Coconut palms are everywhere. Throughout the countryside, in every province, and even on the mean streets of Bangkok, there are coconut palms. The fruits are cheap, and you can buy them whole for nearly nothing. After spending time in Thailand, it’s always a shock to come back to the West and see them in grocery stores for two dollars!

There’s nothing more refreshing than a fresh coconut drink, and nothing says “tropics” more than enjoying a tropical cocktail out of a hollowed-out coconut with a tiny umbrella. And of course, coconut milk is used freely in Thai cuisine. Next time you’re at a restaurant, try ordering tom kha gai, a delicious chicken-based soup in sweet coconut milk, contrasted with the usual savory and spicy ingredients.

A curious thing about coconut. In the US, Canada and Europe, women love coconut-scented creams, lotions, shampoos, bath gels and sun screen. It’s exotic and tropical. But in Thailand, if a woman smells like coconut, it just means she’s been working in the kitchen. 

One thing you’ll notice though, is that all those coconut palms are tall, and the coconuts grow on the very top. How do the farmers get them down from there? Having a Western perspective on things, we first think that they must use mechanical cherry-pickers, or at least very tall ladders, but no. They use monkeys.

Driving through the back roads in the countryside in Chumphon Province, we came across a curious sight. A farmer was tending his coconut trees, and had a pile of coconuts in the back of his pickup. His only tools? Two macaque monkeys on very long leashes. Remarkably, the animals climb the palm trees on command, are able to spot the coconuts that are ready to pick, twist them off of the stem, and toss them down to the waiting farmer. When one tree is done, the monkey comes back down, gets his reward, and is then sent up the next tree.

There is even a “Monkey College” where the primates are trained to do just that. In Surat Thani, farmers send their precious primates off to school, where they are trained in the art of coconut-picking. You can visit the school and even sit in on a class. Training involves rewards and incentives, and starts out with shorter climbing structures with coconuts strategically placed on top; advanced students then go on to learn to retrieve coconuts from actual palm trees that surround the campus. It’s a fascinating sidetrip, a bit off the beaten path, and one that not too many tourists have discovered. The instructors there follow Buddhist precepts and care deeply for their charges, and it’s clear that there is an emotional attachment. Only positive reinforcement is used, and the animals are all treated very humanely. 

Next time you’re sitting at a restaurant on the banks of the Chao Phraya, enjoying that coconut drink, just pause for a moment and remember how that coconut juice came to be in your glass.