The weekend I ultimately returned to the states last spring was supposed to be spent hiking Monkey Mountain in Kaohsiung. A mountain in the middle of what I think is the second biggest city in Taiwan that also doubles as a monkey sanctuary. My chinese teacher in high school grew up near the mountain. During class she shared stories of monkeys crossing the streets near her school and swinging in the trees. In accepting my Fulbright last year I made it a goal to 1) see a monkey in general and 2) go to monkey mountain. In the entirety of last year I never saw a monkey. Did Morgan see one during her 1 week visit while on the back of my scooter and never point it out to me? Yes, yes she did. Her justification was not wanting to distract me from driving down the road in which we hadn’t seen another car or person for at least 30 minutes. Regardless my goals were officially accomplished and crossed off my bucket list this weekend.
This blog post will mainly be pictures because after all I came for the monkeys.
The hike in itself isn’t entirely interesting. There were small stairs and paths made from gravel and large rocks at some points and wood in others. Sean and I stayed pretty quiet to encourage the monkeys to come closer and to hear them coming. In the beginning of the hike any time I heard the leaves rustle I was convinced it was a monkey and would jump. I don’t know what I was scared of. I was the one that really wanted to see the monkeys in the first place. I think I kept picturing the monkeys I have seen in videos that attack tourists for food or for things hanging outside a backpack thinking its food. These monkeys are a little different. Being a monkey sanctuary, hikers can’t feed them. This keeps the monkeys away from the people for the most part. If you stand very still and stay completely silent some of the younger monkeys will get curious and walk up to you, but at no point do they attack thinking you have food. The main thing to remember is to not get too close to a baby monkey because that's the only cause for alarm when it comes to the monkeys.
There are signs at the beginning of the hike to also remind hikers that if a monkey is to jump on you not to run or scream. Instead, one is supposed to slowly and calmly start to walk and the monkey, in theory, should jump off. That’s easy for the posters to say. It’s one thing to read about staying calm it’s another when there is an animal or your head. Thankfully I didn’t face this issue in the slightest.
Playing King of the Mountain
Sean and I happened upon a troop of monkeys and with the mother and baby in the middle of the walkway, ended up sitting down for a little rest so as to not put “pressure” on the baby. Sitting was amazing because the longer we stayed the more monkeys showed up and were crawling out of bushes everywhere. I snapped so many pictures sitting there. I got carried away and we maybe sat still in the tunnel of trees for around 30 minutes completely forgetting that in staying still we not only brought more monkeys, but brought the mosquitos as well. I walked away with probably a mosquito bite for every minute we sat there. Completely worth it, but not the souvenir I was hoping to take back.
Near the end of our hike we came across an overlook that looked out on the city below. Staying there enjoying the view, Sean was able to stay still enough (having been looking at his phone for our next step in the day - whether to return to the hotel and shower or go straight to food) that a monkey came up to him. The tiny “young adult” monkey then crawled up, sniffed his knee, and then gave his hug the closest thing to a monkey hug I’ve ever seen. I didn’t catch it completely on camera, but I got pictures of the monkey near him. I couldn’t believe it! We were both so surprised. As that monkey scampered off, another poked him in the butt from below the platform he was sitting on. Definitely not the kind of experience seeing monkeys that I expected.
Does he really smell good enough to hug after hiking a couple hours?
Having already gotten a monkey hug and a ton of pictures we decided it wouldn’t get better than that so we made our way down the mountain to the base which also has the entrance to the Kaohsiung zoo. We thought being near the zoo we would have no issue with finding a cab. We found cabs, but none of the drivers wanted to take us. There was only a super desperate man in this old, beat-up car willing to drive us back to the hotel. We didn’t really understand why this was the case until it literally happened everywhere we went. No cab wanted to drive foreigners. I’m pretty sure it has to do with the fact that Kaohsiung still has quite a bit of quarantine hotels for foreign workers that are coming over and so the foreigners present in the area most likely just got out of quarantine. You can’t really blame them. However, it significantly impacted our ability to get from place to place. Uber saved the day because I guess Uber drivers don’t have the same concerns about foreigners and instead just see the high Uber rating and agree to pick us up.
Having got back to the hotel and showered, hoping it would calm the mosquito bites, we set out for a Japanese cafe Sean’s friend told him about. I was expecting sushi, what we got were pancakes. real , fluffy, dense pancakes. Sushi or noodle dishes were not even on the menu. A large percentage of the menu was dedicated to different kinds of pancakes. The options were honey and vanilla ice cream, chocolate and banana, matcha and red bean, and oolong custard and tapioca balls. Sean went for the classic honey and vanilla ice cream. Having eaten a lot of matcha related desserts, I wanted to branch out a little more and went with the oolong custard. It was such an interesting taste. It was light with a strong tea aftertaste. Sean’s order was prepared a good 10 minutes before mine. With both of us hungry I kept telling him he could eat, but he refused knowing I would probably want to take some pictures of the food. He allowed himself one bite before mine came. After tasting my own pancakes I couldn’t believe Sean was able to stop after one bite. That one bite would’ve forced me to continue eating without stopping till the entire plate was cleared. The cafe was so cute and tasty that we had a serious conversation about coming back the next day for breakfast before leaving.
The cafe did have some interesting decoration ideas. The entrance had an old family picture up on the wall. One person, the person who happened to be in the middle of the picture, must have angered the family because they were completely ripped from the photograph. It was like Sirius Black from Harry Potter where different family members were disowned. I do have to say there is something quaint about the cafe being in a old building reminiscent of Japanese architecture, or possibly dating back to the Japanese occupancy of Taiwan.
The cafe was pretty close to the river that runs through Kaohsiung. With nothing else planned the rest of the day, why not just walk around? Walking only 3 blocks we came across this huge field that used to be the city’s train yard. Still with the tracks on the ground, the field held host to a lot of people enjoying the day. There were bubbles and people taking Instagram pictures with the old trains. The big draw were the kites flying high in the air. Some of the kite flyers looked like professionals with huge reels of line and cranks.
Art Installations, trains, and bubbles galore
We spent the rest of the day in the field enjoying what Kaohsiung had to offer. Sean haggled with the kite shop to buy a red fish kite. We saw a tiny train you could sit on and ride around the little square area around the old warehouses now repurposed for a train museum and art exhibits. We flew our kite and did fairly well if I do say so myself. Although the fish took a noise-dive right on the walkway under my watch, I do think Sean passed me the kite when it’s flight was already considered somewhat precarious.
Overall, the trip to Kaohsiung was successful and a welcome relaxing trip following my first week of school. I was able to finally see the monkeys, fly a kit, eat some good food (including some fried mushrooms at the night market and a really juicy burger from none other than “juicy burger”). We may have stepped into a pet shop as well and completely regretted it after seeing the small puppies so sad.
Although Kaohsiung isn’t my favorite county in Taiwan, mainly because of the smog, I do have to admit it is slowly growing on me.
The trip back to Taitung brought rain, but renewed hope for what the coming year can be.
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