On the first day of our tour with Jermsak (our guide), he drove us to Monkey Cave. It wasn’t actually a cave, but a clearing next to a temple and a river and near a mountain with caves. We were shocked to learn that the cave where the Thai soccer boys got trapped in 2018 was just down the road! Jermsak actually played a role in that rescue effort by translating for some Australian reporters and making transfers to/from the airport.
At Monkey Cave, monkeys were all over playing with each other and scampering around. They were really curious and playful and the baby monkeys were so cute!! We learned from Jermsak that we should not look them in the eye and smile or show teeth since that is their way of challenging one another. There were monkeys play-fighting on a roof of a building next to the water which was really fun to watch! One time they were fighting on the underside of the roof (next to the river) and one managed to pull the other off of the building… The falling monkey grabbed onto the other monkey’s foot and was hanging there until that monkey kicked hard enough and the hanging monkey fell into the water!
Jermsak bought some peanuts and bread so we could feed them hand-to-hand. In the culture of these monkeys, the king gets as much as he wants first because he needs to defend the clan from enemy clans, then there is a group behind him who gets to eat, and then finally a third group comes later to eat. We kept trying to feed the baby monkeys, but the king and the other bigger monkeys would actually take the food out of the babies’ hands! We managed to sneak some peanuts to them, though. It was hilarious how greedy the monkeys were – some of them would actually gesture with their hands asking for more, and the king would shovel peanuts into his mouth from our hands without taking a break. I wish we could take a monkey home with us. That would be a great souvenir.
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