Animals being jerks

I've been asked several times if I had any scary experiences while traveling. There haven't been many, but two of the most memorable ones involved animals. There were tons of times that creepy insects or lizards scared the hell out of me, but those were just jump scares that lasted a few seconds and subsided when doors were slammed, sinks were blocked, or, if necessary, guts were sprayed on the floor. However, there were two standout experiences involving animals that were slightly larger.

The first time was in Indonesia, on the island of Lombok. I had a nice routine of walking an hour to a beautiful white sand beach in the morning, getting some lunch, and spending the afternoon reading and swimming there. One day, I was en route and I spotted a macaque monkey about 50m away from where I was walking. I had seen many macaques before, some up close and personal on the river safari with Osman, but usually they were just doing their thing and minding their own business. This guy looked like he was staring at me, which was unusual. I continued to walk, and he continued to stare, and a few seconds later, he broke into a sprint toward me. I stopped in my tracks, trying to figure out if I should run or stand still, but I wasn't sure if he was actually running at me, or just toward me. Yeah, it was at me. When he got a few metres from me I was panicking a bit, wondering what was about to happen and hoping there was a place where I could get a rabies shot somewhere near by. He finally leapt at me, and latched onto... my water bottle that I was carrying. He was hanging off it, growling and holding on for dear life while I played tug of war with him. A few seconds later, another one came out of nowhere from behind me and jumped onto the bottle too, at which point I let go. You guys can have it. I watched them as I walked away, and one of them deftly poked a hole in the bottom of the bottle, held it above his head, and drank from the stream pouring down. The other one eventually grabbed it and did the same. I was definitely not the first mark of these bastard monkey thieves. However, I was ultimately pretty relieved because it definitely could have ended a lot worse.

The other scary animal experience was about a month later, in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka. I was coming home relatively late after spending the evening with Mom and Linda at their hotel, and my tuktuk driver didn't understand English very well. He dropped me off at the end of the street where my guesthouse was, either not understanding or ignoring my request to drive me all the way there. Oh well, only a five minute walk. My guesthouse wasn't on a main street, though, and Sigiriya is not a very populated town, so the street was pitch black. I took my phone out and used its flashlight to light my way, which got the attention of some of the local dogs. I was used to dogs barking at me as I passed by - this happened almost everywhere when I walked through a local area, especially at night. Sometimes, if they were outside, they would even walk down the driveway growling at me to make sure I stayed on the road and didn't venture into their territory. So I didn't think much of this at first, until they started following me. First one, then two and three, then a half dozen, then almost ten, Barking, snarling, growling, baring their teeth. Again, I didn't think running would be a great idea here, as they would surely outrun me in my flip-flops and I would be basically confirming I was a threat and inviting them to attack me. Instead, I decided to just pick up my pace, keep looking back to make sure they were always a few metres behind me, and have a chat with them as I walked down the street. Eventually, they started to slow their pace, and little by little they peeled off from the pack and returned to home base to continue their patrol. They were definitely effective guard dogs if they could manage to freak out someone as unafraid of dogs as me. Good boys.

Less threatening dog at less scary time of day

Cheeky little shits