This week on myths and legends, we're back in the stories of the monkey king with the journey to the west.

We'll meet the nicest kidnappers ever and see how, when a valley the locals warn reeks of poop

stands in your way, you probably want to stop for lunch before you take that on.

The creature this time is why you should maybe wait to break up with your water nymph significant

other, you know, until you're not under the sea in the Arctic Ocean.

This is myths and legends episode 366.

Roblock. 366. Roadblock. This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and

folklore. Some are incredibly popular stories you might think you know but with surprising origins.

Others are tales that might be new to you but are definitely worth a listen.

In the story of the Journey to the West we follow follow Schwann-Zong, the human monk who was tasked

with retrieving the holy scriptures from the Thunderclap temple in the Western Heaven.

Since the road is impossibly long and dangerous, he was granted four guards for his trip.

They are essentially monsters on a redemption arc.

There was Sun Woo Kong, the Monkey King, a super-powered monkey.

There's also Pigsy, a stinky appetite-driven pig man, and Sandy, a dower indigo sandman.

There's also their horse, Yulong, which is actually a dragon but who almost never leaves the form of a horse.

As a quick note, I'm going to reference adventures we're not going to talk about.

For the people who are somehow keeping up with the story,

you didn't miss anything.

We're just not going to talk about every fight. But I'll try to summarize them as we go.

Case in point, the group did just win a big fight. And Monkey, well, Monkey has a massive new fan club. Wow, what an adventure, Piggsy said.

The rest of them were sitting around the fire,

...