Coconut Monkeys

There are over two million coconut trees on Koh Samui (which incidentally means coconut island). The export of coconuts, coconut oil and milk was the main trade for the island until the start of tourism (with the arrival of travelling hippies) in the 1970s.

Humans can knock coconuts out of trees themselves with long bamboo sticks, but only until the tree is 10 years old. After that point, they become too tall - and locals have taken to training monkeys to fetch and drop the coconuts for them. Monkeys are trained from 6 months old and can work up to 5 hours a day for 20 years. Apparently only male monkeys are used as the female ones are too unpredictable and moody! PAH!

Once the coconuts are down, you can hack them open (or get someone who knows what they are doing to do it) and drink the milk and eat the fruit! Check out my pics and vid: