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Before leaving we thought we'd check out the beach on Ao Nang, the tide was quite high for most for the day so lots of people, mainly German, were there with their reserve-a-space towels. In most of the places we'd been it was usual to hear 'you want massage?' on a regular basis but the walk along Ao Nang beach they stepped it up to a whole new level making it a mission to get from one end of the beach to the other.. After walking the full length we reached what looked like a walk into the jungle that we were told led to another beach so headed towards it. As we got nearer we realised this was home to a big group of monkeys and along with a group of other tourists we stood and watched them playing, stealing food from people and generally being mischievous and entertaining. Now and then a small one would climb up someone and sit on their shoulders and put their hand on the persons head as if to claim them, this would then become a game when others would then try to knock them off and claim the person for themselves. Although very cute they were still wild animals and, although not with humans, could still be pretty feisty with each other so we agreed that neither of us wanted one on us however it wasn't long before Jon had a not so small monkey on his shoulder and 2 more on his back trying to get in his backpack. It made a good photo opportunity and they seemed pretty chilled and soon lost interest. We'd spent a good couple of hours watching the monkeys and, as the sun was beginning to set, decided to take the walk to the beach the next day instead.
We managed to resist hours of monkey watching this time and I'd even come prepared with a sealed beach bag rather than back pack to deter little jumpers.. The walk was very steep through the jungle along a very rickety old staircase but the beach wasn't anything special so it wasn't long until we were back on 'Our side' where we sat on the wooden walkway watching a few smaller monkeys playing. Before I knew it I had a little furry friend on my shoulder who had found a wooden bead on the tie of my bag tucked under my arm and began chewing on it loudly in my ear before pulling it off completely and dropping it! He moved to my other arm to see if there was another one under there and after trying to feel with his tiny hands he got frustrated and used his mouth. Luckily I dropped my arm he was sitting on just in time so his teeth barely grazed my skin... However there was a small red mark and after being told back in the UK that if you are bitten by a dog or other wild mammal or even if saliva touches broken skin then you are at risk of Rabies. Furthermore if you are not treated within 24 hrs after a bite from a rabid animal there is NO cure. Although pretty sure no skin was broken it was still enough to make me s*** myself and we set of to Dr Moobalooba to double check. He confirmed the skin was broken and I should have a series of 6 vaccination jabs which would be spread out over the next 28 days. He gave me all the statistics and reassured me that he sees hundreds of people with monkey bites and none had come back to him after having the jabs. Obviously I read into that he'd not seen them again because they'd been too busy foaming at the mouth. So from then on the days were referred to by numbers and we were on day zero with jabs needed today and on days 3,7,14 and 28.
- comments
Lynsey Oh love, I hope your jabs go ok. I don't like Monkeys!
Jim Oh Jon! Keep me posted. Anything you need?