Monkey Mountain Monkeys

So the best part of Monkey Mountain, despite the beautiful scenery and cool temperature, were the local creatures on the mountain. We saw 5 different kinds of butterflies, more beautiful than any I have seen before - there were blue ones, green ones, purple and grey ones, and some with black wings and hot pink bodies! But the best thing was seeing these:

If you can guess what the long, white thing is in the middle of the tree is...  

Monkeys!!! They are called the Son Tra Red Shanked Monkey, and are rare as they are endangered and only live in the Monkey Mountain area. We were just getting back to the bike and were going to leave when we heard some loud moving noises in the trees, and when we looked up we saw these long white things hanging from the trees, when we realized what they were it was SO awesome. They were probably 100 ft from us I think, up on the top of the hill where we were on the road a little below.  

The camera couldn't zoom very well, but in case you want to squint and guess at blobs - here are some more photos (don't forget that the long white things are tails, so that kind of leads you to where they are):

Here is a photo off the net of what they look like:

Unfortunately we were a little far away to see them very clearly, but it was SO amazing anyway. I have a lot of really bad photos of them - all you can really see in them are the tails (there was a large family in the tree, I think we counted 6 or 7), but it was still the coolest thing we've ever seen. Seeing a monkey in its natural habitat is something so amazing - a little scary perhaps as you realize that they can come down out of the trees after you if they want - but so amazing nonetheless.

I took a longer video of them, but sadly it plays sideways (the troubles of using a phone), so here is a shorter video of them - if you listen closely you can hear some of the noises they make: