Ubud and the Monkey Forest

Our room in Ubud.

Statue outside our place in Ubud.

We went to the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud.

One of the temples in the Sacred Monkey Forest.

Monkeys having fun jumping in the water.

Wrestling monkeys.

This monkey was fascinated by Braeden's palm.

Male macaque

Mother and baby.

Baby monkey

Love this monkey's expression!

Hey, are there more bananas in here?

A group of female macaques and their babies.

Baby monkey.

This monkey decided to eat his banana on Braeden's shoulder. His shoulder was covered in banana bits after this monkey was done!

Little macaque eating a banana.

This monkey decided he would groom Braeden. He was checking his head for something!

Graveyard in the Sacred Monkey Forest.

Steps down to the temple by the creek.

Macaques sitting on a branch.

A male macaque lounging around.

A worker in the Monkey Forest carrying his offering to the gods to place in the temple.

Stone carving near temple in Monkey Forest.

Stream near another one of the temples in the Monkey Forest.

Stone carving in the Sacred Monkey Forest.

Stone carving in Monkey Forest.

One of the temples in the Sacred Monkey Forest.

Woodcarver in front of his shop near the Monkey Forest.

Rice field near Monkey Forest.

Balinese glockenspiel?

Man playing flute or some type of wooden recorder.

Man on the right was the leader of the group. He was very enthusiastic when he was performing.

This women had the most expressive eyes.

Balinese women dancing.

Young boy dancing.

This dance seemed to be about what it is like to be old.

A modern dance.

After leaving Gili Trawangan we headed for Ubud. We were not able to book accomodation online so we were going to Ubud not knowing where we were going to stay. We were picked up at the boat launch and along with some other tourists we were driven to Ubud. We met an American guy who was also going to Ubud and had been there before. He gave us the name of a hotel we could possible stay at so we had the driver drop us off there. It turned out the hotel was fully booked but there was a guy on the street who told us he could take us to the hotel where he worked and so we followed him. We ended up staying in a family room with two queen sized beds. It was the nicest hotel room we had stayed in so far. It was also the most expensive. I took some pictures of our room at the Sagitarrius (sp?) Inn. We had dinner at the Inn's restaurant and the food was cheap and good.

Ubud is the fine arts capital of Bali. The area surrounding Ubud has villages that specialize in stone carving, silver work, painting and wood carving. I have never seen so many beautiful and huge stone carvings. There was a nice one outside our room at the Sagitarrius Inn that I took a picture of. I know that they ship the stone and wood carvings and furniture all over the world. I also enjoyed looking at all the silver jewellery. I really like Ubud because it is smaller and slower than Kuta.

The boys loved The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. The monkeys that live in the sanctuary are called Balinese macaques, also known as long-tail macaques. About 300 monkeys reside in the monkey forest. There are approximately 35 adult males, 95 adult females and 170 young. These macaques live primarily in three clusters of females and males. Each of these groups tends to use different areas of the forest at different times of the day.

However, nearly all of the macaques use all of the forest. Conflicts sometimes arise when two groups are in the same area. We observed this when we were there. Some monkeys seemed like they were getting angry with some other monkeys. Tourists are encouraged to buy bananas and feed them to the monkeys. This can cause some fighting over who gets the bananas. Adult males weigh up to 8-10 kilos and have large canine teeth, broad shoulders and facial hair that resembles a moustache. the adult females are smaller than the males (4-8 kg) and have long facial hair resembling beards.

Balinese macaques society is centered around groups of related females called 'matrilines'.Male macaques usually migrate in from other areas and attempt to associate with the female matriline.

There are three holy temples in The Sacred Monkey Forest. In addition to the three temples there are also two graveyards. We saw one of the graveyards.

The boys enjoyed feeding the monkeys and we all enjoyed watching them. In one part of the forest there was a small pool that the monkeys used to play in and interact with one another. One disturbing thing we saw was a monkey sucking on a aerosal can. We tried to offer him some bananas but he was not interested. It just goes to show you how human garbage can affect wildlife. It was so sad to see. We spent at least an hour in the monkey forest and took many pictures.

After leaving the monkey forest we wanted to go and see some rice fields. We wandered along a path and saw an older Balinese man carving a piece of wood. He was sitting in front of his shop. We went in and had a look at the work the woodcarver had done. Terry and I wanted to bring home something from Bali and we found a beautiful wood carving of a buddha head. The carver told us it took him 3 days to carve it. He had a lot of beautiful carvings in his shop.

We didn't see many rice fields but we found a little internet cafe and stopped there for lunch.

Later, Terry and I went for a walk around Ubud and we were stopped by some young teenaged boys. They were selling tickets to a cultural show that was to be playing that evening. I really wanted to see some dance and hear Balinese music so we bought some tickets and went. There were not a lot of people in the audience but it was a good show. There were men playing drums, flutes and a kind of instrument that looked a bit like a glockenspiel. The men seemed like they were having a really good time, especially the leader. There were women and young women who performed dances. One woman was especially good. She used her eyes, face and hands to express herself. The elaborate costumes were beautiful. There were a couple of dances done by men, one by a young and one by a man who was supposed to be old. I was glad we got a chance to see this performance.