Back To School (Monkey Style)

After leaving the Long Neck Villages, we made our way to stop two on Noi's tour. But before we jump into this activity, here is a quick story of first hand crime in Thailand.

The walk from where we parked to the next event was probably less than 100 yards, but in that time we found a lot can happen. Out of nowhere something swiped at Abi, and snatched some money out of her pocket. Thankfully Abi noticed, and with her cat-like reflexes, was able to take it right back, before the culprit had a chance to escape. Oh, did I mention the criminal was a baby monkey?

Yup, or second stop was at the "Monkey School" of Chiang Mai. While stealing is not one of the advertised classes, it looks like it runs naturaly in the monkeys.

When we got in, there was a performance that was going on. We got there just in time to see the smart monkey performing. He was able to follow simple commands, and was a whiz with numbers! There were 9 numbers laying on the floor, and an audience member would say a number, and he would go and pick it up. And to top this, they turned the numbers upside down, had an audience member re-arrange them (while the monkey was looking, so he could learn where they all ended up). And sure enough, he was able to find the proper number!

But the next act was my favorite. They had a basketball hoop, and the Monkey was going to show off his mad skills. They had an audience member volunteer to play basketball with the monkey. And (as you probably guessed) that volunteer was me! I had to shoot some free throws and found it funny that I was shooting with a plastic soccer ball. But I guess they do it different here in Thailand. After making one of three, the monkey had to show me up by hitting 6 in a row!! So yup, you can pass on the message that Randall got schooled by a monkey at basketball. And to top it off, after I went and sat down, the monkey went and dunked one home. Quite the exclamation point (!)

There were more tricks, backflips, and photo op's which made school fun again. After the performance was done, we were able to walk around and feed the monkeys.

The most entertaining, by far, were the two young monkeys that were outside. And yes, these are the same ones who tried to take Abi's money. Actually they just tried to take anything in your pockets. One was climbing all over me, and was going after my water bottle, but it was too heavy for it to get away with!! Check out the pictures link for some more monkey business

~Randall