I turned to Evie {seriously}, “If those monkeys get in here, you are going to throw your ice cream and run like hell. Got it?” Evie, with large eyes {equally seriously}, “Yes mommy. Got it. If those monkeys come in here I’m gonna run as fast as I can with my ice cream to get away.”
No.
No.
That is not at all…. no.
That is NOT the plan…..
She was more concerned with saving the ice cream than the flea infested assholes who were about to attempt a full frontal assault. Awesome. Great. Life just got harder. No amount of, “I’ll get you another one,” was going make a difference.
I don’t know about all wild monkeys, but these wild monkeys were mean little sacks of crap. I had warned Scott about our first encounter. Since I am… occasionally… prone to a bit of exaggeration, he felt pretty confident that if he was with us the little suckers wouldn’t be an issue.
At first, he seemed to be right.
After a couple of hours of swimming and sand castles, we headed the snack shack. At least, that’s what the national park’s sign called it. In retrospect, foxhole or ‘defensive position’ might have been more appropriate.
The kids got ice creams. There were no less than 3 park rangers and 3 cafe workers within 10 feet of us when the coordinated guerrilla incursion kicked off. It was scary. The Rangers actually had to pull out slingshots and rocks to defend us. Seriously. It was Lord of the Flies level action. What was worse was that the Rangers were actually… scared. You could tell in the way they moved and looked around. What kind of Jurassic Park – Beach Edition hell had we gotten ourselves into!?
I forced Evie to eat so fast she got a cold headache. I confiscated Jack’s half-eaten cone and threw it away. Scott was totally uneasy…. war-level uneasy. The Rangers had their slingshot weapons drawn.
We had planned to return to the beach for more playing when the biggest one started to follow us. He reported our movements to his buddies. You could tell he was being a jerk by the way he was hooting and pointing. Some things are just universal. We realized they were gearing up for round 2 and there were no Rangers within 500 ft. It was enough to force us to leave. Full retreat.
We didn’t have anything big planned for my 40th birthday. We were in Thailand. That’s big enough. I was looking forward to a quiet day on a nice beach and a decent pad thai dinner (like every other night).
Scott took the day off work. I picked a new beach to try. It was nice, but there were so many coral chunks in the water, it was really kinda painful to swim and play in the waves. Finally, I asked Scott if we could take him to Mu Ko Lanta National Park at the southern point on the island. The kids and I had gone a few days ago and the beach is the best one we found so far. Also, we saw a dinosaur (aka a 7 ft monitor lizard which, for all intents and purposes, actually appeared to be a living dinosaur). He agreed.
We swam. We hiked. We played. Turning 40 felt like the next step in a great adventure.
Then we got ice cream… which turned into a fun romp down memory lane. Whoever would have thought escape and evasion could be so useful on vacation?!
Street Cat Hospitality Center (in our hotel room). All are welcome. {Not ideal}
The island:
Workout time:
Horseshoe crab:
This picture makes me wonder what they were discussing:
Squid fisherman – the green light attracts the squid because it looks like a full moon:
They played for hours but didn’t speak 1 word of the same language. Evie got to wear her hijab for a bit. Very cool experience.
On top of the middle of the island. Great restaurant. Great food. Terrible attitude from the little people. It was a total crash and burn. Sometimes they’re so… 5 and 3. How can you not appreciate this view?! Come on, Buzzkill Bobs, get it together…
Trying to get Jack’s stitches removed. They forgot to tell us they were closed for 3 days:
We spent an afternoon volunteering at a local animal shelter:
40th Birthday Day
First sighting of these punks:
The dinosaur – it looked much more dramatic in person:
First visit:
@$%@#$@$’ers:
A bad apple is a bad apple no matter the species:
We sunset’ed at a different beach:
Epilogue
It turns out that a lady had been bitten by those $%@#$ monkeys the day before. While I have a high-risk tolerance, had I known they were biters, it would have been a game changer. Ain’t no way my kids are bringing weird monkey diseases home from Thailand. That’s a bridge too far.
