did, and we talked to him for almost two hours about Island TEFL’s headache and con job, our interest in the job, etc, etc. Then, after hanging up with him and being offered the jobs, we decided we would go there for a job. Why not? We have nothing to lose at this point and nothing going for us where we were.

The next day, we took bicycles from the hotel and rode into town (it was a gorgeous ride!) to buy bus tickets (which was a hassle, by the way, since still no one spoke English here) to Bangkok at 5:00 pm that day. We rode back to our hotel, showered, packed up our stuff, and hitched a ride with one of the hotel managers back into town to catch our bus. We then got on our double-decker tour bus and rode to Bangkok for twelve hours.

Matt bike riding into the nearby town in Nakhon Si Thammarat province; Matt’s pictures during the ride

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Thanks for reading, folks! I hope you enjoyed! Side note: I am so sorry I have no pictures from our week in Nakhon Si Thammarat city. I guess both Matt and I just hated being there so much, we didn’t want to have any mementos from it!

Next time: arriving in Chon Buri and starting our jobs (finally)!

Don’t forget: you can always leave a comment with questions or anything you would like to say! 🙂

The Floating Market and Tiger Temple Amid a Shady Tourist Operation

October 16th, 2014. A day that will live in infamy as one of the most absurd days of my life.

Remember when I said that during our tuk tuk ride, Matt and I paid for a future day trip?
If you don’t, it’s no big deal. We just booked a day trip to see the Floating Market and the Tiger Temple. That’s all.

So, the morning of the 16th had arrived and at 6:00 a.m (I’m guesstimating here because I don’t recall the exact time, but I do remember it was real early), we were on a gray, shaky minivan, bouncing around Bangkok and picking up other fellow tourists. We ended up picking up four more people, two from New Zealand and two from Canada.

If I had to pinpoint the moment we started to question this trip was when we picked up the Canadians. They were late to getting on to the minivan, so they were rushing out of their hostel and to our minivan. Just before stepping into the van, one of them tossed their piece of toast in the gutter next to it. Immediately, our tour guide started yelling at him about how “that’s disgusting” and “this is my home country, how would you like it if I did that in yours?” etc, etc. This lady was just screaming about a piece of toast in the gutter. In Bangkok. Maybe other places that’s disgusting because they’re clean, but in Bangkok, if you throw something on the ground, it’s no big deal because everyone throws shit on the ground there so it’s basically a garbage dump anyway. That was fun.

Anyway, we started our trek to the Kanchanaburi floating market first, which was about two hours from Bangkok. On the way, we talked with the other people in our van. We officially introduced ourselves and met J.P., Leanna, Maureen, and Jazz. They were all incredibly nice and great to talk to, luckily enough! We were all around the same age as well, so that helped, of course. That, and we all spoke English, which was the best part!

After an uncertain amount of time of blabbering, we arrived at the floating market… sort of. We got out into the stifling heat and stepped onto a boat, which took us to the floating market. During the ride, we saw numerous shacks along the water. I even saw a small boy squatting and pooping in the river from right outside his shack/house (in case you wanted that visual!).

A couple of our new friends and the water before the floating market

When we got to the floating market, our tour guide surprised us by telling us that, if we wanted to get onto another boat in the actual floating market, we had to pay extra money. Now, keep in mind, we paid about $50 for this trip each, so all six of us were pretty annoyed that we would have to pay extra to go on a boat in the floating market, which they made us think was included in our package. So, we decided to just walk around the market above the water rather than spend the extra money to get on a boat.

While walking around, a few of us bought some clothing items, food, and even held a live python (not me, though, because no way). J.P. and Leanna were kind enough to buy everyone a Heineken and we all drank beer during our walk around the market (yeah, in Thailand, you can drink alcohol publicly, and it’s fantastic).

J.P. holding a toothless python; me and the floating market; the floating market; an adorable baby lemur

After a little over an hour, we hopped back onto our minivan. During our drive to our next destination, which turned out to be “free” lunch, we were all chatting, ya know, like normal people. Suddenly, the driver jolted the wheel, pulled the minivan over and stopped it. He then proceeded to yell at us in Thai. Our tour guide lady then translated for us, saying that he’s angry and needs us to “be quiet.” After us just nodding and saying “okay,” we were petrified to talk at all. J.P. said at one point, “I feel like I’m in trouble on a school field trip,” which was an extremely accurate description of our situation.

After riding around in mostly silence for awhile, we ended up at some restaurant on the side of the road, which already had food laid out for us on a table. By the way, in Thailand, people tend to not eat individual plates of food for each person or have appetizers etc., but get a bunch of food items and share it all at once with the whole table. So, that’s what we had waiting for us. What did we have to eat? No idea, to be honest, but it was good!

We got back on the minivan and drove to what we were hoping was the Tiger Temple. Turned out, we were going to some war museum, which we had no interest in whatsoever. Our unstable tour guides dropped us off on a street and said to just be back at that exact place at a certain time.

We ended up just walking around and skipping the museum. We crossed the bridge over the River Kwai, which was nice. It was just a small bridge that, once every hour (I think), a small, brightly painted train crossed over. Then, we turned around and went back. I went to a store and bought a large garment that looked like a dress for the tiger temple, since we needed conservative clothing.

 

Matt and J.P. on the bridge;  the train; J.P. & Leanna on the bridge; the train

While on the minivan to the Tiger Temple (finally), I went to put on my dress/shirt and there were cobwebs all over it. I brushed them off, thinking nothing really of it, then tried to put it on. I stopped when I felt movement on my hand. I looked down and– oh, look! A lovely and frightening spider! I screamed and threw it on the ground (fortunately, the driver didn’t kick me out of the van for that!). Now, I’m forever skeptical of Thai street clothes.

Side note: I’m not scared of spiders. I’m scared of Thailand’s spiders because they tend to be really poisonous and I’m not messing with that.

So, we got to the Tiger Temple and walked onto the grounds. Basically what we saw was just dust and dirt everywhere. No grass or vegetation except for the occasional tree. While walking around, we noticed it was like a semi-open zoo. There were cows walking around everywhere, which was kinda cool, except for the fact that you could see their bones protruding out of their bodies from starvation. Good sight. We also saw some Asian black bears and exotic birds in cages. Then, of course, the tigers.

We walked along the road, kicking up dust as we did so, and arrived at a small area with a lot of people and tigers. Each one of us was taken by the hand by some worker and brought to every tiger. Our hand-holders took pictures on our phones while we posed with the tigers.

The tigers were sorrowful sights. These majestic animals were chained to the ground in the blazing heat while clearly under sedation. Every tiger I approached and placed my hand on was breathing rapidly. So rapidly, that it was concerning. While posing with a baby tiger who was awake, I witnessed a monk feeding it large white pills. The monk was so unphased by his feeding a baby tiger tranquilizers, it was disturbing.

All of this for a few bucks from tourists.

Overall, I hated the entire experience. I left the tiger area with a hundred pictures and a saddened expression on my face. One I had expected, and one I had not.

Would I recommend the Tiger Temple to a friend? No. Absolutely fucking not.

It wasn’t just me that thought this. All six of us felt the same way about it: it was abhorrent. After that, we finally got into our minivan and went back to our hotel, which took over two hours. Quite the emotional day, I’d say.

Birds at the Tiger Temple; Asian black bears; starving cow; drugged baby tiger; monk feeding a baby tiger sedatives while I awkwardly squat in the background; some heavily sedated tigers and I (my smile in these photos is a facade)

Thanks for reading, guys! I hope you enjoyed it. 🙂

Next up: Teaching Orientation in Bangkok!

Boat ride to the floating market in Kanchanaburi
Note: I said “sorry” at the end of the boat ride because I accidentally kicked J.P. in the butt.