I was riding my horse through the woods, we were on our second day of riding. Up and to my left I saw a brown monkey run through the branches. When I returned home the next day, I mentioned to my friends and family that I saw this monkey. They laughed, called me crazy. Said I'd been in the woods too long or saw a very fat squirrel. I did some research and discovered that the monkey I saw was a breed that escaped from a conservatory in the area a while back.

I live in Texas.

Kenyan here. A few years ago half the country had a blackout because some monkey got into the power station and messed up something.

Lived next to the national park so would have monkeys regularly get into the house (if the kitchen door was open) and steal eggs, onions, bananas etc. But they were very cute.

Oh man, this brings back crazy stories.

I went to a university which had been set up inside a city forest reserve. The campus had deer roaming freely and an infestation of monkeys.

The dorm was structured like a rectangle with a large courtyard in the middle. Bunch of stories come to mind:

Firstly, I was rooming with two other guys at the dorm. We had a 5-gallon canister of drinking water sitting on a table and a bunch of snacks from a grocery run. Snacks included a bunch of OTC meds, chocolate powder, and other junk. While the windows were equipped with metal grilles to keep the monkeys out, the baby monkeys squeezed through the gaps.

I left last for class, leaving the window open. Upon return a few hours later, we found that some of these little buggers had sneaked in and in no particular order: turned over the water canister and flooded the room; eaten at least a half dozen blister packs of meds; sprinkled chocolate powder on all three beds; eaten through some small bills we had lying around; pooped in >3 different places in the room

Guess who had to clean up all the monkey poo?

In a similar incident, a dorm neighbor had their phone stolen from their locked room by a similar mischevious little simeon. Flip phone from The mid-2000s

Over the years I missed classes on at least 5 occasions because there was an army of 15+ monkeys parked on the ledge right outside my dorm room.

Not too far from where my wife's family lives, there are monkeys on the mountain. They climb on your car and go for a ride, put their balls on the front window or do it on your car hood if you're not careful.

They are very good thieves too. You have to keep your bags in your hand and lock your car doors. They have been known to steal things out of cars too.

I was studying in India and was learning Hindi in the Himalayan foothills. Up there, there are two types of monkeys, langoors and bandars. Langoors are golden-retriever sized, grey monkeys with pitch-black faces. Bandars are Jack Russel Terrier sized, and are small and brown, and ubiquitous in Southeast Asia.

The latter are the troublemakers. One time, they broke into our cottage and stole bananas off the top of our fridge. Another time on the way home from grocery shopping, a particularly bold one ran up and snatched the shopping bag out of my friend's hands.

But one time I remember we were in Hampi and went rock climbing. We caught the sunset from the top of a large mount. A brood(?) of bandars were sitting next to us, grooming each other, and watching the sunset too. It was honestly an amazing experience.

So once the winter came and it was monkey season full blown. We heard monkeys causing a menace outside my school so we shut the door. There was a tree opposite the right window. Woosh! A baby monkey swings and enters the class.

Everyone was bamboozled. The monkey seemed excited.

Everyone stood up staring. The monkey just looks around and goes back out the same way.

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41. Stealing Grandma's Kittens

We went to the Rock of Gibraltar as a kind of a guided tour thing when I was in the Navy. There were probably ten of us and I knew two people out of the whole group. Well, the one guy I knew well worked down the hall from me and he was kind of a putz in general. There are big signs everywhere that said not to feed the monkeys.

Well, this guy decides he's going to hold out his bag of chips, trying to taunt this one monkey. The monkey reaches and he pulls it back saying something stupid like, "No, no, no, not for you." One of the group members points it out, but the tour guide doesn't even bother—I guess he knew better than we did.

The monkey leaps on the dude, balls up its little fist, and socks him in the nose. Dude freaks, monkey grabs the bag, and runs up the rocks. Monkey sits there staring at him like, "I got mine."

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38. Bad Monkey = Sad Human

When I was about 12, I went to a zoo where they had ringtail lemurs roaming free through the exhibit. There were signs everywhere warning me not to feed or pet the lemurs. So like a good kid, I didn't. I sat down in a quiet spot, and let the lemurs come up to me.

I spent the entire day there, didn't see anything else of the park. The lemurs were super respectful; there were about 20 of them just sitting around me, looking at me. One lemur looked at me, took my hand, and just started licking it. Then another one took my other hand, and did the same. these lemurs took turns softly licking my hands the entire day.

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We went out camping in cabins as a family. We didn't close the window one day and a monkey broke in and stole a bunch of food.

The next day, my grandmother was sitting on the porch steps knitting. A monkey behind her must have thought she was eating something. He snuck up on her, pushed her to the ground, grabbed the yarn, and ran off.

Theivin'.

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34. Trickster Monkey In The Oil Refinery

I was working at an oil refinery in India. We had a compressor that would trip every night around the same time, and really mess us up. I reviewed the data, yadda, yadda, yadda, nothing made sense. It was like it was turning itself off. So we set up a sting where we put up a camera and watched as a small dark figure came out and approach the compressor. It was a monkey. It pressed a couple of buttons, played with some dials, and went on its merry way. Yes, a monkey was tripping our compressor. So instead of putting a cage or cover on the controls, we hired some little kid to stand out there with a cricket bat and chase the monkey away!

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33. Forget Bananas—Where Are The Potato Chips?

32. Barbados Animal Control To Infinity And Beyond

31. Bread-Stealing Monkeys

In India, I was walking back to my host’s house and saw a bakery and decided to get them some treats as they had been so accommodating. I bought a small cake and a few other things. I was on my way listening to my headphones and suddenly I felt a strong tug on my bag and got startled. Out of nowhere, this monkey comes, snatches the bag of cake off my hands, and toddles off. The monkey knew how to take the knot out of the plastic bag. He opened the cake box and ate and shared the cake with his friends right in front of me. Everyone around me was not even a little bit surprised. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it. I told the story later to my host family, they laughed their butts off.

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30. Monkeys Steal Glasses

I lived in Thailand for a while, so I should have known better. I was on a beach near Krabi where a lot of monkeys were hanging out, and one of them came and sat next to me. He just sat there for quite a while and then suddenly, out of nowhere, pulled off my glasses and ran up a tree with them. I had quite a bit of trouble trying to get those back, and they were broken when I did finally retrieve them.

My husband and I also visited a temple in Malaysia with some monkeys. My husband is a pretty good photographer, so he was getting some nice shots, and a monkey obligingly ran right up and peered into the lens. While we were both watching this monkey on the camera, a second monkey ran up next to my husband and stole the bottle of Coke in his cargo shorts pocket.

Finally, one of that same group of Malaysian monkeys stole a roll of Mentos from me, resulting in some hilarity as the monkeys were extremely confused by the sweet and sour taste and kept putting the Mentos in their mouth, then taking them out and looking at them, then putting them back... They did decide to eat them in the end.

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29. Zimbabwe Baboon Attack

I was hiking by myself in Zimbabwe and got charged by a huge baboon. Those guys have teeth like dogs. He scared me into unleashing 6th-grade karate lessons on him. I yelled as loudly as I could and kicked out. Not sure if I connected or if it was just a bluff charge, but he retreated.

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28. Frightening Baboon

I was 19 and I worked in a resort with loads of baboons around (Drakensberg, South Africa).

I was on my lunch break, so was chilling in my room. This huge thing (easily 4.5 feet) walked in through my door, stood on his hind legs, and aggressively showed his teeth (dog teeth on steroids). I had to call down to reception to let them know I might be late from my lunch break.

Normally if you walk towards them aggressively, they back down and run away. This guy was having none of it. (But in retrospect I probably let out a small shivering whimper instead of shouting.) He glared at me for another 10 minutes until he lost interest and left.

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27. Green Monkeys

I stayed in Barbados for a few months with some friends. The green monkeys there have these really long tails that I'd guess must be three feet in length. I saw a couple of monkeys sitting on the ground, one monkey grooming the other. My buddy says, "I'll give you $20 if you touch one of their tails."

So I go walk over and the monkeys ignore me. I sit down next to the monkeys and they just look at me and go back to their grooming. I put my hand down near the end of this three-foot-long tail and... nothing. So I ever so lightly touch the very tip of the smallest bit of fur on the end of this three-foot-long monkey tail and all madness breaks loose.

Both monkeys start screaming and at this point, I have jumped back up and am trying to retreat. The monkeys are not having it and are both trying to figure out how to attack me with teeth bared. I'm jumping around on one foot with the other out to try to keep them at a legs distance while both monkeys are obviously trying to figure out how to jump on me. These monkeys are also about the size of a Terrier or a little bigger, so I'm imagining how this is going to be with two of these on my back literally.

Luckily, they both tried to attack like the ninjas do in the movies and didn't figure out they needed to spread out. Had they done this, who knows what would have happened. It seemed like I was dancing around like this for a minute or so and the monkeys finally decided they weren't going to be able to jump on me and calmed down. As my intense focus on these monkeys and the visuals of them on my back attacking me fade, I hear my friends crying with laughter, literally doubled over and crying. I back up a safe distance horrified and my "friend" already has my $20 out saying, "That's gotta be the best $20 I've ever spent in my life!"

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26. Marine Monkey Hater

He was once stationed at a base in the Philippines where they actually mandated that the Marines were required to wear their combat helmets while outdoors because a monkey threw a rock at the commanding officer of the base hard enough that he needed stitches on his head. They started doing actual patrols of the base in two-man teams armed with weapons to control the monkey population because it was getting too aggressive. Turns out, the dumpsters at the chow hall were drawing them in like flies from the surrounding jungles.

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25. Living With Monkeys

I think monkeys are one of the coolest animals on the planet. I mean, obviously, you need to be careful with the capuchins or pig-tailed macaques, and squirrel monkeys will bite the back of your neck for no reason, but plenty of monkeys are incredibly docile when accustomed to humans... woolly monkeys in South America are beautiful big softies. Red leaf and silver leaf monkeys are incredibly placid and polite too.

Probably my most favorite thing to do is hang out with monkeys. I've lived at a monkey sanctuary for a month and had at least five different species climb on me in the wild. Just respect their etiquette and they're all gravy.

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24. A Thief Lurking In The Cave

23. Monkey on the Beach

When I was in middle school, I visited Thailand with my family. There are tons of monkeys roaming around. I was walking on the beach eating the best coconut ice cream I’ve ever had and this monkey started approaching me. It was slow at first and as I started jogging it began to chase me faster. I started screaming and running and my mom ran up and kicked it away.

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22. Marshmallow Theft

A monkey came into my house and stole an entire packet of marshmallows that was for an end-of-year class party.

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21. Monkey Raid

I lived in India until I was 11, during summers we sleep on the terrace since it’s very hot and usually no one has AC. I was routinely woken up by the noise of monkeys nearby. Once I woke up scared out of mind when I saw a monkey about a foot from my face playing with my blanket.

These monkeys are geniuses of some sort; they know where all the food is in the house as well. My wife has told me she routinely found a monkey in her kitchen going through all the food.

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20. Hiking The Trail Of Terror

I was out at a park in India with a snack bag. I was walking around minding my own business. Then this giant macaque starts pacing slowly toward me from 20 meters away, eyes locked on mine, unflinching, one foot in front of the other, staring me down. When he got three meters away and showed no signs of backing down, I chucked my snack as far as I could and sprinted in the other direction—all I could hear was his screams and cackles as he ripped the bag apart and devoured its contents.

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19. Crashing A Tea Party With Monkeys

We were having a meeting at a great venue in Nairobi and refreshments had been laid out outside so we could take our breaks in the garden.

Somebody’s presentation was interrupted with: “The monkeys are eating our tea break!”

They had descended from the trees and were stealing all the cakes and fruit. It was an absolutely joyous and wonderful sight to behold.

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My apartment and my high school are both in the mountains of Hong Kong, specifically nicknamed The Monkey Mountain.

We had a monkey sitting on our AC on the seventh floor; we later heard that our neighbor on the twelfth floor got her fruit stolen.

We had witnessed monkeys robbing people's grocery bags right after they came out of the grocery store.

I witnessed a monkey sitting on the ledge of the fifth floor of my school. The monkey saw me as I walked by and jumped. I looked down and the monkey was gone. I assume it swung itself to the floor below.

For entertainment for my two baby sisters, my parents will park the car in the car park by my school. They are infiltrated with countless monkeys and my sisters enjoy seeing them. It's like a free monkey safari.

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It was a baboon, but it snuck into my neighbor's house and ate their dog. Also, baboons like to eat animals alive, so it screeched for a good five minutes before we managed to get inside (neighbors weren't home). It was gone by then though.

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I was on vacation in Thailand last month. We did a day trip to Ayutthaya and Lop Buri where the monkey temple is located. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of small monkeys roaming free in the town, especially around the temple.

There were, like, 50 tourists around the temple. Some of them were getting close to the monkeys for selfies; some got monkeys on them. A little Chinese girl was getting her hair pulled by two monkeys and her parents were swatting the monkeys away.

Then there was me, standing at a respectful distance, not moving, and minding my own business while my girlfriend takes photos, from a distance as well.

Well, who gets a monkey bite and has to go get rabies shots?

Thankfully, the bite didn't break my skin.

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A monkey threw a leaf at me one time while in Bali. I threw it back at him. Apparently, that’s a sign of aggression. The monkey jumped on me and bit my neck. I stood up to show more intimidation and he jumped off. Never got tested, but I think I have no monkey viruses.

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I was bitten while exploring Angkor Wat.

I sat down for a minute by one of the ruins while a group of young photographers was maybe 50 meters away filming some seemingly tame monkeys. Out of nowhere a young macaque jumps on me from behind, grabs my bracelets and I instinctively pushed it away which was a big mistake as it looks at me as if I just insulted its mother and proceeded to bite me just above my bum.

I learned a lot about rabies that day too. Great fun going around Cambodia collecting shots from different places.

Also, the same day at Angkor Wat, I saw a woman and her toddler approach a group of monkeys. The kid got out a packet of biscuits, took one out to offer to a monkey who then looked at the single cookie, looked to the pack, back to the cookie and then grabbed the whole packet, leaving a kid with a harsh life lesson.

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Japan doesn't have many monkeys in the cities, but there are wild monkeys in the forests. One time my wife and I went to a tourist spot, and as we were walking through the forest, we heard a rustling sound overhead. We saw a whole family of monkeys crossing the trees; it was an amazing sight.

So, a year later, we decided to go there again. My wife said, "Do you think we'll see those monkeys again?" So I said, "Yes, those monkeys will be there. I guarantee it."

We went, and we didn't see any monkeys. Ever since that time, anytime my wife asks if we will be able to see something that we hope for, I tell her I guarantee it, just like the monkeys. And that's why my wife doesn't trust me.

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I'm a nature guide/lodge manager in the Kruger area.

This one year I worked at a lodge on the banks of the Olifants River. There were vervet monkeys everywhere. The owner insisted on serving lunch on a platform that was about 50 meters away from the kitchen. One person always had to stay with the buffet while other staff members brought out the rest. The monkeys knew who was staff and who wasn't. No matter how many times we warned our guests, monkeys always got their share. One would pose for the guests, people all grab for their phone and start taking pictures. Behind their back, the table and buffet get raided. I even have a picture of a monkey eating a slice of pizza, he's holding it by the crust like we do.

The worst was the dominant male though. He always got excited when lunch was coming, so he often started playing with himself. Then minutes later, he had his hands in one of the bowls, mostly the spaghetti, he liked that. So we took whatever he touched away, and had it replaced asap. This one time a lady got angry and said "We should not throw good food away," so she grabbed the bowl out of a staff member's hands, and dished up...

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I stayed in a hotel in India (think it was Jaipur) where after dark we all sat in the courtyard and the monkeys would run across the roof. The hotel was a really old building that had been tastefully restored and it was an awesome sight.

I walked around the monkey park in Ubud, Indonesia where the monkeys were all around you. Supposedly tame, they clearly were going to mug you as soon as you turned your back to them. I didn't hang around too long.

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My favorite memory of the Monkey Forest was when some big male monkey was on the edge of the guard tower at the entrance screaming at the guards, and these guards with big weapons were backing away out of the tower. I mean, obviously, they weren't going to harm the monkey but it was an amusing visual.

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I was a missionary for my church in the Philippines. I jokingly held out a card with info about our church and this monkey grabbed it out of my hand and ripped it to shreds.

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Malaysia. My uni’s dorm literally has monkeys chilling on the rooftop every day. Whenever students go to class or when the dorms are empty, they just come over and look for food. It’ll get messy.

If you’ve never had any experience with real-life monkeys 10 meters in front of you, it’s easy to say, “Just fight them!” Nah, my dude. They come in packs. You hit one, another ten will retaliate.

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We were on a trip to a nearby hill station/resort in the city of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India. It is a tourist town known for temples dedicated to Lord Hanuman (monkey god) and snowfall. Yes, snowfall is rare in India and tourists flock to towns like Shimla during winter to experience snowfall. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived for our two-day holiday, there was no snow anywhere! Even the weather report indicated that we were out of luck for our holiday. Both my brother and I were quite disappointed because we had never seen snow before and were really excited about this trip. My mom suggested that we instead visit the popular Lord Hanuman temple and see the sights around there. This temple, like all Hanuman temples, had many free-roaming wild monkeys all around. My mom was carrying some food in her hand when a monkey jumped on her, grabbed the food and bit her hand. It wasn't a very serious injury and she received a couple of shots from the doctor, but she was extremely sad because the trip was a disaster. She prayed that night to Lord Hanuman to ask him for "compensation" since she is a very passionate devotee of his.

The next day, we woke up to live snowfall and snow covering everything! It was the most magical moment of my life and we spend the rest of the day frolicking about and playing in the snow. I will never forget this incident as a sheer moment of belief that turned into something magical. Thank you, Lord Hanuman.

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Baboons. We were on a trip through Africa on our honeymoon and we stayed at the Victoria Hotel on the Zimbabwe side. The night we arrived, there was a troop of baboons walking across the roof with the biggest alpha male I have ever seen. He was jacked and massive like a hunched over man.

One really hot day, we decided to open the windows and let some air in. I noticed the drainpipe right next to the window against a dirty white wall. So I was lying on the bed next to the window playing a 3DS and my wife was reading a book.

The sun was streaming in and then all of a sudden wasn't, when we looked up the big alpha male was on the window ledge. He climbed down the drainpipe. I have never gotten off a bed so quick, as I did he was bearing his teeth and getting really aggressive and he jumped into the room. We ran into the bathroom just before he reached us we slammed the sliding door. There are no phones in the rooms there and the room door was bolted closed as we were instructed to do, so no way out before the Babbs rips you apart. Yelling had no effect to either alert others or scare off that baboon.

We were stuck in the bathroom while he started ripping apart anything that was wrapped up. The only thing in the bathroom was a small wooden bowl with an old orange in it. I opened the door to check if we could get out of the room but it required unlocking a few things so that was a no-go.

I grabbed the orange with the intent to throw it at its head and worst case we stay in the bathroom a few hours. I slid the door open just enough so that I could jump back in and close it before the baboon got me. I stepped out and yelled as loud as I could, "HEY," and lifted my arm to peg the orange at it.

The baboon dropped the souvenir it was tearing to bits, leapt from the bag onto the bed, did this full flex muscle thing and bore its huge teeth, then turned around and jumped out the window and onto the drainpipe and back up to the roof.

I closed the damn window and rescued my freaking-out wife. When we spoke to the staff about it, they told us we were very lucky and that if it had been my wife it would have killed her as they are not afraid of women. They also said had I not raised my hand above my head it also would have killed me.

The reason it ran when it did was that that is how they get rid of them from the grounds—a man goes out with a slingshot and gets them to move on. That baboon didn't kill me because it thought I had a slingshot and it knew they hurt.

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3. A Sweet Monkey's Touch

We used to live near a wildlife sanctuary and in those days wild animals were occasionally seen around the house.

One morning, I was just about to wake up, I feel a cool hand on one eye. Then the hand moves over my other eye. Naturally, I assume it is my sister pranking me and open my eyes to look up and yell at her, but no one is there. I look down and squatting next to the bed is a monkey, looking up at me with lively interest, hands now demurely on its knees.

My first reaction was wanting to hug it, it was so very sweet sitting there looking up at me, then I remembered that monkeys can be quite destructive and carriers of rabies! So I dived under the quilt and yelled for my mom, who came running into the room and chased the monkey out by throwing a purse at it.

Photo by Chromatograph on Unsplash

They started using smartphones!

My hometown is full of free-roaming monkeys. In the schools and houses, we keep the windows closed to keep them out.

Once, in my friend's school, they accidentally left the windows open during a break. The classroom was empty as all students and teachers were in a monthly meeting or something. When they came back, they saw monkeys all over the class, stealing food and vandalizing.

One monkey was on the teacher's desk, with the teacher's smartphone in hand, tapping the touchscreen. Well, they have watched students and teachers using them all the time; they were curious!

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