With my orange scooter, through the dawn of freezing and everything in the forest still surrounded with darkness, I rode it along the zigzag road from my field station which is in the core of PKWS-Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary.

If I was lucky Clouded Leopard, Marbled Cat, Large Indian Civet, Porcupine would be seen from the shadowy side way or I could see a playful elephant pulled out a milestone, even if a guar which could make my heart beat harder just only saw it stand still with white leech socks.

I had to walk from the main road to get to sleep site before our friends woke up. Distance to each sleep site would take difference for walking there, someday when our friends admired the far north site I had to spend 1 hour to reach there and needed to depart from camp station at 3:50 am.

I would have a bit of time to rest after getting to the sleep tree in the same time of preparation working stuffs; walkie- talkie radio, GPS, binocular, table sheets and the last necessary item were mosquito spray and tick-protection powder .

But at the end of the day, there were still some that they could penetrate inside and left evidences of biting which made me behaved like our friends with scratches and scratches.

It’s usual for us to hear infant crying and screaming in the early morning which meant that our friends still were in their bed seat in the dim canopy.

As we had seen, the same sex monkeys would make a cluster hugging to get warm in the highest cover of tree which most of them were fig tree nearby the creek, they would sleep in one same tree by choosing the clear side with leafless branch. I thought it helped from predating.

Before starting a new day, there would often be some noise from small fighting and then our friends began moving from sleep site, on the same route branch, respectively. Sometimes the boss still sat sleeping while other members were far away.

The Doom Doom jumping sound of traveling caravan on the canopy would vanished when they reached a fruit tree, but chewing and falling in delicious would come instead. Most of their fruits were sour and bitter, they ate also unripe fruits.

Some days every single individuals mouth were stained with purple color from eating Yang –Own (Polyathia viridis)fruits, some days from neck to nose were in bright yellow after they received some taste of Koh’s flowers.

Many times with one beloved fruit tree, after waking up in the chilly morning, they started Toom Taam rapidly moving toward to the tree that they ‘d marked in their mind last night and stay feeding up there for a few hour.

Clear branches gave convenience for collecting data, but some tree we needed to set our head almost 90° with the tree to see what was going on up there, that would leave some trace with us all day; soar and pain.

Some trees our friends could sit one place and fed until they were full, but some trees they needed to walk intending around for a good spot MANY TIMES, that meant someone who was on the ground watching them needed to change their position too.

A lot of time that they went into a dense cover and stayed in there with silence for a long time, long till I stopped waiting then I could see them again in far place, WHEN DID YOU GO FRIENDS ?

With the same kind of fruit, our friends would travel around the forest, fed some here and fed some there, it liked they intended to kid us to get tired from following them with one question in the head “why didn’t you guy sit in that tree and feed till you are full? ” or because of in different tree it had different taste, this made me think about one animal that usually selected the same kind of food shop.

After filling the belly with breakfast,( exact time of meal seems no exists cause I saw them feeding all day) members of each gang would start grooming; cleaning each other. In general, different sex would not attach with this social behavior except mother and son or in the mating season.

It’ s frequent to see a big adult approached a small juvenile and did cleaning with care but in suddenly he would quitted and let the small one groomed him back with enthusiasm and long lasting much more, some time they would change grooming back and forth, eventually the small one would do it more than a big one.

After cleaning activity, in the morning they would depart to do something else, but in the afternoon a small one who intended to groom could fall asleep with holding hand on, either started body contacting with one it groomed and slept.

When the degree between the sun and the ground was higher, the fully experience adult male would climbed down to feed in low storey then some would put their feet on the soil, after that some playful juveniles and the other monkeys would join to forage on the ground. That’s the time that we really like so much, because it was easy to observe and collect data.

It seemed that all the small monkeys didn’t care about feeding, the whole day would be spent with playing and playing; wrestling- push and pull, chasing along the branch, swing up and down on small twig, jumping from branch to branch and so on. In the meaning of playing it also helped them to get used to using body and to learn in social relationship.

Then at 11 am. The afternoon shift would come to follow the monkeys by talking on radio so they would know where the monkeys were, and the morning shift could call a day. But you needed to stay with the monkeys until hand over.

Assamese macaque is the monkey I have been staying with for more than a decade.