monkey mountain

I am currently enjoying a fairly relaxing day because, as I said last time, we have no kids this week due to foot and mouth disease. I can now finish my report cards and prep for the upcoming October camp at my leisure, which is very nice!

This past weekend, we went to Hua Hin for a relaxing weekend on the beach...it was fabulous. We weren't sure how the weekend was going to go, though, because when we arrived on Friday night it was POURING rain harder than I have seen in Thailand so far. My entire backpack was drenched because it had been under the bus and I guess the rain got under there and soaked everything, it was gross. It was fairly sunny the next day when we got up, though, so we spent a good day at the beach (until it started to rain again at around 3, at which point we packed up and headed back to the hotel to hang out in the pool) That evening we went to the night market, which is always really interesting, and packed with people!

On Sunday, we had a really entertaining day because we went to monkey mountain.
You take a tuk tuk up a big hill and, at the top, there are just monkeys roaming around everywhere. There is a monastery at the top, and there are monks everywhere...in fact, my friend Kristen got a picture of four monks playing poker, which is completely illegal in Thailand (all gambling is illegal), it's a great picture.

At monkey mountain, you can pay 50 baht for a basket of bananas, peanuts, and corn with which you can feed the monkeys. Krista, who is my new hero, did it and it was hilarious. Kristen and I were way too scared, but Krista got right in there and fed them. The monkeys went nuts, they were climbing her, jumping on her head and fighting with each other to get the food. The man in charge kept on kicking and hitting the monkeys when they got too aggressive, which I think only aggravated the monkeys more, but Krista held her own, so it was alright. I got some better pictures with Krista's camera...at one point she had one monkey on her head, another monkey crawling up her leg, and another two monkeys fighting at her feet over a banana, it was great.

Alright, time to get back to work, I posted more pictures on yahoo, so you can look at those if you want.