Monkeys, monkeys everywhere!

Her eyes were wild, lighting from the park bench to the nappy bag and back again as she stalked the length of the playground. Watching as she toyed with the hot plastic of the swing, scowling and ill content, I ran through a mental checklist: was she too hot? Tired? Or maybe... Hands in my pockets, the accidental rustle of a forgotten muesli bar wrapper and her head snapped towards me. Uh oh. "Louloute," I stammered, my hands gripping the pram, "I think we'd better...."
"Monkey!" squealed Louloute gleefully, her grimy hands reaching.
"Cgurchguchhhh" the monkey replied, it's teeth bared.
"Goooooooooooooo!" I screeched, lunging forward with the pram and dropping the empty wrapper to buy us the precious seconds needed to escape.

Monkeys. In Kuala Lumpur, they were everywhere.  Batu 
Caves, Kanching Waterfall, the parks and playgrounds we visited on a Sunday morning and, quite literally, our own backyard.  But these monkeys weren't the cute furry Curious George types. No, they were more the slightly crazed Cujo variety.  There was something about the way they watched you, silently, from a branch high above your head.  Or the way they ripped apart a stray orange peel while sitting in the middle of a children's playground that was really quite unnerving. Safe to say, I didn't love the monkeys. Louloute  however, loved the monkeys.

At Batu Caves, strapped to the back of The Marseillan, she squealed with delight as we climbed the stone steps and the creatures darted between our legs.  I flinched as she beckoned them with plump fingers, desperate to stroke their filthy fur.  More than once I dragged her from a park swing as they descended, en mass, a pack, hunting for food in an urban jungle. On a visit to Orangutang Island in Penang, I was not so much nervous as sad watching Louloute converse with the babies in their nursery, separated by a thick plate of glass.

I was not sorry to say goodbye to the monkeys after our time in Malaysia came to end, however we were not to leave them behind, not completely.  Louloute insisted on a monkey themed party when she turned two (and while I didn't enjoy making the monkey face cake, I did eating it) and the stuffed monkeys which were crammed into our suitcases for the return journey home still hold pride of place on her bed. And these monkeys, the non stalking, non snarling, non teeth baring variety, these are my kind of monkeys.