Monkey Mountain

On December 31st we decided to hit up a tourist attraction we'd heard a lot about. It's called Monkey Mountain and there are hundreds of monkeys living atop it. We knew it was going to be a long day so we grabbed some "salad in a bag" at the Thai market to bring up the mountain. When we got to the village we took out our salads. Out of the corner of my eye I see a monkey. NBD. It started coming closer. Still, NBD. All of a sudden it takes a running leap at me. Fight or flight kicks in and what do I do? I stand still as a statue and CLOSE MY EYES! Note to my instincts, you suck! Monkey leaps into my lap takes my salad and litters it all over the ground. At this point the girls I'm with are yelling and next thing I know some thai man becomes my knight in shining armor. He's got a whip and cage. Now, now, i know what you're thinking but this isn't some weird fetish porn blog. The whip is for the monkey and the cage is for my friends and i. Actually though, the monkeys run free around the village and the people stay inside cages that surround their businesses. It's like a reverse zoo. Anyway, after the salad incident, my friends and i needed a place to contemplate our life decisions and thank buddha for the fact that we'd all gotten our rabies shots. After multiple attempts at thanking our Thai savior (he didn't speak a word of english) we headed back into the land of monkeys, armed with nothing more than the knowledge that we didn't have to be the fastest, we just couldn't be the slowest. We immediately looked for an elderly tourist to wander behind (just kidding). The rest of the morning was spent snapping photos of different groups of monkeys all the while hoping they would keep their distance; knowing the cage was getting further and further away. Once we tired of the monkey show, we headed into the temple atop the mountain, which gave us a beautiful view of Hua Hin. Of course, on our way down, we had to stop in to see jesus christ superstar (thai edition) to let him know we hadn't been mangled by any monkeys. He couldn't tell us so himself, but his silence and uncomfortable stare let us know exactly how glad he was for us.