Sacred Monkey Forest

One of our first stops in Ubud was the Sacred Monkey Forest.. naturally, given our affinity for monkeys.  We knew we were getting close when we started seeing stone carvings of monkeys.. all the way down Monkey Forest Road.  Here's Zeric's favorite: monkeys on Vespa!!

 

 

Once we got to the forest, we read all of the warnings about taking off all of the shiney things that the monkeys can grab.. and not going near mothers and babies.. and entering fully armed with bananas.  [For future reference, there should be one about taking a shower in mosquito repellent before entering too.] And so we went. 

 

There were three big temples and lots of macaques.  It was their turf, and they let us know.  Not long after arriving, one of them grabbed on to the front of Jaffa's dress and started chewing. Another tourist lured him away with a piece of fruit.. but ended up getting bitten.  Yikes!! Thanks, friendly tourist!

 

 

We did feed the monkeys lots of bananas.. although some of them were kinda sick of being fed as it was late in the day, and there were piles of sweet potatoes and rambutan (a cousin to litchis) around too.  A couple of the monkeys took our bananas, opened them, gave them a sniff and threw them away!  Whaaaat??

 

We had a good time watching the monkeys.. they chased each other, and stole food from each other.  And, the little ones were very cute.  We really liked the statues too. [See Zeric's fab pink backpack.. Jaffa let him borrow it.]

 

Before we left, we saw one of the bigger monkeys steal someone's sandwich and krupuk (shrimp chips), and run up into a tree to enjoy the loot.  It was pretty funny.  Ultimately we got away unscathed.. and had had a really nice afternoon!