Welcome to the Jungle! Part 2 (Pirates Of The Rainforest)

While staying in Indonesia, we spent a few nights in Bukit Lawang. Bukit Lawang is known as a popular tourist destination because of the nearby rainforest and variety of wildlife (including orangutans). To read my dad's input on our jungle trek, click here. Our lodging was a bamboo tree house (minus the tree); the backyard was a jungle river. However, what we didn't realize is that outlaw monkeys run this town.

At check-in, the owners warned us to always lock the doors and windows when we leave, because monkeys will come inside and steal your stuff. These monkeys aren't ones you want to mess with--they will bare their inch-long fangs if you look at them in the eye.

Often, these monkeys sat on our balcony and stared into the house, inspecting our every move and eyeing our goods. Several times they caught us by surprise eating a snack on the balcony, quickly swinging over with greedy ambition. They rushed to the scene to find us running indoors and turning the lock. But these monkeys were determined. They watched us and paced outside our door for a good 45 minutes, keeping us under pirate house arrest.

If you notice above, this guy vandalized our hand-washed clothes that we had just laid out to dry. After he left, we noticed that the rebellious rascal had pooped my pants! Literally!

We ended up doing a extra load of laundry that night, with vengeful thoughts toward that outlaw monkey. But we couldn't even get revenge, because monkeys don't wear clothes...

Another time they saw Cosie eating a sliver of bread and they were positive it was meant for them. You can only guess what they were saying:

"You tried the door?"
"Yeah."
"Have you tried the bathroom window?"
"No."
"Try it. We must have the succulent crust!"

They sure tried every option, and luckily we caught them every time. They tried pushing the door open, they tried slipping through narrow window spaces in the bathroom (above), they even tried squeezing through a crack by the roof (with success, once). They watched us through the glass windows, waiting for the right moment to attack. They weren't scared away by our verbal threats, but eventually we learned that they don't like being sprayed with cold water or being threatened with a big bamboo stick.

Then, there was the time I was doing a video review of snakefruit on the balcony. I was nervous about a monkey perched on a nearby roof. After peeling the fruit, he started jumping towards us--we ran inside and locked the door just in time:

All-in-all, monkeys can be pretty cute. Watching them play is pretty adorable, and seeing the babies... what can be cuter? But nobody can deny that monkeys are the Pirates of the Rainforest.