After five days of watching Matt trek around the globe, you start noticing recurring themes and characters. Aside from our own envy, which we at TODAY.com felt every single morning, we also noticed that Matt and the correspondents ran into quite a few monkeys along the way.
On day three of the whirlwind journey, Amy Robach climbed the steps leading up Kuala Lumpur’s Batu Cave. It’s 272 steps to the top, and the edifice is covered in monkeys who call the area home. They look cute, but as Amy learned, the monkeys like having fun – their kind of fun – with tourists. The primates have been known to jump on the backs of unsuspecting visitors, before making off with cameras, sunglasses, or as our cameras found, a bottle of Gatorade (hey, monkeys have to stay hydrated too).
Amy Robach also took viewers on a rare behind-the-scenes tour of the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia, which was clearly looking to cement itself as the monkey capital of Where in the World. Okay, so they aren’t exactly monkeys, but I bet you’ll call it even after learning how these baby apes learn to cope with the loss of their mothers in "orangutan preschool."
Day five found Matt and Giada in an island paradise, but not far from, you guessed it, more monkeys. Barbados' Green Monkeys roam free among the island’s lush greenery, reportedly waiting patiently for tourists to offer up some lunch (see? That’s how it’s done, Kuala Lumpur monkeys).
And what would a trip to a place like Barbados be without a cocktail (and one more monkey reference)? While most of the U.S. sipped their morning coffee, Matt and Giada tried “Monkey in a Tree,” a slightly stronger drink made of pineapple juice, banana liqueur, rum, rum, and a little more rum, in a glass adorned with – what else? – a plush primate (image left).
Ian Sager is TODAY.com's editorial supervisor. He's traveled a small portion of this Earth, happily calls the Garden State home, and is very pleased to say he hasn't run into any Gatorade-stealing monkeys in Jersey.