Bali Monkey Temple

The Monkey Forest - Monday, February 28

The Monkey Forest is actually at the Monkey Temple. There are temples everywhere in Bali. The Balinese are very religious - mostly Hindu - and each village is "required" to maintain three different temples to three different deities. I forget exactly what their names are, but each village has the temples. And once a year, they have the temple festival. We saw a couple while we were there. But I digress.

We went to the Monkey Forest and Temple on our second full day in Bali. We had a scheduled group tour to visit the former Royal Temple, the Monkey Forest/Temple, and then watch the sunset at Tanah Lot. So, we went.

Our tour guide, Ari, could not go in with us. It is kind of a custom for what I will call "docents" to guide tourists around the Monkey Forest. The "docents" are actually shop keepers. The entrance to the Monkey Forest is down a row of stalls, a fairly long row of stalls. The "docents" show you around and then show you to their shop so you'll buy something.

So, anyway, our group of 17 kind of became 3-4 smaller groups; my smaller group ended up with about 5. For the 5 of us, we had 2 "docents". Before you go into the Monkey Forest, there is a cart from which you can buy food to feed the Monkeys. I bought two bags. The "docents" said to feed the monkeys one piece at a time. Which is what I was doing to the little, baby monkey, above. Then I fed some big papa monkeys, who did not come up to you for the food. The smaller monkeys came up to you and took the food out of your hand - they had such soft little fingers. But the big papa monkeys just sat in the middle of the walkway. You had to go to them.

Bali Papa Monkey I was having a great time feeding the monkeys...until one of them figured out I had food, charged at me like a football linebacker, bit my finger, and took the bag. Scared the hell out of me! It is an experience to have a monkey charge you. I screamed pretty loud, or so I was told.

After one of the "docents" wrapped my finger up, we continued on our walk around the Monkey Forest, towards the temple. I still had a bag of food left, and started feeding that to the monkeys. But I no longer handed it to them - I threw it at them. And I stayed away from the big, papa monkeys. From what I was told, they get angry at you, they can do a lot of damage. And I was already wary.

We preceded around the Forest, around the temple wall. Many of the monkeys sat on the wall. Not a care in the world. And, as we past, one of them reached out and took my other bag of food from me. Well, that was it. I managed to get around the temple and back to the shops, but I'd had enough of monkeys. I stayed as far away from them as I could after that. They were cute little things, but I wasn't about to fool around with mother nature any more.

Postscript: One of the ladies on the tour, Evelyn, a really energetic older lady, and I examined my finger the next day. The monkey hadn't bitten me at all - which made me feel a whole lot better - he'd just scratched me. On both sides of the finger. It took about 2 weeks to completely heal.