So I’ve just been sorting out my photos from the end of last year in preparation for backing them up (one of the things I am aiming to do more regularly this year!) and I realised I never told you all this little story from the end of the year.
A couple of weeks before Christmas I took a day trip out with my dad to do some sightseeing in Nusa Dua before having a yummy fish dinner in Jimbaran and then going to collect Sue (his wife) at the airport. I rarely make it down to this part of Bali and dad’s never been there before so it was a fun excursion for both of us.
After checking out the beach at Padang Padang (which is the ‘Ubud beach’ in the movie Eat Pray Love, despite it being a 2 hour drive from Ubud) we headed to Uluwatu . Uluwatu is a temple perched high on the cliffs of the south coast of Bali. It’s also overrun with monkeys. Now monkeys are not an usual site in Bali, in fact probably the most famous monkeys in Bali are the ones in Ubud’s very own monkey forest. However the monkeys at Uluwatu are somewhat different from their Ubud cousins… (the monkeys pictured above at Padang Padang are much cuter by the way!)
Of course you always have to be careful with wild animals and avoid getting too close, showing them food etc etc but in general the monkeys in Ubud monkey forest are pretty friendly. Give them a banana and they’ll be your best friend. The Uluwatu monkeys however, give them a monkey and they’ll snatch it off you, hiss at you and then throw the peel in your face.
We’d been warned by two different people on the way up to be careful with our glasses as apparently the monkeys like stealing them so I was on high guard. I prefer to keep my distance anyway as being jumped on by a monkey is not an experience I wish to have again (see below for previous experience at Sangeh monkey forest). Normally I wear contact lenses but for some reason I didn’t this day. Take note, if you’re going anywhere in Bali where there are monkeys, WEAR CONTACTS!!!
So I was minding my own business, taking a picture of the cliffs when this huge monkey runs out of nowhere and snatches my glasses right off my face! I try to grab them back but he hisses and tries to scratch me. My dad tries to get them but he’s now baring his teeth and looking pretty threatening. By this point we’ve attracted quite a bit of attention and a few other tourists come over and try to tempt him into swapping my glasses for a banana but he’s not giving them back. Then he decides to bite off the plastic around the bit that goes over your ear. I give up, realising i’m not going to get them back and resign myself to walking around half-blind for the rest of the day. Hey, at least it wasn’t my camera!
15 minutes later I’m sitting near the top waiting for my dad to finish taking some photos and a guy comes over and hands me my glasses (plastic bit missing but otherwise ok!) no idea how he managed to get them back but I was very grateful!
Telling this story to my dad’s friend who also lives in Bali and he told us of the much worse fate of another tourist when he was visiting Uluwatu. A monkey snatched his glasses and ran up a tree, snapped them in half and threw them at him. While he was distracted by this, another monkey stole his phone. A baby monkey then ran up his leg and he kicked it off at which point he was attacked by all the adult monkeys biting him. Apparently the monkeys at Uluwatu are particularly vicious little bastards – you have been warned!!!
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