Monkey Beach

We made it to Monkey Beach. We got up Saturday morning and there was a 90% chance of rain. But the skies where pretty clear (relatively speaking, they are only really clear every once in a while.) So we decided to risk it. We drove out to Batu Ferringgi where the beach is that we went to last time. Then we drove to the National Park on the island. That's when we hired a boat to take us to monkey beach. You can walk there, but it is a two hour hike through the jungle.

The Hinton's who are another American family in the ward invited us to go with them. They have quadruplets (three girls and a boy) and have tried the hike before. The kids are seven almost eight. They said the hike was miserable and they only made it an hour up the trail. They never made it to Monkey Beach. So in lieu of carrying all the kids through the jungle, while being eaten by mosquito's, we paid 50 ringet, (which is like $16.00 US) and took a seven minute boat ride around the coast of the National Park. You could see the trail because it followed the coast line as well, and it was covered in a canopy of trees. I'm sure it's very beautiful, but probably not so much with two kids, hanging on your neck.

The view from the boat was incredible, and the boat ride was a little cooling! I am looking forward to Lake Powell!!! It made me anxious to go! The boat was just a flat bottom boat with about 8 seats and a bench in the back. Only 10 per boat, so we had to take two. Another family from our ward the Muilenburgs came with us as well. They have two kids, similar in age to Cannon and Mya, only their girl is older. Both families are from Eugene, Oregon and here working for Intel. The Muilenbergs are here until the end of July and the Hintons for another year. We also had the Hinton's helper (that is what they call someone here who helps with kids, housework, shopping, etc, I don't love the name, but...) with us, whose name is Tina from Cambodia. She is here for two years and was working for a Japanese family also in the ward. She joined the church while living with them, and when the Japanese family had to return to Japan, the Hinton hired her on. She has about six months of her contract here left, and then she will return back to Cambodia and hopes to be able to go on a mission. She is great with the kids and has such a happy face. I don't understand her very well, but her English is improving.

We got to the beach and they have some great picnic areas, and little shelters set up for you to use, which was great. The sand was white and soft and the water was warm. We saw a jelly fish pretty soon after we started swimming and Cannon was pretty freaked out. He found a spot where the the water was just starting to come inland because of high tide and the water was very shallow and fun to play in. There were tons of little fish and he spent an hour trying to catch one in his bucket. He wanted to show me the fish and when we got there Esa (one of the Quads was face to face with a monkey.) She very smartly stood up slowly and walked away, til she got past me when she started screaming and running. The monkeys were laying in the water and cooling off it looked like, and she hadn't noticed they were coming. All of a sudden the monkeys just started running in a line towards our picnic area, and Cannon and I were like what's going on. We walked back and realized Brian, Tony, and Rob were feeding the monkeys, and just like geese they don't go away when you are done feeding them. I have mentioned before that I'm not to crazy about the monkeys, even the cute little babies. But these one started to get a bit aggressive when they weren't getting any more food.

The men had to chase them off when they started stealing our stuff and getting into our coolers. They would growl right back at you when you yelled at them to go away. I would have let them have everything, cause I wouldn't have risked it. But the men were running right at the growling monkeys and having growling, staring contests to see who would back down. Rob was chasing them with a big stick, and growling and proving who was more fierce and bigger. They backed down after that. What's monkey beach without the monkeys right? Silly Men...

The boats came to get us about 2:30, after a big round of thunder, we thought we were going to get poured on, but the rain never came. We had a quick boat ride back and washed up and headed home. Mya was asleep in the car within minutes and Cannon kept asking if he had to take a nap. I told him he could skip it if he stayed awake all the way home. He said he wanted to be awake for the whole day and within minutes he too was out.

It was a super fun day at the beach, even with the crazy monkeys, and the hairy ones too.