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Long-tailed Macaques |
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of our first adventures here was to take a bus ride just northwest of the
city to the Batu Caves, a Hindu worship site.
We thought it would be clear where to get off the bus, because pictures of the entrance to the caves are pretty imposing, but we missed the stop, drove around a rural neighborhood, took a ten minute break with the bus driver and then he showed us where to get off on the way back into town. We were a little thirsty and tired just from the bus ride with no air conditioning, so we got some bottled water and found some monkeys to watch (there aren't any monkeys in the city) who were eating some grain someone had thrown on the ground. I was carrying a steamed bun in a bag from the central bus station which I was saving in case I was hungry later. As we were standing there, drinking water, watching the monkeys and spacing out, something hit me in the legs. I screamed, but when I looked down there was a monkey sitting in front of me, looking up, with half my steamed bun and a bit of the bag in his hand, and I started laughing. The monkey took advantage of my surprise and grabbed the rest of the bag with the rest of the bun and ran off. Monkeys covered the 272 steps up to the caves and also were playing and fighting, and eating inside. We got lots of great pictures, and we fed them two bags of peanuts ourselves. A mother monkey with a baby hanging onto her tummy, jumped up onto Brett's waist because he wasn't turning over the peanuts fast enough. On the way back down the steps another monkey stole my water bottle from my hands. This time, I tried to get it back, but he was too quick and determined for me. He bit through the plastic in order to drink it. Kleptomaniacs. We saw them steal a whole bottle of milk, bags of peanuts, etc. The monkeys were a big highlight overshadowing the Hindu worship aspect of the caves for us. |
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