Bali - Day 4 - Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary

Banana Haul

Still sore from yesterdays escapades, we gingerly awoke and headed out for breakfast at Clear Café – again, amazing food and juices. Our plan today was to go and check out the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.

Tucked away in the South West corner of Ubud – but impossible to ignore (it’s on Monkey Forest Road), we’d walked past there on our first day and were excited by seeing a couple of macaque monkeys in the carpark so knew we’d have to go back and explore. Entrance was $2 each – and I spent the remainder of my change (much to Lisa’s horror - convinced we would get savaged by rabid macaques) on some teeny bananas from the nice Ladies at the gate selling them. Once inside it is immediately monkey central. The clever/greedy ones know that tourists buy bananas at the gate and are keen to feed and take pictures within the first 100m or so and hang out – duly obliging to eat and pose for the cameras.

om nom nom nom

We took a few snaps – but I was determined to keep my bounty for some more deserving monkey folk. We strolled through the forest – which does feel like an actual purpose built animal sanctuary, happily admiring the macaques going about their monkey business but then came to a narrower lane (to be known hereafter as ambush lane) in amongst the foliage. There was one little macaque going nuts on some sweet potato (their staple diet it would seem) so we stopped to look at him, just down the path there were a few Australian tourists (I think I counted 2 bintang vests) rather foolishly opening their bags to get cameras out. Instantly one of the macaques saw a shiny pack of panadol and went for the bags – ripping everything out and taking the packet, immediately knowing how to pop the remaining tablets out and eating them. They tried to exchange the pack for a banana but he just took that as well! Meanwhile, sensing blood in the water another 4 or 5 fully grown adult macaques joined the party and started getting a bit frisky – jumping on their bags, heads, legs to grab anything they could. There was A LOT of screaming and they all eventually ran for cover.

As they came past us – the macaques followed, but unfortunately turned their attention to the bulge of bananas in my pocket, and pounced – one going for each side! Fortunately they were easily shaken off and we scamped through ambush lane relatively unscathed and rabies free!

We wandered through the grounds, went inside one of the temples (after donning some rather fetching sarongs) which had some awesome statues inside – all covered in monkeys obviously. Then we went down a set of stairs to what looked like a scene from Indiana Jones! Thick forest, giant boulders dotted the valley and looked like they’d been there for centuries, huge stone carvings of monitor lizards and a temple at the bottom – but no monkeys, which seemed a bit strange.

We headed back up and into a whole load of commotion. One of the staff has a few ‘trained’ monkeys on his peanut pay roll, so you can sit on the large steps and in turn he’ll place a peanut on your lap/head/hand – whatever he feels like and the macaque jumps from tourist to tourist, hangs out for a minute or so until the next nut is placed. Immediately I had to do it! Despite the rabies fears – this seemed pretty legit and if any of them were going to jump on us I’d rather it be these friendly looking ones who knew they were getting a meal either way!

Grooming - not sure about the other guy!

I stepped up first, and it was awesome! He clambered about a bit, but they’ve got surprisingly soft hands and short nails so it was almost like having a cat scramble about on you (well, Mela anyway). Lisa went next – and much to our surprise, as he put the peanut on her head a second monkey joined the party – both of them jumping on her shoulders at the same time! She looked about as panicked as I’ve ever seen her for a couple of seconds and the couple of dozen people watching found it hilarious.

By this point it was HOT so we headed for the exit, content with our monkey pictures – but I still had a couple of bananas to distribute. I broke one up and tried dishing it out that way – but got routinely ignored. So went and sat on the wall near the exit and eventually a little macaque came for his feed. Having already gotten a load of snaps under a monkey – I just handed him the banana and was about to get up and head off, instead he grabbed it and proceeded to jump straight up my bag and onto my head! Then he peeled it, and started eating it off my hair and shoulders, mushing it into my face and ear – it was pretty cool, if not a bit gross.

We REALLY enjoyed the Monkey Forest, a lot more than we thought we would – aside from the close call at ambush lane the majority of the macaques were just going about their days and not too fussed about all the people, or banana transporters as I’m sure they see us.

Late afternoon – we chilled out a bit, still reeling somewhat from 6 hours on the scooter yesterday. Lisa got a pedicure, I had a large beer and felt drunk again – then we went to Bali Buddah for some chai and people watching.

In the evening we went out in search of some BBQ’d meat for dinner (I had seen an awesome looking stall the night before consisting of one guy, a old half oil drum BBQ and meat on a stick) – but he wasn’t open, so we settled for a Warung around the corner from the Joglo which actually turned out to be AMAZING. It had a few huts with low seating areas dotted around a giant Lilly pond overlooking the rice fields, lit with loads of tiki torches and surprisingly mosquito free! We ate like kings for about $10 – and went home to collapse once more, with the intention of being a little more proactive in the morning and getting back on Lucille (we’ve now named the bike) for another trip further afield.

Two monkeys - one banana