Monkey mugging

I was reading this morning that A 25 year old woman was taken to hospital after being mugged by a monkey for a box of egg tarts at a bus stop in Hong Kong.

The story at The Earth Times says the monkey made its move just after the woman got off a bus for a Sunday picnic. It scratched her arm as it grabbed the box of egg tarts. The shocked woman was taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries.

Apparently Hong Kong’s rural New Territories are home to thousands of monkeys. They usually keep clear of humans, but occasionally, hungry lone males will prey on hikers from the city unused to seeing monkeys and arriving in country parks with bags of food.

It reminds me of an experience in India a few years back.

It was 2005 and while in India we visited the mountain city of Shimla. To get to the main centre of Shimla we needed to park the vehicles that had driven us up the mountain and then take a couple of elevators up to the main part of town.

When we got out of the second lift and entered the road that led to the shopping area, I noticed a number of monkeys climbing over the top of a building. We had seen dozens of monkeys by the side of the road on the way up but now was my opportunity to take a photo or two.

I spied a mother monkey carrying her baby and thought it’d make a cute picture. I was standing several metres away aiming my camera when the mother monkey saw me and made a nasty hissing sound before heading my way.

Before I knew it I had a monkey grabbing at my leg. They can certainly move fast but once that kind of adrenaline kicks in I can move pretty fast too. I took off very quickly and avoided any permanent damage.

You really haven’t lived until you’ve been attacked by a monkey.



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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5 Comments

  • Oh how weird!
    Being attacked by all kind of bugs doesn´t count in, no? Like a moth I could clearly see without my glasses? Or… ugh… forget it, I´ll wait for the monkey!

  • My family was attacked by monkeys when I was 8. We were somewhere in Malaysia (I think – I was 8, can only remember so much) and were wandering through a park after having just visited an open market. Mum was carrying a handful of star fruits (carambolas) and a monkey – a cute, little spider monkey-type thing – dashed up to us, and, with a horrible shriek, scratched my mum and grabbed the fruit out of her hand.

    It’s all a bit of a blur as it was a bit frightening, but while Mum was struggling with a monkey my little brother (who was 4) had troubles with a monkey of his own. Another monkey had seen his mate run away with his loot from my mum and, smelling the sweet fruit, jumped on my brother’s little bag, which he was carrying over his shoulder, and, screeching all the while, bit a hole in the side trying to get to the other stash of fruit inside.

    Mum, after having fended off her own attack, drew herself up to all of her 5ft, 1in height and screamed at this monkey attacking her son. She grabbed the bag and stood in front of my brother and scared it off somehow.

    Meanwhile, I’m standing off to the side, feeling a bit overwhelmed and scared, but, embarassingly, relieved that I had no fruit to attract my own friendly neighbourhood screaming terror. Once I recovered my wits a little I did chase some other monkeys away as they started to get closer to us in order to take their chances with my poor little family.

    And my dad took a lovely photo of it all.

  • lol @ both of your stories!

    I too was attacked by a mother monkey on my way to the Taj Mahal… we saw a cute baby monkey just by the entrance, I posed to have a photo with it, the next minute the mother appears and starts attacking me!

    A lot of the tourists stopped taking photos of the Taj to take a quick snap of me escaping from the mama monkey!!!

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