The guards at the Monkey Forest will happily welcome you...Just south, at the beginning of Monkey Forest Road there is a densely patch of forest known as the Monkey Forest. As you might have guessed...the Forest is inhabited by a large group of macaques who go around doing their business or eagerly grab the peanuts and bananas that visitors can buy at the entrance.
Be careful though, the 300 monkeys living here are very familiar with people but also with the things they bring. Hold on to your stuff...they can get their hands on everything. When I was there one monkey snatched my water bottle. I tried to get it back but was too surprised to see him unscrewing the bottle and drinking from it... It looked like he had done this before...
The monkeys look very cute to us, but the Balinese consider them sacred. Monkeys play an important role in the story of the Ramayana. Here the monkey General Hanoman saves princess Sita from the hands of the evil king Rawana. There are two entrances to the forest, but all paths end up right in the middle of the forest. Within the forest there are smaller paths that bring you to areas that are more forested, to temples and even a graveyard. At first I was quite surprised to see that there was a graveyard, as the Balinese cremate their deceased. But around the funeral or cremation temple (Pura Penjapati) the graveyard is used to bury the recently deceased while waiting for the appropriate days or funding for the cremation. In and in front of the cremation temple you can see many statues of Rangda the Witch, who is the goddess of death. Well, her statues looked pretty scary to me...
There is also a temple just south-west of the forest. This main temple, Pura Dalem Agung Temple is the most prominent in the forest. It is the high temple of dead, which is found in every Balinese village. The turtle at the entrance is Bedawang, who represents the underworld. At the inner temple you can see statues of the evil witch Rangda. The gate of this temple is however only open during ceremonies.
Once you run into a huge Banyan tree in the middle of the forest, walk down some stairs and cross a stone bridge towered by another large banyan tree and you’ll end up at an old-looking-carp pool and the Holy Bathing Temple.
From there you can walk a little further along a small clear river. When standing there it is hard to imagine that you are still in Ubud with its fully parked streets and many shops...
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