Monkey Island: Adventures With A Shit Load Of Wild Vietnamese Monkeys

From nonchalantly sipping Vietnamese iced coffee on a patio while listening to the waves crash against the shore to the faint sound of the Beach Boys in Mui Ne, we travelled north to the most famous resort beach town in Vietnam, Nha Trang.

When we got there we were a bit surprised by the cool temperatures. Mui Ne was a bit windy and cool but we were warned in advance about that. We were happy that we got a good four days on glorious Phu Quoc Island.

Actually, the beach wasn't the real reason we came to Nha Trang anyways. We really looked forward to exploring the surrounding attractions. We were especially curious of a little island ever so bluntly named "Monkey Island".

So once again we found ourselves on the back of a motorbikes ripping down busy city centres then costal roads. Soon we came to a small dock, boarded a local ferry which was just a wood boat a bit bigger then the local fishing boats with a big diesel engine out back, and made our way to Monkey Island.

The journey on the boat was only maybe twenty minutes but it was made quite memorable by the vast scenery of many rocky islands that each looked like mountains jutting out of the sea. These small mountain islands shared our glances with the traditional, handmade wood and string nets and fishing traps. The wind was quite strong that morning as it shook the boat quite violently from side to side. The waves were large and flanked the blue painted sides of the boat, spraying us with a thin mist from the sea. On occasion a wave would even make it on board soaking all those in it's path. All of this only added to the sense of adventure as we loudly putt-putted to a small island that supposedly has a community of about 1000 wild monkeys calling it home (I wonder if the monkeys named the island?).

When we pulled up to the island and docked there were a few rundown, old buildings and a few new wood cabanas. We marched off the pier and were free to explore the island at will.

There was a strange dog circus in a building in the center of the island filled with an attentive Vietnamese audience that caught our eyes for only a few seconds before making a B-line to the rocky mountainous side of the island- the place we thought wild monkeys would like to chill.

Before we got too far we were approached by a man who warned us of the dangers of such wild monkeys. He also explained the technique of feeding the monkeys by hand in such a way that they wouldn't bite or attach you. While the man was giving us the crash course in wild monkey safety, a few monkeys started to approach. In the distance we could see many, many more.

We confronted the cute little monkeys cautiously as they slowly skipped toward us. We carefully fed them bread by hand then made our way to a clearing in the trees.

As we walked through the clearing we were met by hundreds of stares. We felt quite intimidated by such a sight. The gang of monkeys were clearly in charge as they circled us looking just a reluctant as we were.

So slowly we reached for the pieces of bread in our pockets and held out the food in outstretched hands. The mounting tension was broken as their small monkey hands accepted our offering of peace.

A few interesting observations from our time with the monkeys:

Sometimes monkeys fight for food. It's a little freaky but hilarious to watch.

Sometimes monkeys reach into your pockets. This happened to us but luckily they couldn't get their sneaky monkey hands on anything important.

Sometimes monkeys shriek loudly then climb up your leg. This happened to both of us and scared the shit right out of us!

Sometimes monkeys eat batteries. STUPID TOURISTS! We may just have saved this poor monkeys life by swapping him a delicious AA for some bread!