Lopburi, Thailand~ Well, I’ve been hearing about this “Monkey Temple” lately, so Joey, Jessica and I decided to run take a look last Sunday. Oh, P.S. my girl Jessica Baker is in Bangkok right now student teaching at BCC! (happy dance) It’s so nice to just have a small little bit of home all the way over here…Thank God for that girl! So anyway, we all woke up at about 5:30 a.m. on Sunday and took a minibus to Lopburi, a small city about 2 hours outside of Bangkok. I love roadtrips, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the insane driving in this country. Every time I get in one of those minibuses, I promise my prayer life steps it up a notch. Joey and I kept acting all nonchalant to Jessica and then gave each other terrified looks throughout the trip when she wasn’t looking. So, to all of you who continually pray for me over here, that “hedge of protection” and those “armies of guarding angels” are standing strong and doing their job. :)

So anyway, we got to the Lopburi bus station, and honestly had no idea where we were going. All I knew was what I’d read on Google, and that’s not much. So we did the only thing knew to do and proceeded to find a Thai person, say “wat ling you tee nai” (Where is the monkey temple?), and pray for the best. So with mine and Joey’s broken Thai speaking and understanding, we decided to hop on the next blue bus we saw and explore the city blindly. Luckily, ol’ blue bus went straight to the monkey temple…the random monkeys roaming the streets kinda gave it away. Seriously, instead of normal stray dogs or cats , there were MONKEYS climbing on cars and trucks and walking on the power lines and walking on the sidewalks. I mean, obviously we didn’t just walk up and start petting the things, but we started taking pictures like crazy! (I hate feeling like a tourist, but I just embraced it this time.) We saw the temple area, and it looked a whole lot like Angkor Wat with the Khmer architecture. Immediately I regretted my decision NOT to take my big camera and resented my tiny tourist camera for the rest of the day.

So we walked up to the temple and there were monkeys everywhere. Big monkeys, little monkeys, fat monkeys, skinny monkeys, crazy monkeys, calm monkeys…everywhere. We only had to pay 10 baht ($0.30) to get in thanks to our Thai work permits! And as soon as we walked in, it was obvious it would be interesting. I got close to one monkey to take its picture and it grabs my camera strap and tries to steal it…little thief! Next thing you know, another monkey is trying to take my sunglasses and rip my brand new necklace off and more are going for my big hoop earrings! (Bad day to be Christin Walker…haha.) Jessica has the bright idea to take out her camera and start videoing the entire thing, too! At one time, I had about 5 monkeys all over me…on my back and my head, climbing up my legs and all over my arms. One even jumped from my head to Jessica’s head and she caught the shadow of it on the ground in her video. (Props on those mad videographer skills, Jess!) Later on, I had another 5-monkey experience and one of them managed to grab one of my smaller earrings and eat it! Eric suggested that I come back the next day and dig through monkey crap to find it, but I think I’ll just opt to buy another one. ;) After the earring loss, I did get slightly nervous as a larger monkey with an angry look kept stalking me and looking at my leg like it was a mid-afternoon snack. Nuh-uh. I ran away. And I can’t go without mentioning Joey’s method of removing monkeys from his back–spin around as fast as you can while the monkey hangs on for dear life and finally gives up and flies off in a random direction. Wish I had a video of that one.

So yeah, there really are no more words to describe this experience. It definitely ranks in the Top 5 things I’ve done in Thailand so far. I mean, who can say, “Oh yeah, I got attacked by monkeys and loved every second of it!” Gosh, I really am so lucky and blessed to be experiencing all of this! It’s crazy! Hanging out with monkeys? Who does that? I do…I love my life.

P.S. If you want to see all of my pictures from this trip, check out my gallery >>> Monkey Temple . Also, here’s a link to some information from National Geographic about Thai monkeys and what some people are doing to take care of them when the locals are wanting to exterminate them. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090514-monkeys-video-ap.html

I’m out. //Cwalk.