Mountain sides and monkey bites
Trip Start
Jun 04, 2008
1
14
79
Trip End
Feb 20, 2009
Xi'an,
China
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
We went from the Grand budda to Emei Shan, which is a taoist mountain temple. Basically Emei shan is an external, 15 hour long, staircase in the mountains. It does get steep sometimes, and the stairs get a bit tiring. The scenery, however, is absolutely beautiful. It feels like it is in a rainforest/cloudforest, high up in the mountains. There is lush vegetation, creeks, rivers, and waterfalls everywhere, and plenty of cool critters to stare at.
There is a part of the trail where monkeys are infamous for inhabiting. The are notorious pickpockets and beggars for food. there is a bit of novelty to being surrounded by monkeys, and i don't think Eric and I reacted to it particularly well. As far back as I can remember, at every zoo, at every wildlife center, there is ALWAYS a sign that says, "DON'T FEED THE ANIMALS," yet for some reason, against our better judgement, we fed them. I don't really know why. They actually do get a bit aggressive when they don't get as much food as they want, and they will squak and bear their teeth. We had gotten through a big crowd of monkeys, and were pretty much in the clear when we noticed one little critter had followed us. Eric pulled out the camera and started to take a video. As he did so, the monkey came closer and closer. It grabbed a hold of Eric's shorts, unzipped his pocket, and pulled out the map. The monkey had now gotten too close so Eric shook a stick at the monkey. the monkey let go of the map, ran away from eric, jumped on me, bit me in the left wrist, and ran off!
Man, was I grouchy! It was a sad little puncture wound, barely worth calling a bite, but enough to notice, and none the less, a bite. And monkeys carry diseases...lots of them. And we were on a mountain smack in the middle of nowhere.
Eric said i should wash it off, and I did. We just kept hiking onwards. I haven't gone in to get it checked out, but I did call my dad, who kindly pointed out every ailment a monkey can transmit, as well as the symptoms for each of the above. So far, its six days after the monkey bite, so if I had something lovely like rabies or encephalitis, it should have shown up by now...i think....
