Monkey Mountain!

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I decided to give Bang Saen another try, since I hadn't been there since my first weekend in Chonburi. Also, I am expecting TEFLer visitors (yes, really!) in a couple of weekends and am looking into some of the activities available for our entertainment. Some of the options include movies, bowling, banana boat rides (haha), bicycles built for 3 or 4 and Monkey Mountain.

I still found the beach at Bang Saen to be mostly unappealing compared to every other beach I've been on in Thailand and marvel at the fact that I see any foreigners on holiday there (that aren't apparently living in the area) at all. When Thailand has so many fantastic beautiful beaches to offer, I still cannot fathom why anyone would choose this one. I try to console myself that they must be on a business trip to industrial Chonburi and don't have time to get farther away.

But despite all that, Bang Saen does have some cute bars and restaurants, as well as a big university, and I can see how it would be more fun than Chonburi. Two of the other foreign teachers at my school live there and though it is just 14 km from school, it can sometimes take up to 45 minutes to get there. I decided early on that I would rather be a 5 minute walk from school than have to commute every day and I completely stand by that decision! Commuting is no fun.

I have been meaning to go to see Monkey Mountain (Khao Samuk) now for quite some time. Teacher Rick had told me about it way at the beginning of the term and said it was worth a look. It's not as much of a mountain as a big hill, but it was still a bit of a climb for me to get up there and had a pretty nice view from the top (if not a nice smell!). There were quite a few cheeky monkeys on Monkey Mountain, but not too aggessive, fortunately. By monkey, of course, I really mean long-tailed macaque, but we'll just go with the misnomer for now. At the top of the 'mountain,' there are some people selling fruit and veggies in small baskets to feed the monkeys, but I contented myself just watching other people feed them. They are so interesting to watch and very picky eaters, I found. They only wanted to eat the juiciest bits and would discard all the rest, making the platform at the top and surroundings a semi-dump of putrefying plant matter.

As usual, I created quite a stir for the locals, who seemed to enjoy watching me watch (and talk to!) the monkeys more than watching the monkeys. There was the obligatory photo op via cameraphone, and I am posting my copy of the picture here, too.

One of my favorite things to take pictures of, besides happy children, is animals, and I always have the hardest time editing them down because I think they are all so cute in their own way. Anyway, I am including most of the photos I took that day on here because I can't disciminate against any of the monkeys.

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Comments

[Courtney]

oooh can we please please go there! it looks like fun!! yay for GGW 'Buri '09!!