The Monkey Temple

Entrance to the Sacred Monkey Forest. There he is on the grate

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Today was my first day to walk to Ubud by myself. I needed to go to the laundry to drop off a special shirt to be cleaned and pressed for tomorrow. It was part of my Hindu Temple outfit. I am invited to join Traditional painter Made Arka and his family to a Hindu Temple ceremony in their village. He and his family are good friends of my hosts and landlords Wayan and Richard. I got to know him after hiring him to take me on a rice field walk for a few hours. He is also a rice farmer as are almost everybody else. I also am a proud owner of one of his paintings.

With the map memorized, my backpack on, my glasses and earrings off and the Hindu temple shirt in a black plastic bag, I set off. Soon I got to the Sacred Monkey Forest. I was noticing that a lot of the monkeys were not in the forest, but on the road hanging around. This was disconcerting, as I had heard horror stories of monkeys stealing people’s earrings and glasses. Wayan also warned me to be careful because if a motorbike hurt a monkey and you were the only human standing in sight, they take it out on you, as the motorbike doesn’t wait around for anything. I calmed myself thinking that the tourists hadn’t arrived yet with all the bananas, so perhaps the monkeys were just waiting for the Forest concession to open. As I turned the corner, a small monkey was on the path. I just about got past him when he grabbed my black plastic bag and tried to get it out of my hand. I pulled back and swung him around in the air to shake him off. He tried to tear the bag, but then decided to let go. We glared at each other, showing our teeth.  I was quite shaken and saw a café on the corner and went in fast and sat down on a couch at the entrance to shove my plastic bag into my backpack. It had taken a few days to find just the right one.

I just didn’t have the courage to set out just yet. Didn’t want to have a second round with that monkey. The waitress came over and I ordered breakfast-the second that day and a cup of ginger tea. I watched the monkeys interact with the each other and people. This gave me more courage for my next try. When I left, the Monkey Forest was open and sure enough most monkeys ran in to be part of the show. I followed to see how much it was and found some rules to follow. Rule # 1: Do not bring any food, bottles or plastic bags into the Forest.  Oh……