Monkey's Monkey's Everywhere!

What do you get when you put Monkey's and Laura together? Lots of fun! We walked from our place to the Monkey forest which took us through a fantastic shopping district filled wth artisan crafts, Warung's (Home Kitchens) and more than one Polo store of all things. Arriving at the entrance, it cost us 40kINR each (or 4 bucks) to get in and the first thing we see are tourists getting mugged by all the monkeys. My cousin Gordie lost his eye glasses here I think when he came a couple of weeks ago, so Laura and I were sure to stow all the "grabables" into our bags. The walk around the park is about 2KM if you completely circumnavigate the park, so an easy walk was in order. If you sit down anywhere near one of the vendors selling bananas (a bunch for 5kINR), you are bound to get accosted by a monkey wanting to have a look into your bag! Friendly as long as you don't react like a big ape (pun intended), you will be fine as the monkeys are quite accustomed to people and such.

The Balinese monkey is a long-tailed macaque, and there are close to 700 monkeys in the park, divided into 5 tribes. Fights do break out between the tribes - just a reminder that they are semi-wild. They have some nasty looking big sharp teeth too! Their cute little mohawks kind of take the edge off of their bad-ass look though.

According to the brochure, the mission of The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary is conserving the area "based on the concept of Tri Hita Karana" - a Hindu philosophy that harmonious relationships between humans, humans and the environment, and humans and their God, are required to reach spiritual and physical well being (i.e. happiness). It certainly seems to be working for these monkeys!