Getting Attacked By Monkeys in the Ubud Monkey Forest
I’m serious this time. I was actually attacked by the monkeys while visiting the Ubud Monkey Forest in Indonesia just because I teased them with bananas and then hid them. They were furious, but I managed to give them what they wanted to cool them off though.
Other than that, I surely spent plenty of time interacting with the monkeys and feeding them some bananas.
Anyways, before I went to the Monkey Forest. I took a good look at the Ubud as a whole city. It gave a great sense of being relaxed, artistic, and natural through their art masterpieces, temples, and their architecture of their buildings. They had rice terraces. There were many vines all over the city. Because of what they have in their city, they are well known as a place for hippies based on what the locals have told me and what I have found in my researches.
Not only that, people there were very down-to-earth and I was welcomed kindly.
The bonus here is that the Luwak coffee is found here as well. 😉
Back to the point here: who doesn’t want to visit the Monkey Forest when they’re in Ubud? Who doesn’t?
Let’s be honest here, when you read “Monkey Forest” for the first time, first thing that comes to your mind is, “MONKEYS!!! I WANNA PLAY WITH THEM!”
We are not going to go to Ubud Monkey Forest to check out the forest and temples there. Especially that the the Ubud Monkey Forest is filled with over 600 monkeys. They are locally known as the Balinese long-tailed monkey.
We’re going there just to meet the Balinese long-tailed monkeys, nothing else.
Even though we all would still be in awe with the nature of their forests with vines all over the three temples there, but we’re going to buy plenty of bananas, so they would chase to get on you and sit on your shoulder while eating bananas you fed them. Ain’t that right?
They’re just like tiny humans, but with tails and fur all over the bodies. So cute! They will be eyeballing you at all the times for food, especially bananas.
Before you can visit the monkeys, you gotta pay for their entrance fee. So, I went to the entrance of Ubud Monkey Forest and paid the fee. The fee was really cheap, less than $1 US dollar. Currently, the entrance fee that visitors pay represents the primary source of funding for Padangtegal Wenara Wana Foundation natural and cultural resource management projects.
Then I moved on to the next booth where they were selling bags of bananas for tourists to purchase and feed the monkeys at their wish. The booth had a stick and a whip where they would use to prevent monkeys from sneaking by and stealing the bananas. It appeared to me that the monkeys were aware that the booth is off limits to them due to the stick and whip being visible to them.
I bought a bag of bananas and the worker urged me to zip it shut in my backpack away from the monkeys. Otherwise, they could easily open up your bags and steal bananas without you knowing.
They are that sneaky. I’m telling you. Bananas are like gold to them. They will do anything to get bananas from you. They. Love. BANANAS.
As soon as I pass the entrance, I approached a monkey sitting on the ground chewing some fruit in their mouth. I was getting pretty close and the monkey didn’t even run off. They acted like they didn’t think I was even important to run away from.
The monkey looked like it was enjoying time thinking, “Ya just one of tourist. Nothing new. Whatever. Like you’re gonna attack me.” while I approached it.
Not kidding here, you will be seeing plenty of these adorable and hilarious scenes:
- Group of monkeys swarming outside the entrance, running around eyeballing their huge eyes at you. They’ll be everywhere, even on top of buildings, walls, column posts and many more. They’ll even swing vines to get past you.
- Mother monkey breast-feeding their babies. Babies were clearly sucking off mother’s breast tits. They displayed their mothering openly.
- Relaxed monkeys bathing and grooming themselves by massaging and picking out bugs, and other dirt out of each other fur. They bond through that. You will even see how they are in orgasm through their facial expression and body languages.
- Monkeys will be mating front of you as well.
- Even monkeys wrestling around each other, running around, and jumping up and down the trees. Some of them would kiss each other.
Bottom line: They were just like humans. Only smaller with tail and fur plus FREEDOM.
The reaction I received from the monkeys when I drew my GoPro camera to them varied among all monkeys. Some would growl in fear. Some would run away. Some would fight against it. Some would try to eat it out of curiosity. It was interesting and somewhat funny to see because of the footages I captured from that. You can see that in the video I posted on Facebook page.
Then I tried playing around with bananas as I try holding bananas in different positions to get them to sit on my shoulder. It wasn’t easy trying to get the to stay on your shoulder, and the first time I got them to stay on my head was so awesome. Of course, I had to do a photo op of the scene, which was a success.
After that, a guy showed me a tip that will guarantee monkey to sit on you. You just have to hold your arm straight from your shoulder. Not upward or down. You spread your arm out sideway and hold the bananas that way. Monkey will naturally jump on your shoulder first to grab the bananas from your hand and naturally sit on your shoulder because it will become their comfortable spot to sit on.
You just have to get them to realize that your shoulder if comfortable for them to sit on. Then they will love you for that and enjoy their banana on your shoulder.
Besides that, I have a few tips on how to best interact with the monkeys that I would like to share with you:
- Try not to bring any food outside of the forest because the monkeys will snatch it before your eyes. That once happened to my friend.
- Monkeys will not bother to come with you if they know you do not have food. So, don’t expect them to come to you if you are not planning to purchase bananas there.
- Stay cool around the monkeys and don’t try to approach or touch them. Let them approach you first. Sometimes they will just run to your bag and search for what they wanted. If they don’t find anything, they will just flee. They will only come to you if you have food or bananas visible to you. Sometimes, aggressively if you happen to attempt to hide them. Expect that, so stay cool and give them what they want before they bite you.
- Do not tease the monkey with food or bananas. I strongly advise you to never to pull back an offer of food to a monkey or to touch a monkey, as either action can encourage an aggressive response by the monkey. Although they generally ignore humans who they believe do not have food, they sometimes mistake a human’s actions as an offer of food or an attempt to hide food. If a human does not provide the food the monkeys demand or does not provide it quickly enough, the monkeys occasionally will bite the human; in fact, monkeys bite tourists daily and videos of many of these attacks can be found on YouTube.
I’m serious, I’m not kidding about the teasing part. I was once chased by a monkey family because I reached out the GoPole mount with GoPro to record them and they mistook it as a teasing action. Luckily, they gave up when I ran away.
Keep these tips in your mind. Other than that, you will have a blast visiting the Monkey Forest. It was definitely worth my time there!