Spot the cliff diving monkeys: Life doesn't get much better

February 26, 2015

I rejoined the main highway in the morning going south because I didn't really know where I was. It was crowded in on both sides by expensive hotels and resorts and restaurants now, a clue that I was entering the area around Hua Hin, tourist central for this side of the Thai gulf. I found some wifi and was able to locate myself and knowing where I was meant that I could get on other roads besides the highway, but as they were going through Hua Hin itself the traffic was just as bad. Maybe Hua Hin was nice once upon a time, but now it was a horrible crowded mess and not even a visit to an air-conditioned Tesco Lotus could make me think otherwise.

But I struggled on through it and beyond the town things got less crowded and I was on a decent road with a bicycle lane. This road also gave me a chance to get out to a beach again, the beach in Hua Hin having been completely hidden behind, and probably reserved for, fancy resorts. The beach I now found was also rather difficult to see, being hidden beneath a hundred deckchairs, but it did come with rather a nice surprise. There was a large rocky outcrop on which I was able to spot one of my favourite things to spot. And I'll give you a clue, they weren't wearing orange robes. I'm talking, of course, about monkeys. There were monkeys on the rocks and playing in the water closest to the beach, which were surrounded by tourists, but there were also monkeys on the rock further out. I realised that I could swim out and around the rock a bit and I would have these monkeys all to myself. As I went I laughed at the tourists for being too stupid to swim out to the dangerous rocky area themselves.

The easiest game of Spot the monkey you'll ever play

Now watching monkeys playing about on a rock beneath a big Buddha is a pretty cool thing to do, especially when swimming in tropically warm water and having little flying fish occasionally skip across the water next to you. But what took this special moment to a whole new level of awesome was that some of the monkeys were cliff diving. And when I say cliff diving I mean they were jumping off the rock. It wasn't that high, true, but, come on, they're monkeys. It was hilarious to watch them diving in. Seeing the look of joy on those little monkey faces as they leapt into the sea, their fur all soaked as they paddled excitedly back for another go, was a memory that I knew, from this moment on, I would always be able to recall in order to remind myself unequivocally that life is really f*cking awesome.

Ah the only photo I got of them jumping in. The white splash is from one that had just landed, to the left you see another about to hit the water, demonstrating a diving technique almost as bad as mine

After that I carried on cycling south on more quiet roads. It felt good to have got through the worst of the tourism and before long I was finding beaches that were completely empty. But to be honest with you not a whole lot else happened during the rest of the day. I swam again. A Swiss man walking his dog said hello. I had a pineapple shake. There's nothing else of interest for me to write about. You can't follow cliff diving monkeys, you just can't.

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 37,920 km (23,548 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0