Man versus monkey was sure to provide a tug of war for the ages

Where have I been over Christmas?

- Richard Ord

Well, funny you should ask. I've been monkey wrestling in the Indonesian archipelago. With Butlins in Skegness fully booked over the Christmas period, I had to reevaluate my ultimate bucket list of destinations to visit on turning 60 years old and slum it in Bali. Poor me.

At this point, I feel I must make it clear that monkey wrestling was not the main reason for this epic journey. In fact, monkeys and wrestling never entered my thoughts when blurting out to my other half that I'd like to visit Bali before my brain is cryogenically frozen when I reach 103 only to be thawed out several centuries later when immortality is the norm (okay, before I die).

It was only after a handful of cultural explorations of the place that I realised monkeys featured quite heavily in Balinese life. They are everywhere.

Knowing me as a boy brought up in the backstreets of South Shields, you, dear reader, would be reasonably confident in assuming Richard Ord and his distant simian cousins have never crossed paths. Wrong.

Monkeys and I have an uneasy relationship born out of an altercation when I was but a child.