This is the story of the visit J. and I paid to the Sacred Monkey Forest of Ubud, Bali (
http://www.balimonkey.com). The Monkey Forest is rather innocuously advertised in guide books, with a warning that the monkeys tend to be rather aggressive about food, and little else is said.
It’s actually rather surprising that they’re aggressive about food, because outside the park are kiosks selling bunches of bananas and other snacks, and almost every tourist purchases something before going into the park, at the urging of the shopkeepers. And once inside the park, banana peels litter the grounds. So in short, these are very well-fed monkeys.
Anyway, as we neared the center of the park, leafy-green and cool, monkeys were beginning to gather. J. took her banana bunch and prepared to peel off one banana for a nearby monkey. Before she could do this though, the monkey grabbed the whole bunch out of her hand! Next, I started to take out a bag of peanuts, and again a monkey leapt straight at me, and in alarm I just dropped the bag. He grabbed it, unopened, and took off.
And then, a monkey actually climbed J.’s leg and reached into her pocket and grabbed another bag of nuts! Nervously we began walking away. Another monkey tried to charge at me, and I swung my bag at him and he backed off. I felt kind of bad about this, though, because these were sacred monkeys. But it was starting to feel more like a mugging than a monkey-feeding, and more of them were gathering and seemed to be focusing on us. At this point we pretty much forgot about spending more time in the park, and walked towards the nearest exit, in the back.
It was with relief that we left the park, and continued down a little road. But we started to realize that the road led in the exact opposite of where we needed to go, and that the only way to get where we needed to go was back through the park! As we sat down to try to steel ourselves for the scary journey back, an elderly, seemingly smiling, white dog appeared. I offered him some peanuts from the last of my stash in my bag (it was all I had) and he sniffed it, but didn’t take it. But he seemed to appreciate the gesture.
We began our walk back, and noticed the smiling white dog was trotting nonchalantly alongside us. As we walked, we passed through a pack of dogs that were growling at us for some reason, and the smiling dog seemed to protect us.
We figured he’d abandon us once we got to the entrance of the Monkey Forest. But to our surprise he continued with us, into the depths of the forest. He followed us all the way to the center, and I noticed the monkeys were ignoring us now (probably because I’d gotten rid of the last of my peanuts). When we got to the center, the white dog climbed a moss-covered, ancient fountain and took a long drink. And then he disappeared, as easily as he had appeared.
After that point, we were no longer afraid of the monkeys, which continued to ignore us (and attack other people). We discovered, down a long mossy staircase, an absolutely beautiful old temple lining the sides of a deep valley through which a gurgling stream ran. We would never have known about this had we not gone back (the guide book didn’t mention it).
I have two theories about the old, smiling white dog. One is that he was some kind of spirit, sent to protect us on our way back into the Monkey Forest so that we would see the things we’d missed. In a place like Bali, where the locals give carefully-made offerings to spirits that seem to inhabit every inch of sidewalk, tree, house, and even motor scooters, this does not seem so far fetched. My other theory is that perhaps he feared the monkeys just like we did, but he really wanted a drink from that fountain. So he stuck with us for protection, just like we stuck with him.
