How we rescued a monkey (Break in the loop from Thakhek) - Part 1

Our South East Asian trip is, from the beginning, tightly related to monkeys. Why ? Because, I guess, when European people travel Asia, one of the expectations is to see animals you can't at home. I bet the main ones are elephants and monkeys. Moreover, Tobias has developed a crazy obsession for monkeys since he traveled Central America.

During our trip we crossed several of these animals. First in Battambang (Cambodia), free in a village; then in Sihanoukville (Cambodia) we played with a huge family living a peaceful life in a pagoda; and finally we met another big clan enjoying Angkor complex (Cambodia) in pure freedom as well. That was amazing to see. No fences, no zoo, no forced interaction.

In Laos, the animals we're crossing also live a nice life. Cows, buffaloes, goats, chickens, pigs, dogs, ... they're all free. They all walk, run, eat, play, chill in the streets, fields, water points, ... Nothing compared to European farm animals treatment.

Here freedom seems to be the master word.

Now all that is said let me tell you what happened on our second day loop from Thakhek, in a small village called Nong Kok.

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Coming from Thalang, we head with Manson to Koun Kham village to find a guesthouse before visiting Kong Lor Cave. On the way we pass a small village, Nong Kok.

Suddenly and as usual, I hear Tobias screaming joyfully "M O N K E Y !", as he does each time he sees one.

The monkey is there, on the left side of the road. We stop the scooter and walk closer. We're first surprised when we finally see a one meter metal chain attached at a tree and super tight around the poor animal's neck. Afraid, he hides his little head between his skinny legs, shaking, as we come slowly to him.

I go buy some biscuits and take one off in front of him. Before I could give it to him, he is already running toward me. But cut in his race by the fucking rope, he then begs to have it. He eats it at a significant speed which lets us guess that he didn't have food for a while. A second biscuit, and in the bowl of our hands we make him drink some water. He had probably not so much water neither. Meanwhile, we also remark that someone cut his tail.

We start to ask around who is "the owner". An old woman from the shop I bought the biscuits, points something that we should see. We first think shows us "the owner", but instead, it's a second monkey that we find. He is bigger, more wild and seems in better shape, but still disturbed. We repeat what we've done with the first and give him biscuits.

A guy from the car shop, where the monkeys are separately attached to, comes out and we understand that he is the person we're searching for.

When I write "person", please note that I'm hardly trying to avoid bad vocabulary, even though it's difficult within this post.

When I write about those people from Nong Kok, my mind screams F U C K E R S.

We try to talk with him in a way that you can guess, explaining that the rope is too short, too tight, that it's not normal to keep monkeys here, they're starving and need water... He ignores us and calls one of his friends from the other car shop on the right side of the street.

Anew, we think wrong. He doesn't come to translate but instead takes the chain and pulls up the small monkey in the air. While the monkey is screaming to death of fear and from the strangulation pain, the F U C K E R is laughing, looking at us.

Seeing Tobias, in rage, going to him, shouting him to stop, pushing him and then walking to other F U C K E D U P guys in the street who are also joking about it; I can not move.

While Tobias has an argument with them (A S S H O L E S) I'm standing near the monkey, shaking as hard as he does, his head between his legs again. I try to think about a solution to take them out of here, but I'm also worried for Tobias, who is furious among ten or so B A S T A R D S.

We promise them that it's not done. We promise ourselves that we gonna make them pay.

We take the scooter and drive to Koun Kham, choose randomly a guesthouse, Xokxaykham.

During the diner, in the evening and through the night, we can't stop to think about it.

Don't judge us if I tell you that in our heads we torture them a million time this night.