Quick Links
Travel in Earthbound can be a bit of a pain in the early portion of your journey. To get from town to town you need to fight police officers to get past a roadblock, catch a ride with a band of skeezy musicians, and solve a zombie problem so you can take the bus. It sure would make this trip a lot easier if you could magically teleport to wherever you wanted to go.
Thankfully, since this is a game about kids who gain psychic powers, you will eventually be granted the power of teleportation. However, there are a few steps that you'll take to gain this ability including a walk through a particularly annoying cave full of monkeys that all need something from you. This guide will show you how to learn Teleport α and give these dang monkeys what they want.
What Do To Get Inside The Monkey Caves
After you've defeated Master Belch and recorded the melody of Milky Well in Saturn Valley, you'll return to Threed where you'll now be able to take the bus to the city of Fourside. Unfortunately, as the bus reaches Dusty Dunes Desert, it'll be unable to continue as there will be a massive traffic jam blocking the road. Since Ness and his friends are very impatient heroes, they decide to get off the bus and walk through the hot, dangerous desert.
This is where you can first visit the Monkey Caves. Behind the nearby drug store, you'll notice a monkey walking around a hole in the ground, which leads to the Monkey Caves. You won't be able to advance through this area as a man named Talah Rama will be floating and meditating in front of the entrance. He won't speak or interact with you, so all you can do for now is make a note of this location and move on to Fourside.
This portion of the game features a lot of strange events. You'll need to fight a bunch of giant moles in a mine to get a diamond that you'll give to the manager of the Topolla Theater in order to bail the Runaway Five out of another bad contract. Then Paula will be kidnapped while you go shopping in the Fourside Department Store. Following that, you'll visit Moonside, which is a hallucination of a parallel dimension created by the Mani Mani Statue located behind the bar in Fourside's café (seriously, this section of the game is wild.)
After you get through Moonside, Apple Kid will call you and tell you that he invented a machine that only makes Trout Flavored Yogurt. He mentions that he sent the machine to you via a delivery man. Leave the café, and a bunch of NPCs will bombard you with exposition. First, a monkey will arrive to tell you that Talah Rama is ready to speak to you. Then, the delivery man who is supposed to give you the yogurt machine shows up, but informs you that he dropped it down a hole in the desert (guess which hole that is?) Immediately after that, a maid who works for Mr. Monotoli - a powerful businessman in Fourside - will arrive and tell you that she needs that machine as Trout Flavored Yogurt is her boss' favorite food. It's a lot to take in all at once.
Take the bus back to the desert and head to that hole behind the drug store. You'll now be able to enter the Monkey Caves.
How To Get Through The Monkey Caves And Learn Teleport
The Monkey Caves can be a bit of an irritating area to get through as it's a maze that features multiple entrances that are all blocked by monkeys. They'll only let you through if you give them an item that they ask for. Luckily, most of the items they want are within the caves, but that means you'll have to do a lot of backtracking to give these monkeys what they want.
You should clear out some space in Ness and Jeff's inventories as you'll be picking up quite a few things. As for combat, there are enemies in this zone, but they're incredibly weak and will either avoid you or be automatically defeated when you touch them.
The first two monkeys you encounter will ask for a Skip Sandwich and a Picnic Lunch respectively. These items can be purchased from the old man inside the Dusty Dunes Desert drug store. Make sure you have one of each of these in your inventory. Also, have the Pencil Eraser handy as you're going to need it soon.
Let's start with the monkey who wants the Picnic Lunch. Upon giving them this item, they'll move, and you can enter the doorway behind them. There will be a box containing a Pizza in the next room. Continue forward and you'll find two more monkeys. One will want a Wet Towel, while the other - who is a female monkey named Monkonna for some reason - wants a Pizza. Give the lady monkey the Pizza you just picked up and head through the doorway behind her. There will be another Pizza in another box in this next area. Then, in the next room will be a monkey that will give you a Fresh Egg when you talk to it. Get the egg and make your way back to the monkey that wanted the Skip Sandwich at the start.
Give the monkey the Skip Sandwich. Head into the next area, and you'll find a box that has a Wet Towel inside. The next area will have two monkeys. One will want a Protein Drink and the other will want a Pizza. Give the monkey the Pizza you picked up, and you can go through to the next room where you'll find a Protein Drink. In the room after this one, there will another pair of monkeys. One will ask for an item called the King Banana, while the other just wants a Hamburger. There are actually three monkeys who want Hamburgers, and you'll get some good items after you give them what they want.
For now, go back to the monkey that wanted the Protein Drink and give it to them. There will be a Hamburger in a box in the area behind them. Keep going and there will be two more monkeys who want something from you. One wants an Egg and one wants a Ruler. Give the Fresh Egg to the monkey and there will be a garbage can in the next room that has the Neutralizer inside (which is a good item for Jeff so make sure he takes it.)
Now it's time to go back to the monkey that wanted the Wet Towel. Give that to them and go to the next room where you'll find two boxes. One will contain a Ruler, and the other will have a Hamburger inside. In the next room will be two monkeys that both want Hamburgers. You should have two at this point, so give them each a Hamburger, and you'll be able to take the Fire Pendant and the Broken Tube from the rooms behind them. Put the Broken Tube in Jeff's inventory so he can fix it and turn it into the Hungry HP-Sucker later.
Go find the monkey that wanted the Ruler and give it to them. Behind them will be a monkey who will gift you the King Banana. Now go back to the monkey who wanted the King Banana and give that to them. Behind that monkey will be two boxes with a Hamburger and a Picnic Lunch inside them. Before you go into the next room, go back to the previous room and give the other monkey there the Hamburger you just got. In the room behind them will be a box containing a Bag Of Dragonite, which will briefly turn someone into a dragon and do massive damage when used in battle.
Now go back through the King Banana monkey's doorway and continue on until you reach a room with a Pencil Statue blocking the entrance. Remember how I said you'd need the Pencil Eraser? Well, now's the time to use it. Get rid of the statue and go through the doorway.
On the other side will be Talah Rama, which means you've finally gotten through these damn caves. Talk to him to hear a whole bunch of exposition about how you're the chosen one or whatever. After he's done talking, he'll give you the Yogurt Dispenser. He'll also have one of his monkeys teach you the art of Teleport α so you can instantly travel to any place you've visited previously (provided that you have enough space as it requires a bit of a jog.)
Now you can return to Fourside, give the Yogurt Dispenser to the maid, and rescue Paula from the evil Mr. Monotoli. You also no longer need to worry about giving a Hamburger to a monkey ever again.