Monkey Business

Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.

Where we are: Phuket, Thailand, watching the Omicron news and taking advantage of the outdoor living here.

Monkey Business

There are working elephants on Phuket. Not wild ones, not any more—it’s a heavily populated island, which can only be reached by water or causeway. There are wild elephants in other parts of Thailand, which have a tendency to trample tents and disturb campers, if the news is to be believed. But here on Phuket, the elephants we’ve seen appear to be involved in construction work. The other day I was in the rooftop pool, doing my physical therapy exercises, when I saw a truck go by with an elephant in the back. I looked around, but there was nobody to tell, so I kept doing my leg lifts, and thinking, I just saw an elephant go by in a truck.

Some days my life is weird.

Toby says there are also monkeys on the island, but we haven’t seen any yet. As he pointed out, “It is actually a jungle out here.”

Monkeys, though: while they seem every bit as exotic and adorable as elephants (perhaps even more so), they’re actually wicked creatures.

They are out to get you. And don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

There’s a famous/popular park in Ubud, on the island of Bali (did you see/read Eat, Pray, Love? That’s Ubud.) called the Monkey Forest. It’s apparently full of walking trails, and monkey-obsessed tourists. I wouldn’t know—we avoided it. Occasionally we had to walk past the entrance, where we were careful to stay on the opposite side of the street. Even so, I made sure never to have any kind of fruit or food on my person as we walked by. As a matter of fact, I never carried anything other than my cross-body purse, with my phone carefully zipped inside.

I was more careful around those monkeys than I am in the most notoriously pickpocket-infested neighborhoods we ever walk through.

We saw big fat monkeys grab snacks out of people’s hands. We saw them snatch grocery bags and run away, scattering the contents on the ground. We saw them approach people, chattering and shrieking and grabbing, and refuse to back down.

I just don’t trust monkeys.

My distrust started during my first real monkey encounter, on a different island. I was lounging under an umbrella by the pool, reading a book on my Kindle. I heard a noise, a sort of pattering sound, and because I was so engrossed in my book, for a couple of seconds, the noise didn’t compute. Something hit my leg, getting my attention, and I thought it was raining, but almost as quickly, I realized the pattering sound was only on my umbrella. About that time, a big yellow splathit my Kindle.

I looked up to see a family of Dusky Langurs peering down at me from a tree. Do you know what a Dusky Langur looks like? You should stop reading this right now, and Google Dusky Langur. They are so freaking cute you won’t believe it. You will decide—and rightly so—that seeing one of these adorable creatures in the wild would be a peak life experience.

But they peed on me. I mean, the splat on my Kindle was yellow. Undeniably yellow. Maybe it was a fluke? A disturbingly gross accident? I looked up again, carefully, with my mouth firmly closed just-in-case, and they were still peering down at me.

I went up to our room, to wash the monkey pee off my Kindle and my leg. Maybe it’s good luck to be peed on by a monkey, or maybe it’s how pandemics get started; I’m not sure, but it seemed unsanitary.

Having thoroughly disinfected myself, I went back out to my lounge chair and settled back to my book, studiously blasé about the monkeys. I mean, they peed on me, but they were still unbelievably adorable, and you don’t see monkeys every day, right?

This time, it wasn’t a pattering sound. It was—you know what’s coming, right?—a plop.

I kid you not—hand over heart. This is a totally true story; I’ll spare you the photo. A monkey pooped at me. It missed my leg by about six inches.

I have learned many lessons in our travels, but this is one of the most important ones: the monkeys are out to get us, and one day they’re going to win.

From my writer’s notebook:

I’ve been following the saga of the time capsule(s) that were recovered when the Robert E. Lee statue was taken down in Richmond, VA. I’m only a little put out about it—that was my idea! Those of you who have read my third novel, Indigo House, will know that a Confederate statue and a time capsule play an important role in that book.

Like they say, there’s nothing new on earth.

Take care,

Lisa

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