so yeah, my first day was a wash-out. i spent most of my time in the comfort of a cafe, trying to plan what i could do that didn't involve getting wet. as it turns out, the cafe was my only dry option, and i was already sick of it. rain or no rain, i decided to hike to the top of wat tham seua (tiger cave temple) on the outskirts of town. i hadn't bothered to read up on the place in any guide books, as frankly, that involves reading, and reading is for suckers. instead, i took off for the wat armed only with the knowledge passed on to me by another traveler: it has a big buddha statue at the top, and a great view of the area. works for me.
needless to say, i didn't put much thought or preparation into the journey. armed with a travel towel, sandals and a camera, i jumped in a cab and set off for higher ground. from the drive, i was able to make out a magnificent gold buddha sitting peacefully at the top of a hill*. how high of a hill? i don't know, but it takes 1,237 steps to reach the top. that's a lot of steps, especially when it's:
a) very hot
b) very humid
c) raining
d) made of steps that look like this:
okay, not all the steps were this evil. but altogether, ascending that many takes a lot of time and energy. for those of you in the know, the santa monica stairs, the famous exercise area for starbucks-wielding soccer moms, consists of 170 or so steps. multiply that by 7, and you get a pretty good idea how intense it is. and yeah, whether you're taking on 1,237 or 170 or even 12 steps, i'd highly recommend bringing along some water. live and learn.
once i finally made it, the view at the top was quite rewarding. one side offered sweeping views of the region, with steep rock formations scattered around the bay in the distance. the other side featured, well, not much other than thick fog. thankfully, the occasional karst formation still managed to poke through.
the giant buddha statue was very impressive, as were the smaller ones surrounding it. one of the upsides to taking on the stairs in the rain was there were very few other people there, and i pretty much had the entire place to myself.
well, i wasn't exactly alone. on the way down, i encountered a truly amazing sight. wonder of wonders, climbers of trees, the pinnacle of mother nature's acheivements: the monkey. it started out with only a few of them, playing peacefully on and around the stairs, but their numbers grew to about 50 in the half-hour i hung around. and you know what's great? they really didn't care that i was there. they went about their regular monkey lives right in front of me, completely oblivious to my existence. it felt like i was in jr. high all over again.
and the greatest thing of all about monkeys: everything, and i mean EVERYTHING they do is adorable. they would swing from trees, pick bugs off each other, share their food and slide down the handrails, all to my amusement. they look and act so much like humans, it's astonishing. and i'm not one to gush and get all girly, but crap, they were just so damn cute. hell, they could be swinging fetuses by their umbilical cords while wearing nazi uniforms and it would still look precious**. i sat in amazement as, right in front of me, a mother carried her baby and breastfed it, a juvenile climbed a tree to throw stuff at the others (not poo, unfortunately) and one frisky pair even started going at it. when i started laughing, the girl monkey*** looked up at me, started howling, then stepped away from the guy monkey. crap, i am an interspecies cockblocker. sorry for that, little guy.
eventually, it started to get dark and i had to leave the monkeys behind. i would've loved to take one home with me, but they'd never be able to adapt to my domesticated lifestyle of banana eating, howling and masturbating vigorously.
-sg
* "sitting peacefully" is not a good description of a buddha statue, as that's all those things seem to do. well, occasionally, they walk peacefully or recline peacefully. if a statue of an aggressive buddha exists, i haven't found it.
**i'm sorry, i don't know where that came from.
*** i assume it was a girl monkey. hell, it could've even been guy monkey, or god forbid, a ladyboy monkey. anything goes in thailand.
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