Let me be brutally honest: this bottle contains no juice, because this bottle is a lamp:
Another long-tailed person (Macaca fascicularis), an image taken from my window:
No, dear, you won't rob my room...
Let me explain. Songkhla monkeys normally don't invade rooms if humans are inside. But I always close my window when I go to shower or stroll, as a banana on the table or anything else - a lamp looking like a bottle, for example - can attract a macaque or a group of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if such a crowd ended up unintentionally ruining my laptop or other valuables.
Besides being unintentionally destructive, macaques sometimes commit acts of vandalism - it's not just jumping, they try to break things. The reason is probably to showcase their power and dominance - the same reason often motivates humans to behave so. In the image above, you can see the beast shaking a TV antenna.
Macaques behave like people high on amphetamines, except for the fact they are focused on food. 99% of their crimes are food-related, but not always:
I couldn't reach the floor of this balcony with my telephoto lens... But I'll tell you what had happened - they stole two T-shirts (for fun, not to wear them, lol).
Behind the monkey pulling a cloth, there were 2 T-shirts (look at the photo above). As you see, they disappeared - I witnessed monkeys take them away. Most probably, they threw them away quite soon, but you never know - they could bring clothes to a neighbor's yard or a rooftop.
The story of the stolen laundry ended this: a man came out with a toy machine gun and started shooting monkeys with plastic pellets. The thieves screamed and scattered in all directions.
Rooftops are where monkeys rest between their acts of mischief. Although they never sleep there at night - they all come back to the wooded Tangkuan Hill, their home.
All this criminal activity is possible due to numerous cables and wires entangling the city. And that's where I find much inspiration as a photographer.
Songkhla monkeys not only walk on wires, but also cross streets. That's fine until they cross a major road.
This net is a skywalk created by people to let macaques cross on foot a busy street rarer. However, it never became popular.
In a similar colony in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand, macaques tend to steal car mirrors. So I looked to see if the same thing was happening in Songkhla. No, it wasn't. It probably means Songkhla macaques have a different culture.
Culture is something that is passed on only by learning and, at the same time, persistent in a group - and it does exist among long-tailed macaques.
City macaques in Prachuap Khiri Khan (Thailand) use stones to break sea almonds and steal car mirrors - Songkhla monkeys don't do these. And - happily for humans - none of macaques have learned how to break windows with stones. When they do, that will be a revolution...
I joked often in the post, calling these beasts criminals and stuff, so I feel a necessity to explain things. The macaques of Songkhla seriously disturb only the houses that border the forested Tangkuan Hill or are located across the street. The rest of the city lives peacefully, although visits by monkeys are possible, especially early in the morning. For example, monkeys sometimes visit the roof areas of my guesthouse, which is located 500 meters away from Tangkuan Hill. Half a kilometer along wires and roofs is not that close.
Many Songkhla people wear sticks when they are walking along streets adjacent to Tangkuan Hill, which isn't typical for Thailand. As I understand, the monkeys behaved aggressively during the pandemic when they were starving - you can read articles about that time in the mass media. So, I guess, some local people don't feel safe about monkeys anymore.
Nowadays, Songkhla macaques are well supplied and live in laziness and idleness. The local population (living far from the monkey hill 😃) considers the macaques cute and funny and bring them food. This is not only an act of civic responsibility, but also a Buddhist tradition - feeding animals is part of Buddhism in Thailand no less than praying.
All photos were taken with a Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 by the author in May-June 2025 in Songkhla, Thailand
