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    Monkey Forest, Ubud, Bali

    January 8 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 28 °C

    After having been on a what I would have thought to be 1 hour shopping trip in Ubud that turned out to last 3 hours (I‘m convinced Bali has an issue with people who don‘t wear sizes S and XS), I went to the Monkey Forest only about 10 minutes away from my AirBnB. Everywhere near and inside of the forest there are signs clearly telling you to watch out for monkeys, to keep your things close, not to look them directly into the eyes, not to feed them and not to keep bags just dangling from your arms. It must have something to do with the human brain having trouble processing negations, but they did **everything** the rules warned them about. Those are the same people who complain about being attacked by monkeys - as one ominous trail of blood on a railing in the forest might have suggested. Or the guy who nonchalantly put his shopping bag with “bloody expensive stuff“ next to him on the ground and suddenly witnessed a monkey relieve him of said bag and then jump up a tree with it, placing it diligently a few meters above the guy‘s head and having a blast from the top of the tree. See below for visual aid. The monkeys are adorable and the forest itself is stunning. Just like the amount of tourists who displayed an infuriating amount of disregard for the monkeys to boast on their instagram. The forest is directly adjacent to/surrounded by streets which are frequented by countless scooters. On the edges of the forest it was quite noisy. I even saw employees drive their scooters inside the forest. The monkeys seemed somewhat unfazed by this apparent daily occurrence, but the conditions for the monkeys could do with improvement.
    After a hearty meal (fish soup, rice in a banana leaf, veggie crisps and chilli sauce and a matcha wrap with fried coconut gratings & some fruit for dessert), I returned to my AirBnB. I learned I would have to share my room with a multi-generational ant farm who had a get-together with all their distant relatives and a gecko who wanted to stay “just for the night“ - or so he said.    Read more