Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Mark's Monkey Mountain



This past Sunday, we took a day trip to Kam Shan Country Park which is also known as Monkey Mountain by the locals. It's on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong about a 20 minute cab ride from our apartment and we first learned about it from one of Mark's co-workers who lives right by it and who actually has monkey's hanging out in her apartment parking lot. We didn't believe it until we saw it when she had us over for dinner and it inspired us to take the trip out there to see the natural setting where they live.

Of course, there are monkeys all over Hong Kong, but hadn't seen any until we went to this area. It's crazy! They are everywhere, just hanging out in trees, grooming each other and walking around not bothered a bit by us crazy humans who invade their privacy.
There are hundreds of long-tailed macaque monkeys living in the area. Apparently, they are not local wild stock but are descendants of pet monkeys released there in 1920. However, all the ones living there now are wild.

We got within a few feet of them but didn't dare go closer because there have been many stories of
monkey attacks if you antagonize them. In fact, there's signs there with some basic rules for park visitors including:
  • Don't bring ANY food, especially in grocery store plastic bags. The monkeys know what they carry and will steal them.
  • Don't look the monkey's in the eye. They take it as a challenge and who wants to challenge a wild monkey?
  • Don't feed them and of course, don't tease them or try to touch them.
The park is right along a reservoir and it looks like a monkey paradise. We went there on a particularly hot day and a bunch of monkeys were swimming and doing cannonball jumps off the trees into the water.
It's amazing how human-like it all seemed.

We also saw tons of momma's with their itty bitty baby monkeys clinging to their bellies. So cute.
At one point, we were standing watching some monkeys across the way and when I looked up, I saw this guy chilling out right above my head.

No comments: