Devil monkey
May 24
A couple of days ago I made a trip with a missions group here from the U.S. to "The Golden Triangle," the place where three countries (Thailand, Burma, and Laos) meet at the conjunction of two rivers. We hopped on some long river boats that had about as much character as their captains, and jetted off across the Mekong in front of our wailing outboards. We did a quick loop towards Burma and then down the other direction between Thailand and Laos. Our pilot eased the boat into a small, sketchy looking dock, and I made my most unimpressive country entrance yet. As we stepped up onto the bank and climbed the dirt stairs, we were greeted by an unsmiling man behind a small, tiki hut-looking desk who was there to collect our 20 baht (about 50 cents) for entrance to his country. I paid him my fee and he handed me a small scrap of paper that had some scribbly Lao writing at the top followed by: "LAO P.D.R. [more scribble] Wel Come To DonSao Is land." No, those are not typing errors on my part, this is exactly what the paper said. Great tourism PR if you ask me.
As I continued my way down the path I realized that this "Is land" was just a collection of tourist shops. I wondered how far one would have to trek through the jungle wilderness to reach an actual Loa city. I turned to one of my companions, a Shan from Thailand, and commented that I didn’t think this was what Laos was really like. "Yes," he replied with a sly grin, "this fake Laos."
As I meandered further towards the back of the village, I noticed a small, wooden sign with orange lettering that pronounced (in English only, mind you) "Wild Animal" with an arrow pointing off to the right. Always giddy for a visit to the zoo, I plodded right along, thinking that there might be a petting farm up ahead. There were two cages and the first one held an animal that I quickly decided I would not be trying to pet. It was some sort of bear, called a "buffalo bear" in the best Shan to Thai to English translation I could get. The cage was the most shoddily-built contraption for holding a deadly animal I had ever seen and I stayed a few feet away. Soon, one of my companions gave the bear a carton of soy milk, which he proceeded to suck down on his back like a baby. Not so tough any more.
The other cage held a little monkey, the likes of which conjured memories of Curious George, getting in to all kinds of trouble. I stood and watched him bounce around in his cage, emitting a happy little chatter every now and again. He was just so human-like that I wished I had something to give him to play with or to eat. The best I could find was a piece of trash on the ground next to his cage, so I bent down to get it. As I did this, my head apparently broke the invisible barrier around the cage, and the monkey shot not one, but both of his spindly little arms through the space between the bars, grabbed a hold of two monkey handfuls of my shaggy hair, and then proceeded to draw them back in to his cage, ripping them from my delicate noggin. It all happened so fast that I wasn’t even sure why my head was in so much pain until I heard hysterical laughter around me and looked, dumfounded down into the cage to see the monkey glaring up at me with two handfuls of beautiful, dark blonde hair. Then, I believe just to spite me, he sat there and chewed off what I’m assuming was the dead skin left on the tips of my hair follicles. Ouch. In my amazement, I even forgot to take a picture of the little devil, so I’ll just post one of the bear. (The other photo is just riding around in the back of a pickup as is our mode of transportation everywhere we go. Cute little girl, isn’t she?)
Other than that, things are still going fine. I have decided to spend another week or so here in Tha Thon, or at least until I get a hold of a friend of a friend in Chiang Mai who is a professional photographer who I will be spending some time with. Please just keep me in your thoughts and, if it is your way, in your prayers.
A couple of days ago I made a trip with a missions group here from the U.S. to "The Golden Triangle," the place where three countries (Thailand, Burma, and Laos) meet at the conjunction of two rivers. We hopped on some long river boats that had about as much character as their captains, and jetted off across the Mekong in front of our wailing outboards. We did a quick loop towards Burma and then down the other direction between Thailand and Laos. Our pilot eased the boat into a small, sketchy looking dock, and I made my most unimpressive country entrance yet. As we stepped up onto the bank and climbed the dirt stairs, we were greeted by an unsmiling man behind a small, tiki hut-looking desk who was there to collect our 20 baht (about 50 cents) for entrance to his country. I paid him my fee and he handed me a small scrap of paper that had some scribbly Lao writing at the top followed by: "LAO P.D.R. [more scribble] Wel Come To DonSao Is land." No, those are not typing errors on my part, this is exactly what the paper said. Great tourism PR if you ask me.
As I continued my way down the path I realized that this "Is land" was just a collection of tourist shops. I wondered how far one would have to trek through the jungle wilderness to reach an actual Loa city. I turned to one of my companions, a Shan from Thailand, and commented that I didn’t think this was what Laos was really like. "Yes," he replied with a sly grin, "this fake Laos."
As I meandered further towards the back of the village, I noticed a small, wooden sign with orange lettering that pronounced (in English only, mind you) "Wild Animal" with an arrow pointing off to the right. Always giddy for a visit to the zoo, I plodded right along, thinking that there might be a petting farm up ahead. There were two cages and the first one held an animal that I quickly decided I would not be trying to pet. It was some sort of bear, called a "buffalo bear" in the best Shan to Thai to English translation I could get. The cage was the most shoddily-built contraption for holding a deadly animal I had ever seen and I stayed a few feet away. Soon, one of my companions gave the bear a carton of soy milk, which he proceeded to suck down on his back like a baby. Not so tough any more.
The other cage held a little monkey, the likes of which conjured memories of Curious George, getting in to all kinds of trouble. I stood and watched him bounce around in his cage, emitting a happy little chatter every now and again. He was just so human-like that I wished I had something to give him to play with or to eat. The best I could find was a piece of trash on the ground next to his cage, so I bent down to get it. As I did this, my head apparently broke the invisible barrier around the cage, and the monkey shot not one, but both of his spindly little arms through the space between the bars, grabbed a hold of two monkey handfuls of my shaggy hair, and then proceeded to draw them back in to his cage, ripping them from my delicate noggin. It all happened so fast that I wasn’t even sure why my head was in so much pain until I heard hysterical laughter around me and looked, dumfounded down into the cage to see the monkey glaring up at me with two handfuls of beautiful, dark blonde hair. Then, I believe just to spite me, he sat there and chewed off what I’m assuming was the dead skin left on the tips of my hair follicles. Ouch. In my amazement, I even forgot to take a picture of the little devil, so I’ll just post one of the bear. (The other photo is just riding around in the back of a pickup as is our mode of transportation everywhere we go. Cute little girl, isn’t she?)
Other than that, things are still going fine. I have decided to spend another week or so here in Tha Thon, or at least until I get a hold of a friend of a friend in Chiang Mai who is a professional photographer who I will be spending some time with. Please just keep me in your thoughts and, if it is your way, in your prayers.
posted by Andrew at 4:28 PM
4 Comments:
Sounds like your introduction to the local animal population was very interesting. If you think about it, that could of been the little devil monkey's first taste of the Western world also. Nice claws on the buffalo bear, but a very warm loving face, reminds me of Jake the Wonder Dog, as mom calls him.
Keep up the writing I love it. I am going to give the web address to several people at work. They will enjoy it also.
Song Teows (the small pick up "taxis) are the best huh? :)
Andrew, good to see you are digging your heels right into the country and getting some good hands on, or at least it's getting its hands on you! Crazy monkey. Builds character. At least it wasn't that sun bear trying to scalp you. THey are known to be particularly feisty; harbour a bit of a Napoleon complex, I guess. It sure sounds like the monkey had a good time, though. Maybe he was just trying to give you a big smootch! maybe not. Either way he could use a health dose of manners. I hope you find some cuddlier jungle critters along the way. -Allyson
Andy,
I guess you should have gotten a hair cut in Indy rather than from a Lao monkey barber.
T. Howe
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