langkawi magazine
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Robbed In Paradise - Times Writer Burgled by Langkawi Monkeys
On balance, it is better to be visited by burglars when you are out than when you are at home. I speak from experience. It is not nice to be woken from a deep sleep in the early hours by a strange man in your bedroom. When it happened to me at my home in London, I muttered a foul obscenity in a very deep voice, leapt out of bed and chased him down three floors. This had nothing to do with bravery and everything to do with stupidity. Thank God he ran. I told the police he was at least 7ft tall, with mad eyes and a dagger clenched between his teeth. I'm pretty sure they thought I was exaggerating.
The last time it happened I was on the tropical island of Langkawi, off the coast of Malaysia, staying in The Andaman hotel. We must have left the balcony doors open a crack when we went out, and we caught the burglars in the act. They ran too.
My London burglar had been an amateur and got away with nothing. These were professionals. Every drawer had been opened and the place thoroughly ransacked. Even the minibar. This time my description was accurate. They were all bearded, with big eyes, hairy arms and legs and tails. See one macaque monkey and you've seen them all.But the authorities were not interested. These characters had form as long as their own arms. I happen to have a brazil-nut obsession. Wherever I go I take a big bag with me. The monkeys got the lot and I was forced to eat cashew and pistachio nuts. They cost a pittance in Malaysia, so that was okay.
I harboured no great resentment at the time. That came later, in another hotel - the Tanjung Sanctuary - on a different part of the island, at the hands of a different troop. This time we weren't burgled: we were mugged. We'd been shopping for food and I had left my partner and small boy (to be known as P and SB) on the veranda of our chalet with the bags while I went to get the key. The smaller members of the troop set up a diversionary tactic while the alpha male (to be known as Big Al) went for the bags. P tried to scare him off, but this guy does not scare.
Another time he threatened me on our chalet balcony. I brandished a rolled-up copy of The Spectator at him. He laughed in my face. Or, rather, he crouched in attack mode and bared his teeth and I scuttled back inside. This is one bad monkey and he does not like me. He appeared at breakfast on the rail surrounding the restaurant. He ignored the other diners, made straight for my table and stole my toast - freshly buttered and smeared with the last of my personally imported Marmite. Humiliating.
Something else scared me in Langkawi - something tiny. P had a very sore ear. SB said his ear hurt too, but babies imitate adults and we ignored him. That was silly. We spent a good part of Christmas Day finding a doctor for a sick little boy. She knew what was wrong immediately. A tiny creature called the sengkenit flea had burrowed into the outer edge of P's ear and was scoffing her blood. The excellent doctor pulled it out - painfully, but easily. In SB's case it had got deep inside. The doctor knew it was there because she could see the blobs of dried blood it had excreted. Flea poo is not a pretty sight in your small son's ear. She gave us drops and we killed the little sod - the flea, that is. Happily SB made a complete and speedy recovery.
So what else? Ah yes, the leeches that attached themselves to SB and me. We discovered them on our legs at The Andaman after we'd been paddling in a stream in the hotel grounds. No pain and no problem. We had sadistic fun watching them wriggling on a saucer after we'd plucked them off. The bleeding took a few hours to stop. Oh, and the sea lice that occasionally nibble you in the sea. Again, no problem. Apparently they feed on your dead skin. Better than an exfoliation kit from Boots, I shouldn't wonder.
Still, what with marauding monkeys, leeches, lice and fleas and the mynah birds that wake you up by imitating the sound of somebody knocking at your door, you might choose to stay away from this place. I hope you do. Now that I have discovered it, I want it for myself. It is magnificent and I do not want it to change.
When they are not burgling and mugging, a troop of macaques are great fun to watch at play. And so are the dusky leaf monkeys. If the macaque are the teenage skinheads of the simian world, the dusky leaf are the charming little vegetarian toddlers - as shy as the macaque are bold - and so much prettier, with their soft furry bodies and great panda eyes.
It's like living in a David Attenborough documentary here. You walk back at dusk and a flying squirrel swoops from the trees in front of you, or a pair of hornbills return to their nest. You swim in the glorious bays - I have seen none better - as the sun is rising and a pair of sea eagles circle above, patrolling their territory. Idiotic flying fish zoom past your ear. Bigger fish leap from the water to try to escape the sea otters hunting for breakfast. Asian swallows skim the water, catching insects.
After their breakfast the children are torn between throwing leftover toast to the fish and crabs beneath the Tanjung Sanctuary restaurant, which stands on stilts above the rocks, or watching for the water monitor lizards to emerge from the rainforest when kitchen staff sling the odd chicken carcass over the railings. Prehistoric beasts as much as 6ft long. This is children's paradise. Clich'd it may be, but small kids don't need (or want) expensive theme parks when there are beaches like this. SB could have spent all day finding hermit crabs, failing to catch tiny fish and chasing the extraordinary little mud skippers, which look and swim like fish, but leap out of the water and skitter across the mud of riverbanks.
Langkawi 25/01/2004
