One of the most popular tourist activities in Ubud, Bali is to visit the Sacred Monkey Forest.
The Sacred Monkey Forest is a small patch of land that remained lush with vegetation and is said to be the home of 115 species of trees. Aside from the local flora, there’s also a lot of monkeys or long tail macaques that can be found here.
It is said that there are more than 340 long tail macaques in the Sacred Monkey Forest. This small patch of forest is being maintained to provide a home for these monkeys.
Tourists are allowed to go inside the forest and are not prohibited to provide bananas to the monkeys. Banana sellers can be found at the entrance gates of the monkey forest.
Here are some tips to help you survive your trip to the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud.
- Don’t hide food from the monkeys: These monkeys can smell if you have fruits or any kind of food in your bag.
- Secure Your Bag: Make sure that you don’t have an unlockable sling bag when you enter the forest. These monkeys are known to take things from tourists especially “shiny stuff”.
- Give the bananas without the plastic bags: These plastic bags will just litter the park.
Ten Survival Tips for Visitors of Sacred Monkey Forest Ubud - Stay Calm and Don’t Panic: Some monkeys are very excited when they see people holding a banana. Some of them jumps on unwary tourists and take the banana from your hand, some will even search your bags for more food. If this happens, just stay calm and the monkey will eventually leave you alone.
Sacred Monkey Forest - Don’t touch the monkeys: Even if they’re already used to seeing people, they are still wild animals and might bite if they fell threatened. Keep your distance.
- Please don’t leave your trash behind.
- Be ready to see copulating monkeys. This is their territory so they could do whatever they want (LOL!). I’m not sure if it was their mating season or what but when I was there, a lot of them were having sex everywhere.
- Be careful when you descend to some parts of the park. It might get slippery especially when it’s raining.
- There are couple of temples inside the sacred Monkey Forest and they’re still being used by the locals. Pay respect especially when there’s a ceremony.
- And as what everybody says, Take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.
For more recommendations like this view my Indonesia travel tips.
