More on Monkeys, Temples, Time

The problem is the monkeys all have ugly faces and I hate them. I am walking up the stairs to a temple on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, and they are coming down, hundreds of small and furry creatures. Their eyes are beady, lightless stones and their puckered assholes look like they are bleeding from a life of eating garbage. Behind me, I hear Kelli squeal and yelp and giggle. She is hopping from foot to foot and trying to take photographs. The ocean is below us, as are Josh and Riley, a couple flights down, as is Prachuap Khiri Khan, the lazy fishing town where we’ve been staying. Two flights above us, a monk in saffron walks effortlessly among the ugly beasts. The monkeys part before him, a filthy, living sea. It is hard to see his feet between their bodies. This gives the appearance he is floating. Maybe he is floating. From here, the sunlight on the walls of the temple, the gray and blue-gray clouds.

“Ewww,” I say, pointing. There is shit on the stairs, loose brown coils, as well as ravished plastic bottles punctured with tiny teeth marks. It is hot and I am very very tired. The monkeys all keep food in a pouch in their necks so it looks like testicles dangle back and forth when they scurry forward down the stairs, a pair of furry balls swinging from their throats. Every now and then a camera behind me clicks. My thighs are burning and sweat makes huge dark circles on my shirt. I feel like I’m on drugs, though I’m not.  

“I bet these monkey’s all have aids,” I say.

“And rabies,” Kelli says.

“Raidies,” I say.

The idea of “radies” makes us laugh. At the top of the stairs, where the temple is, we stop and wait for Josh and Riley. “Raidies” makes them laugh also.

In fact, a lot of Thailand makes us laugh. We’ve been driving in Josh’s car for about a week now. Starting in Bangkok, the four of us have slowly wound our way south on Highway 4 which follows the eastern shore of the Thai peninsula and ends in islands, a thousand kinds of paradise and aging white people, mostly ugly Europeans, on vacation. We are taking three weeks to see the country before parting in October. This translates mostly into stopping in random towns, climbing cool shit, drinking beer, eating a lot of food, and taking naps. The best nap I had was yesterday in which I had a dream I was dating one girl, and then another, both of whom I had crushes on at one point or another and who, in real life, would never date me. Thailand is like that, somewhere other than what is actually the world, or at least for now it feels that way, completely alien, strange. Part of the plan, I think, is to get past this feeling, to quiet the America in me enough to see the Thai in me, the country happening on its own terms, in its own words, around me and regardless of my intentions, though I am doubtful I can do that in just ten months, foreign as I am.

From the top of the mountain, the ocean, surprisingly, doesn’t look any smaller, though the shrimp boats which dot the blue horizon look incredibly much more so, pale white dots which float on the far off water and begin to disappear. The four of us are looking out, caught between the graying heavens and the graying earth, and we are sweating our asses off. For now, all but one of the monkeys has descended to the base of the mountain where they are pelted with bananas by tourists in khaki cargo shorts, bright sarongs. They like to rip the fruit apart. Too human after all, they like to fight and shit and fuck each other, right in front of everyone. The monkey on the temple though, he simply follows us around, perches on on the railing and looks out as we do at the ocean, the sky which meets the ocean, the big rocks jutting up from waves which break apart around them. The monk in saffron is sweeping now, moving leaves across the concrete temple floor. He does this slowly, a single motion at a time, like he’s always done this, like he will continue doing so for as long as it takes to make the surface clean again, though the wind will always be here, the leaves will always fall. 

An hour later, we are back on the ground again, walking to our car. A policeman approaches us holding a shard of mirror in his hands. "Monkey," he says, pointing at our car, "monkey." Minus a mirror, our car is as we left it, baking in the sun. We laugh, and Josh tries to put the mirror back. "Mother fucker," he says, looking closer. We laugh again, harder. The monkeys have pissed on the car as well. Their urine dries in a dark pool in the sand at our feet, as it should. The sun is close to going down. I'm hungry, but first I need a nap. Josh gets the mirror back in place. We begin again to drive.