Thailand- part 3

After leaving the National Park, I went down to Surat Thani and spent a day at a monkey college. Monkey schools are centers where the monkeys go to be trained to pick coconuts from the tall coconut palms on commercial plantations or at local homes. Some of the training centers and handlers have a bad reputation for mistreating the animals.The school that I went to was begun by a Buddhist man who was disturbed by how the monkeys were beaten and overworked. He devised his own training method based on the tenets of Buddhism- that all living creatures should be respected. At his school monkeys are trained by playing various games that give them the skills, strength, and stamina that they will ultimately need to work on the plantations. His methods of training the monkeys were so successful that the Thai government observed his teaching and used him as a model for revamping the public school system throughout the country. His school has been studied by scholars and even had its moment in a BBC documentary. He has passed on now, but his daughter Somjai is running the school now in his absence. I was able to stay at her home in a small cabin in the yard and watch the monkeys lounging in their pen. The night I arrived it was too late to see the monkeys training, so Somjai took me on a tour of her neighborhood. I was able to meet a few of her friends and neighbors- I went to the home of a family of fishermen who shared with me some sticky rice in coconut milk that they cooked on a grill wrapped in leaves that they harvested from the riverbank behind their home. Then we went down to the farmer's market to pick up some fresh fruits and things to make for dinner. That night she invited me to eat with her- her husband was out of town- and she made tuna simmered in coconut milk, sticky rice, some pan fried pork, and an omelet made of eggs from her own chickens. It was delicious! The next morning she showed me around her property- the rubber trees she planted a few years ago that would be ready to draw rubber from for the first time this year, the cashew and coconut and banana trees on her property and her neighbors, her cow and chickens and her husband's pet goose that only really likes him :) She was really a wonderful host and taught me a lot about everyday life in her home country. The bananas weren't ripe when I was there, but I was able to sample the little fruits that the cashews grow from (a little bitter and chalky, but not too bad with a bit of salt) and the green coconuts that grow on the short coconut palms that the locals eat. Apparently the dry brown coconuts that we see in the states are a different variety of coconut altogether- they grow those in Thailand for use in cooking and making palm oil for cosmetics and such. The green coconuts that come from the shorter coconut palms are what the Thais consider eating coconuts and I quickly came to agree. When split open these green coconuts had only a fine lining of flesh within the gigantic inedible rind, but this little bit of flesh when scooped out with a teaspoon and eaten was delicate and almost custardy with a wonderfully light coconut flavor. It was amazing. It might be a while before I try to chew my way through a tough brown coconut again! After breakfast and our walk, it was time again for the monkeys daily training- each monkey trains approximately 30 minutes each day and she usually has about a dozen monkeys at the school at any given time. How long the training takes depends on the individual student, but usually lasts about a year or so depending upon the level of training the monkey requires and is capable of. She showed me how the monkeys first start out, learning to spin a coconut around. They use this technique to patiently spin the coconuts until the thin fibrous strand holding the coconut to the tree breaks- instead of using a knife that the monkey would have to have strapped to its wrist as it climbs around in the tree. Once the monkeys are comfortable spinning the coconuts on the ground, they're trained to climb a little off the ground on a stick she holds and spin the coconuts from higher and higher heights. Later the monkeys are taught to spin the coconuts from short palms and then tall palms, taught to swim (in case they fall in some water on the plantation), taught to swim down and retrieve items such as dropped watches and such, and taught to untie intricate knots so that they can free themselves if their leads get tangled while they're up in the trees. I was able to watch various monkeys be trained on each of these tasks. The swimming they don't seem to love as this particular breed of monkey (short tailed macaques) are not natural swimmers. But the knots they really seemed to enjoy. I was at one point able to join in as the monkey that was working on knots that day was able to untie a rope that was knotted around my ankle and another jumped up and hung from my arm to retrieve a coconut I was holding for him. I was amazed at how soft their hands are- it felt like I was holding hands with a small child. I would have thought they would be much rougher spending so much time hanging from trees. It was a really wonderful experience. Somjai was great and invited me to come back someday when I had more time and she would show me how to help her train the monkeys myself (actually she wanted me to come to her town and teach there next year too.) It was so incredible being there that I would really love to return one day see her again. But as I had only accounted one day for the monkey college, I was on to my next destination that afternoon.