Monkey Business in Bali

*Baby Long-Tailed Monkey in the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali*

I have seen many monkeys in my life so far – in zoos, at wildlife safaris, and forests. In India and on the island of Bali in Indonesia, they are considered sacred by Hindus who consider them as representatives of God Hanuman on earth. Therefore, they, along with cows, have immunity from being confined to a space, and roam freely across the land. They are known to visit even homes on the sly, open refrigerators and help themselves to food etc. 🙂 . In their lifetime, I guarantee that a good number of people in tropical countries have been picked on by monkeys and have had all sorts of stuff like food, and other personal items, snatched from them 😉

Uluwatu Temple in Bali at Sunset – the temple is at the corner on a cliff

Gorgeous Sunset at Uluwatu where the famous Kecak dance — a dramatization of the Balinese Ramayana (Hindu epic) — is performed at the temple at dusk

The first such incident happened to me in Bali. I was visiting the famous Uluwatu temple at sunset, when this bugger quietly approached from a nearby roof and grabbed my sunglasses off my head. I shrieked while all the other tourists and my family watched in amusement and were busy clicking pictures 🙂 The temple priest had to be called and the ape had to be bribed with a treat before returning those back! I was glad to get those back — many are not so lucky, including my husband, who was once deprived of his scientific calculator after his engineering exam when he was resting under a tree in Delhi 😀