April 2024
After Nusa Penida, Terry and I returned to Ubud to visit the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.
The forest is home to more than a thousand long-tailed macaques and serves as both a nature reserve and an active temple complex. Ancient stone statues, moss-covered pathways, towering trees, and temple ruins are scattered throughout the property, creating an atmosphere that feels part jungle, part archaeological site.
The monkeys, however, are completely unimpressed by any of that.
They have more important things to do.
One of the first things I noticed was how little interest most of them had in the visitors. Popular culture has conditioned us to expect monkeys to spend all day stealing sunglasses, grabbing food, and causing chaos.
While that certainly happens from time to time, most of the monkeys seemed perfectly content going about their daily lives.
Some lounged on stone walls.
Others napped in the trees.
Several sat in the middle of pathways as though they owned the place.
Which, to be fair, they do.
Occasionally a monkey would briefly interact with a visitor. At one point, one jumped onto a tourist for a moment before quickly moving on. The human involved seemed considerably more excited about the encounter than the monkey.
The real entertainment came from the younger monkeys.
It was so cute watching one baby monkey attempt to understand a pair of tennis shoes. The process involved climbing on them, pulling at them, inspecting the laces, and generally trying to determine why humans voluntarily strap these strange objects to their feet every day.
What surprised me most about the Monkey Forest was how normal much of it felt.
The monkeys weren’t performing for visitors.
They weren’t putting on a show.
They were simply living their lives while several hundred humans wandered around watching.
The forest itself was beautiful. Massive tree roots twisted through the landscape, stone guardians emerged from the vegetation, and temple structures appeared between the trees. Moss-covered statues and ancient carvings blended into the jungle surroundings, making it feel as though nature and history had been sharing the same space for centuries.
We spent more than two hours there. I could have stayed much longer.
The Monkey Forest is marketed as a place where visitors can observe monkeys in their natural habitat.
After a few hours there, it felt more like the monkeys were judging us accordingly.
