Primate Prime Ape

 

In my rush to be all controversial, I completely forgot to mention the OTHER highlight of my KL trip. Monkeys! In fairness, I partly forgot about them because they weren’t actually in KL city proper, but about a 45 minute drive away. But yes. Monkeys. We took a tour bus to Battu Caves, which is this Hindu temple inside a huuuuuge limestone cave. 

The cave itself was pretty fantastic, as was the temple, but really, its me – of course the monkeys were the highlight. I assume they are wild monkeys that have taken advantage of the tourist attraction – they look pretty well fed, and are clearly quite comfortable with sun-burnt tourists in Tevas and sunglasses pressing wide-angle lenses into their faces. I’ve always wanted to see monkeys in the wild – I think feral monkeys count enough for me to check it off my life To-Do list.

Although in all honestly, monkeys have always kind of weirded me out. Well, apes more so. But I just find their human resemblances to be a bit off setting. Whenever I visit the Great Ape house at the National Zoo (or any other zoo where there are gorillas and orangutans behind bars) I can’t help but excessively anthropomorphize them into sentient beings. I stare at these beasts through the glass, they stare back, and I can’t help but wonder how aware they are of their imprisonment and if they ever get resentful of all the leering faces who walk freely through the exhibit.