Tiger Temple

Monkey Business

Not only is company good for the soul but it also gets our butts back in travel mode.  We are pumped to get out and see a few things with the gang and having Ya help us with Sean has made this process a bit easier.  Today we all took off to explore caves and climb stairs. 

On our itinerary was the Wat Tham Seua, or Tiger Cave Monastery.  It is one of south Thailand’s most famous and interesting forest temples, as the monks live, meditate and worship within a maze of natural caves in an overgrown jungle valley. Many Thai women live out there old age there as nuns.   It is called Tiger Cave because hundreds of years ago a monk decided to meditate in a cave and stumbled across a tiger. . . the rest is history and, apparently so was he.  

Rich and everyone, sans Sydney and I, decided to climb up the 1237 steps up a limestone tower to see the statue of the Buddha and the ‘footprint of the Buddha’ embedded in the rock, and to enjoy one of the best viewpoints of the area.  On a good day you can see many islands and the Mekong River Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. 

Sydney and I hung out with the many monkeys that sit at the base of the temple.  Once everyone returned we continued to watch the free monkey show.  These guys have no issue taking anything from anybody.  They simply approach in a fast manner and if you don't launch anything towards them, they climb on top of you. This reminded Rich of Return of the Apes (monkeys are close enough) as these lil buggers rule the roust and have been known to bite.  Jo, who had just bought a coconut shake, threw her shake well before the monkey was within 5 feet of her.  Foolish she is not.  We decided to leave shortly after this after another larger monkey came and stole the shake from the little monkey.  We were not waiting for any bigger monkeys who were not seen at this point to appear.  We all decided we prefer seeing nature in it's more natural setting - the zoo.