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Published: October 28th 2006
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Smile, Cornelius
(Thanks to Mike Morgan for the picture.) Exposition I'd been travelling for four days in Laos with an Englishman named Mike, two Canadians (Mike and Paul), and two Swedes (Johanes and Daniel). We were all staying in the upstairs of a fantastic, newly-remodeled guesthouse. We had the entire top floor: three king-size beds, two twin beds, three bathrooms, and two balconies, all for only fifteen U.S. dolllars per night--total. Mike had his own room, the Swedes shared another, and I was bunked up with the two Canadian kids (who're from Victoria, in fact, which is quite close to home for me).
Rising Action This particular night, we started out with Beer Lao at some nicer bars, then setttled a little too early into drinking harsh Lao moonshine at one of the riverside bars frequented by the locals and the most adventurous. They call their moonshine "Lao Lao" and it is completely illegal and might make you blind--but it is everywhere. We got our first bottle from an American traveller that we'd met on the slow boat: an older guy who seems to have been around the block a few times and had his share of hard knocks--up to and including a recent skin-flaying, bone-breaking
spill off a Thai motorcycle.
Somewhere in all this we invented a new cocktail, which I dubbed the, "Beer-Lao-Lao-Lao," ("Beer-Li-Li-Li," or, "Beer Triple-Lao," are also acceptable names for this drink.) You simply take a chilled cocktail glass (a warm one works just as well), add ice, then fill the glass two-thirds of the way with Beer Lao and the rest of the way with Lao Lao. Drink quickly and it tastes like heaven. We were probably a little too fond of these--especially me--because we'd gotten into quite a state by the time we left the place.
We strolled down a darkened riverside street, bought a set of overpriced bus tickets for the next morning, dodged little mobs of Lao teenagers on motorbikes, and shot rocks into the air from the finely-crafted slingshots we'd each bought from the night bazaar for fifty cents a piece. It was somewhere around then that we saw the monkey.
The Turning Point It was the same potbellied, chain-smoking, old Lao man that had sold me Snake Whiskey the night before--a genuine character, but kind of a scam artist and a shithead. He was dragging a young monkey around by a
chain and slapping it across the head for discipline. The three of us saw this abusive behavior to one of mankind's closest cousins and immediately decided we had to do something about it. What followed was a good half-hour of arguments and shouting and panics and haggling over price. We ended up getting the monkey, and his leash, for only twenty U.S. dollars. We named him "Cornelius."
So there I am, walking into a bar, drunk of my ass with a monkey sitting on my shoulder. Then the two Canadian kids come running in, shouting the terribly obvious to all our friends and all the strangers, "you guys, we just bought a monkey!" We sit down and start asking people for advice, get jokes and sarcasm and helpful ideas hurled at us in equal portions, and decide to take the little guy back to the apartment and get him some food. The best advice we'd got was to bring him to the monks in the morning, where he would be cared for and later taken to a sanctuary. This was as close to a plan as we ever had.
Trials After taking him home, Cornelius did
some exploration of our top-floor accomodations, but was sitting there calm-as-can-be and eating raisins when I passed out.
I woke up the first time around four in the morning and took a look around. The room looked like my old house--the Savage Land-- on the morning after a raging party, or kind of like pictures of the destruction left behind by Hurricane Katrina. Garbage and little bits of food where everywhere, toiletries and clothes and towels and bedsheets were scattered around, and the two Canadians were layed out in their clothes in the most uncomfortable-looking positions: fast asleep. The monkey was passed out on top of a piled-up blanket. I pulled the sleeping-bag over my eyes and returned to my surreal travel-dreams.
I next awoke around 6am to these words, "Get the fuck away from me, you crazy fucking monkey!" It was the screech of an 18-year-old young man who'd barely had his voice start to deepen, scared out of his gourd by a twelve-inch-tall monkey. I pulled the sleeping-bag back down from my eyes and looked over to see Canadian Mike doing the Fred Flinstone twinkle-toes on top of his bed, with a tiny monkey running around
English Mike grooms Cornelius
(Thanks to Mike Morgan for the picture.) his feet, claws in the air and teeth bared. It looked like a scene from "I Love Lucy," with Lucy or Ethel trying to escape a mouse.
The other Canadian kid, who was a little more level-headed around the monkey (but only a little, he'd had his fair share of screaming and getting pissed on as well) decided it was time to get the monkey to the monastery. I started to put on my clothes. I dressed in warm stuff 'cause I felt sick as a dog: wool socks, long pants and shirt, and a wool ski-cap. I walked over to the irate Cornelius, started to pet his head and to groom his back; he calmed right down. He allowed me to slip the leash back over his head and arms, and to gently tighten it around his waist. Then I picked him up carefully and seated him in my arms on a fresh towel. Paul opened the door for me and we stepped out into the final chapter of this ordeal.
The Major Conflict After watching the daily 6am procession of monks to recieve alms, we entered the nearest monastery with a monkey wrapped in
Cornelius grooms English Mike
(Thanks to Mike Morgan for the picture.) a towel. They had four others there--waiting to be taken to a sanctuary-- but Cornelius was starting to foam a little bit at the mouth and they were quite afraid that he'd get in fights or spread Rabies to the other monkeys. In all fairness to Cornelius, though, it probably wasn't Rabies. He had been through a lot: he was thrown into the arms of three new owners, taken to a new home, driven mad all night by a pair of drunk and frightened teenagers, he'd eaten a bunch of someone's weed, and now he was being carried up a hill in the arms of a lumbering human and handed over to some wierd bald dudes in bright orange robes. I'm sure you'd foam at the mouth a little as well.
Eventually, we'd convinced them to take on the cause of little Cornelius, and one of the younger monks had decided to carry the responsibility. He took the monkey from us, gave him some banana, and took him to a tree to climb. We left reluctantly, but seemed to race as soon as we were out of sight of our former charge.
Denouement Then the three
of us had to get immediately onto the bus to Vang Vieng. Over-charged, exhausted, and hung-over, we were each on the verge of vomitus throughout the entire winding, bouncy, hot and uncomfortable 8-hour drive.
And that was the last any of us saw of
our monkey.
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Aaron Brown
non-member comment
pretty hilarious sounding adventure, I had to laugh.