Friday, December 23, 2011

OEG and the Temple of Monkeys

Picture of the year?  Uh, yes I believe so.

What’s the best way to test just how out of shape you’ve gotten since landing in Thailand and eating nothing but noodles and rice for two months?  Why, climbing 1.237 steps up a mountainside to a giant Buddha, of course.

There it is - that tiny speck of gold on the mountain
Random cow on the side of the road
Random elephant on the side of the road
The Tiger Cave Temple, or Wat Tham Sua, is so called because….uh, I guess because of all the tiger statues all over the base of the mountain?  Supposedly there’s also some rock formation that looks like a tiger paw, but the base camp was so littered with bizarre tourist crap that we couldn’t find it.  Also I neglected to read any of the signage at the bottom because standing and reading is exhausting, but my friends informed me that according to the signs, the area used to be home to many tigers.  Why they’re now gone is anyone’s guess.  Maybe ask the dinosaurs. 




Anyways, Wat Tham Sua is one of the more famous sites in Krabi, so in an effort not to totally suck as tour guides for Geologist Paul while also making our week off semi-affordable, we spent the morning getting acquainted with the business end of a serious workout. 

And some monkeys.

They’re everywhere.

 It was nuts because in some places, the steps were so steep it was like the construction workers got lazy and instead of making three steps, they made one.  And ran out of cement apparently, because some of the steps were so narrow that we had to turn our feet to the side since they were only meant to fit tiny, tiny Asian feet.
I’m not going to pretend it was easy.  I won’t be that “Dude, it was nothing” crazy masochist.  It was pretty brutal on my second-hand smoke-polluted lungs and leg muscles that haven’t seen a decent workout in an embarrassing amount of time, but I never thought I was going to keel over, pass out, or just die in general.
Actually, it was surprisingly fun!

Oh yeah, see there it is – Reflection delusions. 

It was fun?........Was it fun? 

Maybe I’m looking at this with too serious a degree of hindsight fogging up reality.  Maybe my memory is failing me and it was actually way more brutal than I remember.  Probably in the moment the thought of doing it again seemed about as appealing as washing my face with lye, but looking back, I’m all “Suuuurreee, I’d totally do that again!  What a rush!”  Crazy masochist.




And so it begins.


Uh....
A supposedly sacred statue in what is
most definitely a "come do me" pose.
What did significantly turn down the dial on the psychtitude meter wasn’t so much the climb itself, but rather the monkeys. 

Monkeys.  Again. 


Now I knew after the vicious monkey attack had left me clinging to my sanity by fewer threads than Andy Dick after an all-night bender, but I wasn’t anticipating the knee-quaking, heart-racing, whole body freak-out that ensued.

About 200 steps up
We were about 100 steps from the top when we noticed a minion of the Wicked Witch of the West (minus the wings and band uniform) chilling on a tree next to the steps, biding its time, calculating the perfect moment to lunge out and steal what was left of my sanity.  As much as I wasn’t ready for the intense visceral reaction that was to follow, I’m sure Stacy and Paul were expecting it even less (Carlyn hadn’t accompanied us due to a Full Moon Party-related battle wound). 

Upon realizing that I would have to pass the devil-creature, my entire body started shaking more violently than I’ve ever experienced.  My heart was racing and a vice of fear tightened around my stomach.  It was totally involuntary…..and totally hysterical now that I can see it from a distance. 

Halfway there!!
Paul, who at this point has been in my presence a grand total of about two days, suddenly became way more acquainted with me than I’m sure he would have liked.  To anyone watching, I may very well have resembled a monkey myself.  Using Paul as a human shield, I wiggled and squirmed my way up and down and across the set of steps. 

Monkeys can smell fear, I’m sure of it.  So naturally, it started following us.  At this point I think Paul began to understand the magnitude of my freak-out (hyperventilation is usually a good clue) and started kindly putting himself between me and the monkey.  Of course, the monkey wasn’t staying in one place, and I was acting a few clicks short of rational – we’re talking Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch here – so the two of us must have looked like we were putting on a complicated but clumsily-executed circus act.

“Don’t pull me, don’t pull me!” Paul said as forcefully as he figured he could to someone who had very clearly lost her already tenuous grip on reality.  He later admitted he was a little worried I would yank the both of us all the way back down the mountain, erasing all that arduous climbing in one fell swoop.

While Paul was trying to get me to cease and desist my escaped psych patient act, Stacy was yelling from twenty steps below us, “Don’t run Sarah, don’t run!” because, having witnessed the original monkey attack, she was fully aware of my current state of mind and had the mental image of me taking off running up the stairs, prompting the monkey to think I was either playful or dangerous and shoot off after me.  And in case anyone has forgotten that monkeys can hop and jump about like mad, its chances of catching me were pretty damn good.

Eventually I had clawed my way almost all the way up Paul’s back, he had it confirmed in his mind that I was coming up more than a few bagels short of a dozen, Stacy was in a small state of panic that Paul and I would come tumbling down on her head, and the monkey had grown bored screwing with us and retreated to the jungle.

Once the path was clear, I unhooked myself from Paul’s hair and practically sprinted up the remaining stairs, the monkey having provided the extra shot of adrenaline needed to ignore the pain in my burning thighs and power through to the top.

Crazy monkey aside, the torture (both physical and mental) turned out to be totally worth it because the view from the top was spectacular.  It’s difficult to put something so subliminal into words, so I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.






















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