Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Local Monkeys

They passed from a flat plain filled with rice fields into forested hills, the road winding precipitously. The towns and villages, which had clustered along the highway all the way from Manila vanished as they began to climb. The van roared as the switchbacks became steeper and steeper, drowning out the easy listening on the radio. As they climbed the world dropped away until they were clinging to a precipice. On one side the hill, still rising above them, and on the other an impenetrable chasm, green with the tops of trees.  

At the pinnacle, the road levelled out and the sky came into view, bright and blue with a few porcelain white clouds scattered across it. They could see the whole of the hill and the hills that surrounded it, all thick with forest. There were monkeys there he was told. What kind, he asked. Local ones. 

They descended on the same winding roads. Here and there they caught glimpses of small houses through the trees, surrounded by them, seemingly soon to be swallowed by them. There were people on the side of the road selling this and that and places for vehicles to pull off and hikers to venture out in search of the unseen primates.  

The blue cloud disappeared as they came to the bottom of the hill and left the forest behind. Rain began to fall. A few splatters on the windshield and then a torrent, water coming in rivers down the road. Suddenly there were towns again and the road was crowded with dripping motorcycles and jeepneys and tricycles. They would pass from one to another with only a few breaks where rice fields sprawled and carabao stood indifferent to the deluge. The rain ended just as they came in sight of the sea, a thin line of blue along the horizon beneath the grey of the clouds.