The following day we climbed 1,237 steps to the summit of Wat Tham Suea. It is believed that a tiger once slept in the temple’s caverns. That’s how it got its name, which literally translates to Tiger Cave Temple, and you can see the shape of a tiger’s paw embedded in the cave’s rock.
We had been warned that monkeys often hang around in large groups at the bottom of the steps, that they can sometimes become fierce if you get between a monkey and its young. We had also been warned that if you make the journey with a backpack, there is a small chance that a monkey will launch itself out of the trees and latch onto it, unzipping and freeing you of the weight of your possessions. It’s true: monkeys must have been around; there were mixed messages everywhere – a sign that said “do not feed the monkeys” immediately outside of a restaurant dedicated to the sale of monkey food – but strangely, we saw no monkeys there in the early morning.
Some of the steps to the summit were over a foot in height and, with little space to stand, could be difficult to climb. 1,237 may not sound like such a huge figure but the steps eventually lead to an elevation of 278 metres at the mountain’s peak. Fellow climbers that we witnessed struggling towards the start had barely managed to scale a hundred steps and they already looked half dead.
By the time we reached the midway point, I was sweating so profusely that the sun cream had run out of the pores in my face. While we stopped for a rest and to re-hydrate ourselves on a platform, I tried to clean myself but none of the cream would wipe off. The cheap wet wipes we had bought from the pharmacy were unreliable and Aldi’s Australian brand of sun cream may as well have been blended with cement. I could barely distinguish anything in the view of mist and mountains; the cream was pouring into my eyes.
Distracted by all of this, I saw only the briefest impression at the edge of my vision – shapeless and accompanied by a familiar scream. When I turned my head towards the steps, that’s when I saw the first primate descend and pass us on the platform. What followed: a hundred monkeys came sliding down the railings on their arses. They came loping down the steps. There were monkeys in the trees falling onto our platform; they were practically raining from the sky.
Nicola had her back up against the railings, and then she was heading down the steps, and then she was back up on the platform not knowing where to be. “Do not get in the monkey’s way” was the advice we had taken in advance. “If it tries to steal your bottle, just give it a drink. If it’s riding round on your back, relax and try to ignore it. Everything will be ok in the end”. Enveloped in fear, Nicola trips and scares a baby. Its parent looks directly at me, my face now completely white with cream like a geisha’s, and it just starts screaming. It feels like the stream of monkeys behind it are heading straight for us and there’s practically no space to progress or hide. The local who comes up behind us, he’s just laughing his head off, and we take this as a sign that we need to get a grip and start moving. The screaming monkey is silenced, and sure enough, as the torrent dies down, we manage to skulk past the remaining primates and climb another few hundred steps monkey-free, eventually reaching the shrine at the top of the mountain.
The views up here were stunning and it was probably the most rewarding experience we’ve had on the trip so far. There’s a massive golden Buddha at the shrine and his oversized footprint. There’s so much depth in the view – we could see tons of layers of mountains and cloud. It was fantastic. The descent was steep but less tiring and we saw a couple of monkeys grooming each other on a stone platform but that was all. We were blessed by a monk in a cave at the base of the mountain and had a thin piece of thread tied around our arms.
That definitely does sound like an adventure!! ??xx