Monkey Island

We started yesterday by letting the kids sleep in after yesterday's 12 hour Vinpearl Land marathon then readied ourselves for a new days experience, Monkey Island, where they reportedly have a few thousand, you guessed it, monkeys. We did not see thousands but we definitely had our fill. These monkeys were very accustomed to human interaction and had an entitlement mentality when it came to food.

The young ones were the nicest and she most skittish you had to move slowly around them or they would run off.

If it became known that you had food and were withholding they would make a human jungle gym out of you. As demonstrate by this 22 year Army M.P. He and his family are stationed in Korea and are only the second set of Americans that we had met in Vietnam.

Patti showed the barrel of monkeys who the new Alpha Female was. There was one particular male, we assume an Alpha of sorts, who was aggressive in a not so nice way. He came after Patti, who was holding some food, and she brushed him aside with her foot and gave him a firm "No!" while holding up her finger. Then he really came after her in a frontal assault to which she responded with a direct kick that sent him flying. I was impressed with Patti's reflexes and will not forget the image of that nasty guy flying. He zipped off behind a hedgerow and did not venture to be so tough again. Notice the bundle of bananas that Patti's is clutching, need to hide those things.

It was all fun and games until someone almost lost their sunglasses. Tara once again scored another trip first. This time it was being attacked by a monkey. Sure, these little guys are all cute and cuddly until the try to RIP YOUR FACE OFF. Here is an image at 250 milliseconds after the incident you see the little thief's failed attempt to make off with Tara's real genuine fur sure $3 dollar Ray Bans.

Later, after cleaning some dirt from her face, we discovered the Monkey Island souvenir that Tara had received. The wife of the M.P. had a small first aid kit which she used to apply a field dressing.

I suppose any time you take wild animals and allow untrained people to dispense yum yums to them you are asking for what we received today. We all wised up in a hurry and I gave the proper distance to this monkey and his giant cobra friend.

The folks that ran the island had some very interesting art made from recycled trash. Here is Riley with a horse and buggy crafted from used plastic bottles. On the island there was a garden made from plastics bottles. Patti and I only drink bottled water when we have travelled to Asia and North Africa and when we do we realize just how much water we consume and how much waste the bottles generate.

After monkeying around in the morning we hit the beach where Tara and I did more in a few minutes to advance Russian-American relations than the last three presidents combined. We were looking at a ziplock bag full of about 2,500,000 VND that we found washed up in the surf. Tara was wondering who we could give it too and I was thinking that we were not going to find the right person.

We stood there for a bit longer talking about it and I told her that we would give it away over the rest of our trip. We were just about to walk away when a Russian man and his wife came up and started talking excitedly about the bag of money. He explained in gestures how it had fallen out of his open pocket (he wouldn't have known what it was if it wasn't his). So we gave it back to him. He was very appreciative and a little later brought us over a coconut with the top hacked off and a straw for the juice. It was like Rocky IV all over again with Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago, but not really like it at all. I just need an excuse to break all this text up with a picture.

I was passing by later and thanked him for the coconut water and that led to some further communication attempts. He said "I am Ruskie" and I replied with "I am American". With that he put on a great big smile and shook my hand and said "American". Do Tara and I need to find out where V. Putin swims?

Tara was marred once again in the afternoon. This time at the beach from the metal stem of an inner tube that she rented. If bodily injury can occur then Tara will incur it. She has a career ahead of her as an OSHA inspector if she can survive the job site.

We depart Nha Trang this morning for the mountains. I am ready to leave this city and get back to something a little more Vietnamese. Nha Trang is a popular tourist party spot and as such feels more like any other big city. Even though Hanoi was many times larger I enjoyed it much more as it is a working class city with locals just getting on with their lives. I had read a few warnings about Nha Trang, which I suppose apply to other cities as well. The one that stuck out was that the police are off duty at 10:00 pm, so always travel in packs and basically don't be a drunken idiot or you will certainly pay for it.

Today's images in 2014 Monkey Island and a few more in 2014 Nha Trang.