Ngao Mangrove Forest Research Centre

The Calm Before The Storm Of Monkeys

While in Thailand for three months, we are taking in the sites in the small town of Ranong. Ranong is a city and a province in southern Thailand and is considered the wettest area of all Thailand.

Our holiday in Thailand has been quite an adventure so far. This One Minute Memory is just part of the documentation of this vacation.

At about the 10 second mark, you will see a monkey come in from the left side of the video. This is a known as a crab-eating macaque. Can you figure out what their diet consists of?

The monkeys live in the mangrove forest just outside of the city of Ranong in the Ngao area. The mangrove forest is home to many different types of marine species. There are rows upon rows upon rows over trees in the forest.

The monkeys decided we needed a little excitement in our lives and tried to escape with Evo’s Zoom H4n (recording device). We had been taking pictures and recording audio for about 45 minutes when we picked up our things and walked away. Only to discover we missed one important item and the monkeys had it! This was super exciting!

Photography and now videos are a key part of what we are doing at The Opportunistic Travelers. You can see more of our photography at and our blog has the write ups on our adventures

Can You See The Monkey?

There are monkeys all around us, or at least there were monkeys all around us, even if we couldn’t see them.

We followed along the 1.5kkm “boardwalk” that makes up the Ngao Mangrove Forest Research Center, submerged in the sites and sounds of the swampy mangrove forest. Oh, and the mosquitos. Can’t forget about the mosquitos. This spot had a nice reflection in the water, with buzzing insects all around that made for a quite relaxing setting. Perfect for a One Minute Memories video.

What I didn’t expect was a monkey. Unbeknownst to me, one was sitting in my frame the entire time. I hadn’t seen him because we’d been moving and when the monkey sees movement he stays still and blends into the background. It’s only when we stopped moving that the monkey felt comfortable enough to go about his business.

Did you see him?