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Our last stop on the James Bond Island excursion was a Monkey Temple. This was a temple set into a cave with a bunch of monkeys and vendors running around outside. The vendors were kind of stationary, actually. This was one of the best parts of the whole trip. These monkeys were not the vicious, two-faced monkeys of Monkey Beach, near Phi Phi Island. No, these were cute, cuddly, friendly monkeys, who just wanted to play and eat bananas. And steal my camera bag. I didn't allow it.
Here are some monkey pictures:
This is a rock. There must be a monkey in there somewhere.
Monkey, monkey, monkey:
This is a short video of a monkey jumping around on the branches. Then I lose track of him a little.
Here is a video of monkeys running, playing, eating, and fighting. It really doesn't get much better than this:
The best part about this trip were the little monkeys that thought I was hiding food under my skirt. I was videotaping some other monkeys when we first got there, and I felt this little tug on the back of my kanga. I turned around to find this little monkey. I'll never forget the innocent look he had on his face. That one (I think it was the same one) kept coming back for more, too. Then later, he brought a friend, and they both tugged at, looked under, and opened my skirt, ever so gently, to try and find food. Very cute.
Here is the video I was taking while Kent took the above photo:
After a little while with the monkeys, we decided to check the temple out, not because it was a temple (boring), but because it was a cave. We climbed up into the big upward crevasse, where Kent took some pictures, but I'm not sure if they came out. It was pretty dark. We didn't take any other pictures inside, because it was a temple and that's rude. We did manage to find this little trail to walk on, around the outside of the caves:
We walked for a few minutes, found another tiny cave with some Buddhas in it that looked barely used, then found the end of the trail. It was a big field, which I thought was the field just outside the entrance, but as we walked a few feet into it, I saw that there were monks about, and it was actually the property behind that field where the monks live. We didn't want to disturb them, so we had to walk back through the trail. There were many bugs.
A few more minutes with the monkeys after that, then we headed home for the day. Love those monkeys.
And here's another monkey video for the road:
