Backpacker Survives Monkey Attack in India!
A backpacking trip to India takes a wild turn when friend of the show Will Hatton, aka The Broke Backpacker, finds himself surrounded by 100 monkeys — while tripping on LSD. In this psychedelic travel tale, Will recounts how a peaceful sunset at a Rajasthani fortress spiralled into monkey madness.
This is the first edition of Tales of a Trip: a brand-new segment on Tripology Podcast where fellow travellers and listeners of the show share their greatest travel stories — prepare for wild animal encounters, holiday romances, near-death experiences and once in a lifetime adventures.
🌍 Submit your own travel story HERE
Before we get to Will's stellar travel story, we speak about:
🇵🇭 Manila and the Philippines: coffee culture & globalisation
🇻🇳 Alun shares the hilarious story of his Workaway experience in Hanoi, Vietnam, which saw him breaking into a building at midnight.
Transcript:
This transcript is autogenerated and may contain inaccuracies
Alun:
[0:02] Hello, and welcome to this episode of all new, brand new Tripology.
[0:09] I'm Alun, and I'm here with my best friend and one of the greatest backpackers of all time. It's
the ever-caffeinated Adam.
Adam:
[0:17] On this week's show, we've got some hypothetical, tripological reasonings for you. These are
sort of backpacking scenarios where we're going to make you think on your feet, see what you
would do. And also, at the end of the show, we've got a brand new item called Tales of a Trip,
which is where you guys, the listeners, send in your great travel stories.
Alun:
[0:32] We're going to hear travel stories sent in by listeners from all over the globe, only three
minutes long. We're going to unpack them, digest them. It's going to be a hell of a good time. We're
here in Manila, aren't we, Adam?
Adam:
here.
[0:42] Yeah, here in Manila. It's becoming sort of a second home for me. I like it a lot. We're living in
an Airbnb at the moment, which immediately changes the experience. And I feel very comfortable
Alun:
[0:52] It's been nice having you here, sort of to move around Manila with.
[0:56] Before you arrived, I was holed up like a little rat bag, all with the flu. And now you've arrived,
I'm sort of journeying around Manila with much more frequency. I've got a couple of observations
and things I've noticed while I'm there.
Adam:
[1:08] Okay, yeah, go on, go on.
Alun:
[1:09] One of the main ones is, without trying to sound like a much shitter, more preachy travelpodcast, you really should eat street food and do the less restaurant-y things here. Because, my
goodness, if the quality and price aren't inversely correlated.
Adam:
[1:26] Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's not anything you like to hear, of course, when you go to somewhere
in Southeast Asia. The more you pay, the worse you get. But I think on a couple of occasions,
we've probably felt that. And I would say like coffee shops is almost certainly in the conversation.
Alun:
[1:42] Yeah. Every time we've splashed out like, oh, I just fancy a real nice black lungo, long black
Americano coffee. Or even if we've gone, hey, let's try this like Filipino restaurant, try and get the
best sisig in McCarthy City. Yeah. We've almost always been disappointed versus the times where
we found a vendor sort of just serving up fried pork on the side of the road.
Adam:
[2:04] I think it comes down to expectations. I really do. I mean, you jump online nowadays and, you
know, the easiest thing to type in in any new city is best coffee in X or best food in X. So the ones
that make it onto the internet often are the ones that can pay for marketing. And the old man by the
side of the road has been frying up pork for the last 40 years. He hasn't got a marketing budget. no
Alun:
[2:26] He rarely ever if he spends money on marketing doesn't he because you actually need a pin
on google maps in order to get reviews and if you've not even gone through the rudimentary
exercise of being like oh it's me it's grandpa joe's pork sissing side of the road joint yeah if you've
not typed that in on google you ain't ever going to get the reviews who knows about you only the
locals.
Adam:
[2:47] Yeah i would say out of the what do we what do we have like two two three coffees a day at a
push definitely two yeah and we do like to go to nice coffee shops where we sit and do a bit of
planning and a bit of chin wagging and that kind of stuff people watching as you would do plotting
Alun:
[3:01] Sort of podcast domination we're thinking we're going to be the biggest trouble when the
podcast in the world how do we get.
Adam:
[3:07] There yeah so you know i've been here eight or nine days now so that's equal to 16 coffees at
a minimum yeah i would say only one maybe two of those coffees were any good and they were
both in the same place
Alun:
[3:19] Yeah, and today we had the most expensive coffee, and by my money,
[3:24] one of the worst we've had.
Adam:
[3:26] Yeah, I would agree. I mean, we went to a place called The Coffee Project just to out it on the
pod. And the thing I hate, and I know that this is going to be unpopular, this is somewhat of a hot
Alun:
[3:37] Yeah, I like it.
Adam:
[3:38] But I think that there are a lot of places nowadays that are becoming completely almost like
generic in their appearance, in their aesthetic. They're obviously catering to either a middle class
Asian developing country sort of demographic or white people on holiday or expats. I think that's we
saw that in India. We've seen it all over Southeast Asia. And these are the coffee shops that even
though they're in Southeast Asia, they're still doing croissant. They're still doing, you know,
different.
Alun:
[4:07] I saw a ham and cheese croissant today looking all out of place on a Manila storefront. I think
it speaks to this like inverse backpacker price paradigm paradox because in trying to appeal to this
ever-growing Western tourist audience, the prices get higher because these things just don't exist
in these countries and backpackers are willing to pay them and travels and tourists are willing to
pay them. I mean, tourists just get put under this one banner, whether you're staying in a hotel or a
hostel, whatever, you're just a tourist in a city. And then because it's not from there, the quality of
the product is like less.
[4:44] You end up paying more for things that aren't as good. Yeah.
Adam:
[4:47] Do you know what? The counter argument to this is Taiwan, where they do have some
fantastic Western cafes. The coffee's exceptional. Some of the baked goods are exceptional as
well. But, I mean, what we've had so far has been lacking. And the eye-watering sum of 215 pesos
for a coffee that I didn't want to drink, it's difficult to stomach. And I don't know whether we live in
this world now where, you know, through globalization and multiculturalism and digital nomadism,
whether the coffee should actually be any less expensive. You know, we're up in arms saying, oh,
but we're in the Philippines. It should be cheap. Everything should be cheap. Should it? I don't
know if it should anymore.
Alun:
[5:23] Well, I like traveling with you because I think when I go about my day, I end up having
blinders on like a horse about to bolt. And I'm like, okay, now I'm going back to my Airbnb. And I act
out that going back to the Airbnb is if that's all I can do. But you, you sort of act like a little travel
octopus with tendrils going off in all different directions. So when we were going back to Airbnb, you
just saw someone. he was tucked away frying up what looked to be a sort of slurry on the side of
the road yeah i knew one of your octopus tendrils pulled you in that direction and before i knew it i
was just sat on the side of the road with you and another backpacker and we were eating this thing
i would just walk straight past that because i was in transit mode sure yeah i like your ability to keep
in different modes simultaneously you were also little did me and the other backpacker know in
searching for food mode. And I respect that. I think that's something I'm going to learn from as I
continue to travel is try and keep different modes switched on.
Adam:
[6:26] Yeah, I wonder if we can use the analogy of a dog owner walking its dog and I'm just sniffing
around the bushes the whole time. And you walk off and the other backpacker goes, Adam's back
there, is he? Yeah, he'll be all right. He'll catch up with us in a minute. And then when I don't, you
go, oh, he's actually found something interesting. He's picked up a scent. It might be some street
food.
Alun:
[6:44] There's an old philosophical problem problem, where people go like, what's more free? The
dog that's on a leash, And therefore, it gets to live out a long life being on a leash, being by its
owner. Or the dog that gets off its leash, it gets to have true freedom, but as a result, it gets scolded
and ends up having its ability to just go and roam around taken away from it. And the backpacking
equivalent with that, if you don't mind me getting philosophical, the backpacking equivalent is like,
are you on rails seeing the best possible things all the time? and you know you're going to have a
very enlivening light experience where you get to see all the greatest things a city has to offer
because you're told go see this go see this go and get the best to get this restaurant go and do this
or do you want to be the kind of dog that's just like i am gonna experience as much as possible dowhatever i want sniff around every different thing but, maybe you'll get food poisoning and that's
okay yeah.
Adam:
[7:42] Always risk the bad meal as mr anthony bourdain said how do you think that meal went i
mean the the other backpacker that we were with said it was the best thing he'd eaten in the
philippines so far and it cost 60
Alun:
[7:52] Pesos yeah he did also say that one of his favorite things to do was eat fried chicken he
wasn't much of a foodie but i'll still take his opinion at face value i love that you gave him that
experience and he loved that i thought it was
Alun:
[8:04] very beautiful very nice food yeah indeed yeah no sign of food poisoning yet no.
Adam:
[8:08] No not just yet i mean it's been 24 hours so we're still crossing our fingers but that's that's the
reason i love travel it's because you can sort of cherry pick pick and choose i'll be honest maybe it's
one of my failures it's definitely where the vast majority of my budget goes but how many of these
western style cafes do i need to go into before i realize that invariably they're shit
Alun:
[8:28] Yeah stay local don't go to these expensive cafes just eat what the locals eat drink what the
locals eat and uh you'll be drinking and eating all day long, Adam, backpackers find themselves in a
plethora of difficult situations It's a complicated thing to do, travelling the world And by way of
combating that I kind of like to put you and you like to put me Through a sort of backpacking
simulation experience Where you propose hypothetical backpacking scenarios And try and work
out the solutions together It's an item that we like to call Tripological reasoning, Adam, I've been
backpacking for nigh on a decade now, and sometimes I get myself into some situations and I
think, oh, what would Adam do? And this is one such situation that I'd like to bring to the table. I just
want to know what you would do.
Adam:
[9:28] All right. I'm all ears. Go on, fire away.
Alun:
[9:30] I found myself very early on in my backpacking career. I found myself in Vietnam, in HanoiCity.
Adam:
[9:37] Okay.
Alun:
[9:38] And I arranged a work away. You know we love workaways on this show.
Adam:
[9:41] Love workaways on this show.
Alun:
[9:43] For those who don't know, you're working away. Hey, you sign up, you find something. In this
situation, it was a teaching job. I was going to be teaching English out of an apartment.
Adam:
[9:51] Walking the park.
Alun:
[9:52] I was on my way from China. Yeah. And I messaged the host saying, oh, I'm coming. Like,
this is the day I'm going to arrive. And then I just forgot about it.
Adam:
[10:00] Okay.
Alun:
[10:00] By the time I arrived in Hanoi, I realized that one of my messages hadn't sent. Her last
message was, what time are you going to arrive? I'm going home now. Are you going to get here?
All of that jazz. here's the address in case you need it yeah let's just see what happens right i
arrived in hanoi i take a cab to the address yeah i'm supposed to be starting my workaway
experience tomorrow yeah i get to the apartment building it's completely shut down locked up no
one's there i have no cell phone service no way of contacting the host no way of i've tried to like
back when i was at the airport on airport wi-fi i sent her a message saying look i'm going to be there
soon please let me in all that stuff no responses no way of contacting what do you do um.
Adam:
[10:49] I mean it's a tough one i've been in similar situations beforehand i'm assuming that we're
going back in time to when their wi-fi wasn't everywhere
Alun:
[10:57] Wasn't ubiquitously available no we're talking this is in 2015 yeah okay.
Adam:
[11:01] So we've got a contact number and we've sent messages but no response
Alun:
time i get there.
[11:05] No responses and i should mention as well it's dark we're talking it's 11 p.m at night by the
Adam:
[11:11] Oh that's a shame that's quite important okay so no accommodation i mean i probably my
Alun:
[11:16] Accommodation was the work.
Adam:
[11:18] Away yeah yeah yeah so you're living on site uh what what would i have done i mean i would
have hung around at the address i think um probably given it a couple of hours into the early hours
i would imagine that the reason she's not replying is because it's late at night uh not even back in
those days not too late to walk into a hostel and book somewhere else to stay uh you banging on
the door i
Alun:
[11:41] Mean how the door by the way was like i knew the apartment was on one of the upper floors
right and the bottom floor apartment was just like locked down there was no way of getting in it was
just completely locked no lights on inside no security guard nothing.
Adam:
[11:54] All right okay you having a look for a gutter well To
Alun:
[11:59] Speak to your hostel point, how would I even know where a hostel was?
Adam:
[12:03] Right okay well i mean there's a lot in hanoi you wouldn't need to walk that far i wouldn't
have thought until you could maybe find a hotel or something maybe walk into a hotel and uh speak
to the reception see if you've got a number you can call as opposed to just message on a on a
platform these are
Alun:
[12:18] All good ideas i do know what it speaks to i'd only been traveling for one month total i started
traveling in 2015 yeah and what i did in this scenario worked out great right but Now I would do
something completely different. Now I would like, I'd always make sure I had some way ofcontacting or data or Wi-Fi. And I would just go, okay, I've messed this up. I'm going to go to a
hostel or something. Definitely. That's the right way to do what you did.
Adam:
[12:41] But also the more boring way.
Alun:
[12:43] Because I was so inexperienced. I was just like, oh God, if I don't get into this apartment
somehow, there's no way I'll ever do this work where I can't possibly fathom it. What I ended up
doing, mate, was going around the side of the building. there was a fire escape ladder you know
that you get in new york apartments oh yeah and it was locked up right i climbed over the initial
gate onto the fire escape right walked up the fire escape and on the fifth floor one of the windows
was ajar right.
Adam:
[13:16] You already know you already knew at this point which floor the apartment was on
Alun:
[13:19] I was actually on the supposed to be on the fourth floor right so i climbed through that open
window into the apartment blocks oh.
Adam:
[13:27] It was like a corridor window it wasn't into an apartment
Alun:
[13:29] Right yeah it was a corridor window thankfully yeah i didn't know how to time necessarily
yeah yeah went through the apartment down the stairs to the where i was supposed to be right
found the apartment and knocked loudly on the door at.
Adam:
[13:42] 11 o'clock at night
Alun:
[13:43] Probably more like midnight at this point right and i mean thankfully i heard just some voices
behind going, hello? And it just so happened that the other workaway people were awake. They
were having a bit of a drink, a boogie. They let me in. They were like, what the hell are you doing
here? It was great. Because from their perspective, they kind of had a vague sense that someone
was supposed to be arriving for the workaway that day. Yeah, sure. And they were like, oh, I guess
he's not coming then. They'd resign themselves to that. And at midnight, some disheveled 21-year-
old kid comes through a window down the stairs and goes, oh, I'm sorry, I'm here. It was amazing.
Adam:
[14:24] I'm not sure I ever would have thought that that was the right thing to do. How long was
there between you doing that and you sort of arriving? Are we talking like a 15-minute, I've got no
options, straight up the ladder? Or are you sitting out there for an hour thinking, I can't climb the
fucking ladder. That's not the way this is going to...
Alun:
[14:40] I pondered it. I mean, I really sat and took my time and thought, is this the way out? Is this
the life that I want to be living in? I want to live in this scenario where I've got to basically break into
this building. Because you never know as well. They actually told me that that was the only night
that week that they'd been up and awake.
Adam:
[14:58] Oh, right. Okay.
Alun:
that night.
[14:59] So it was unlikely. It was just by happenstance they happened to be having a bit of a boogie
Adam:
[15:03] Well, maybe let's extend this then. What do you do if they didn't answer the door? Do you
just continue to bang?
Alun:
[15:08] I think I would have slept outside the door.
Adam:
[15:12] At least you're inside, I suppose. At least you're inside. At least you're inside.
Alun:
[15:15] I mean, the moral of the story is do some fucking planning before you're supposed to turn up
somewhere. don't be outside an apartment at midnight with no plan
[15:22] no phone and no data although that is easier now in the modern world yeah.
Adam:
[15:26] Difficult in 2015 mate i like it i think that's a important lesson to learn
Alun:
[15:31] Um we love learning lessons on topology podcast tales of a trip it's a brand new section on
the podcast where we get backpackers from all over the globe to send in three minutes of their
greatest travel stories, something emotional, something beautiful, something daring and
dangerous, you can head to tropologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip and you can
[15:56] send in your greatest travel story. For the very first edition of Tales of a Trip, it only made
sense that we have a friend of the show, an absolutely wonderful storyteller, Will Hatton, send in his
favourite travel story. So let's hear it now.
Tales of a Trip:
[16:12] Okay, so let me set the scene. It's Bundi in Rajasthan, India. I've just spent the last two
weeks driving a multicolored rickshaw named Tinkerbell, which was 35 years old and which I had
bought for 300 euros across the Rajasthani desert. It was an emotional journey. Upon arriving into
Bundi, which is a spectacular town with a sacred lake overlooked by a towering fortress, Myself and
my brother Alex, my favourite travel companion We decided the time had come The time had come
for rest and recuperation And so we each took a tab and a half of LSD And we hiked up to this
magical fortress We spent a happy day exploring Scrambling along the ramparts like warriors of old
And gazing out across the blue city below And then, sitting as the sun set But we noticed, to the
corner of our eyes, monkeys. More than one monkey. Quite a few monkeys. 12 monkeys, 30
monkeys, 50 monkeys, 100 fucking monkeys. Weird patterns all around them because the LSD is
hitting it strong. And what's in my hand? A fucking banana.
Tales of a Trip:
[17:24] Now, during the day, these monkeys, they head out to the town of Bundy. They pilfer. They
scavenge. They're basically a nuisance. But once sunsets, oh, that's when the real fun begins. The
locals, they know not to be in the fortress after dark, but we did not. We were not armed with any
sticks. Later, we would realise that the friendly local who had been gesticulating at us and saying
something about sticks had been warning us not to head up into the fortress without arming
ourselves with a stout wooden cane to fend off these feral beasts. The monkeys, they swirled and
ducked and dived around us, charging in with their fangs, bright and glistening and breaking off at
the last possible second.
Tales of a Trip:
[18:06] We slowly but surely made our way down the battlements to the only way that we know in
and out of this magical fortress. And it was a hole, a hole in the gate, a monkey-sized hole. Andwithin that hole even was the biggest motherfucking monkey you ever did see. It was glowering at
us, thangs, shiny and wet, and all around us. I shit you not, there were 30 big baboons and a
hundred or so of the other small little motherfuckers. They kept charging us and breaking off at the
last second. I turned to my brother and I said, Alex, we've got to kill this monkey. We debated. Alex
didn't want to kill the monkey. He believes in veganism and not killing monkeys. You know, I
understood his point. And in the time that it took us to debate, the monkey, thank God, they catered
the hole. And so we dived through and we turned to each other and we laughed and we embraced
for we had survived the monkeys of the Bundy Fortress.
Alun:
[19:07] Whoa, thank you, Will, for sending in that story, surviving a monkey attack on Bundy
Fortress. I like the image of them going over the ramparts like warriors of old. Beautiful.
Adam:
[19:19] Yeah, I mean, I have actually been to Bundy on his recommendation. Okay. So I've probably
been to the exact fort he's talking about and taken the exact LSD that he's done. I'm joking. Difficult
to believe a story when it starts with taking a tab of LSD.
Alun:
[19:34] Yeah, because you start wondering, is the monkey situation as described, or was it
something to do with the psychedelic drugs? I think, I mean... You don't have to be Will to tell a
story, but it helps. He's a good storyteller. He weaves a narrative. You can really imagine him
regaling the hostile common room with that sort of tale.
Adam:
[19:54] I mean, I'd be amazed if that's the first time he's told that story, because it's well-drilled. It
sounds like he's performing a page of his journal. I absolutely loved it. I think there's, without
question, a great storyteller and a great story. Being surrounded by, he didn't say rabid, but they
seemed aggressive.
Alun:
[20:10] Certainly. Baboon's an aggressive type of monk.
Adam:
[20:13] Yeah, was that difficult for you to hear as someone who loves monkeys more than most?
Alun:
[20:21] Well, I was very disappointed to hear that Will had gone to a monkey haven with a banana in
his pocket. I mean, that's one of the worst things you can do, isn't it? Do you remember when me
and you, it was in Mumbai, we went to some ancient caves and we were traveling with some otherbackpackers. And one girl, she had a packet of biscuits in her pocket. She was constantly being
hounded by the macaques. I had to teach her to make eye contact with the macaques to stave
them off because she was just getting pestered all day long.
Adam:
[20:49] Yeah, it was interesting to watch the way that she reacted to the monkey, which at one point
was sort of airborne, wasn't it? It was like swinging around on her backpack, hanging on for dear
life with one arm.
Alun:
[20:58] Yeah, she sort of did a 360 no-scope to biscuit combination.
Adam:
[21:02] Yeah, yeah. It's difficult to have sympathy, I think, when, you know, you're going to be
surrounded by monkeys. I was thinking, why is she getting so much attention? Oh, because she's
got an open packet of cookies in her bag. But what would your recommendation for Will be?
Because, I mean, not the greatest thing to do, walk around with a banana in your pocket.
Alun:
[21:21] Well, you know, psychedelic drugs, they're a big part of the backpacking scene. We all know
it, but other podcasts don't talk about it. It's a normal thing to do, isn't it? But I wonder if Will knew
and his brother, did they know that it was going to be such an animalistic experience prior to taking
the LSD? Because often you take LSD, something like that, to heighten your connection with the
natural world, heighten your understanding of where you are and like to have a deep spiritual
connection. But it sounds to me like if they hadn't taken the LSD, they would already have got quite
a wild experience anyway, just naturalistically.
Adam:
[21:56] Yeah. I mean, it may sound like I'm speaking from personal experience and I am, but being
on psychedelics and being around animals is not fun or almost ever actually. So being confronted
with 20, 30, 50 monkeys, I imagine that would have wore thin pretty soon.
Alun:
[22:14] Yeah, me and you, of course, are two people who worked on a farm and some of our early
meetings revolved around our curiosity into the psychedelic world. So we do know what it is to be
surrounded by animals that can do you physical harm, like a horse that can kick you in the face.
Adam:
[22:32] Especially when it's got five heads.
Alun:
[22:33] Yeah, exactly. Wow. Yeah, I think it's interesting, isn't it? I think probably the way to go would
not to be take psychedelic drugs and then surround yourself by dangerous wild animals, but it
makes a hell of a backpacking story.
Adam:
[22:47] Yeah, I think having said that, being on the ramparts, sunset, you're in Rajasthan, which is a
beautiful area. Absolutely love it. Like I said, I went there on his recommendation. Had he taken the
LSD and just watched the sunset over the fortress and over the lake, amazing experience.
Monkeys on this occasion maybe ruined the experience.
Alun:
[23:05] He said they were baboons, didn't he?
Adam:
[23:06] A couple of baboons in there, yeah.
Alun:
[23:07] Baboons are like known for being a particularly aggressive type of monkey. So much so,
there's this amazing story about a group of baboons that changed their behavior because they treat
each other absolutely awfully in adolescence. And then as a result of that, they become awful, you
know, because they're treated so badly. Right. There was this amazing case of this baboon colony
where a hotel opened up nearby. Yeah. So all the most aggressive alpha, alpha baboons got
tuberculosis, because they were the ones that would go to the hotel and eat the trash. So they
ended up dying off. And then there were no evil, aggressive alpha baboons to treat the young ones
badly. So the baboon colony became this altruistic, beautiful commune where everyone was just
treating each other well. It became like almost a subspecies of baboons. It was like, we treat each
other nicely because all the adult males are dead.
Adam:
[23:56] Wow.
Alun:
[23:57] So it's a shame Will didn't come across those baboons because he had a cuddle as opposed
to having to run away.
Community Connections
Adam:
[24:02] Yeah, he wouldn't have even lured them in with a big banana in his pocket.
Alun:
[24:05] There you go. Tales of a Trip. It's a new item on the show and it's one that we're very, very
passionate about. Like I said, you can go to our website, tripologypodcast.com forward slash tales
of trips, send your story in. It's got to be three minutes and it can be anything. It can be a wild,
daring story like the ones Will's just told, or it can be how you met your first love traveling, what
traveling's meant to you. It can be anything, but we want to hear from you. So please send us a
message via that recording button, or you've got access to all our socials in the description of this
episode, Instagram, email, all that jazz. We just want to hear with you. we want to connect with the
audience.
Adam:
[24:40] Yeah it's going to be a fantastic exercise in building community and we're always so inspired
by speaking to different people this is a platform for you guys to share your stories with us we're
going to play them out and uh we can't wait to hear them thanks ever so much for will for sending
that in yeah
Alun:
[24:54] It's a travel community podcast isn't it and speaking to the community right now we're going
to go off to our patreon section where we're going to talk a load of travel nonsense it's like 15
minutes long comes out 24 hours.
Adam:
[25:04] Early Cheap as chips Yeah,
Alun:
[25:06] Cheap as chips Head over to patreon.com forward slash chipologypodcast And we'll see you
Adam:
[25:10] We'll see you there Bye Cheers,
Alun:
[25:11] Bye bye
