Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, Bali, Indonesia

4donavan94563 5:00 PM Jan 1, 2023

Beautiful Forested Trails with Monkeys Roaming Freely
Traveling with a family of four with college kids Decided to take a day trip to Ubud from Seminyak. We booked one of the many all day private tours offered from Seminyak area. As part of the tour we stopped at the Sacred Monkey Forest. Mandala Suci Wenara Wana, or well known as Ubud Monkey Forest, is the sanctuary and natural habitat of the Balinese long-tailed macaque. It is located at Padangtegal Ubud, Bali. About 1260 monkeys live in this sanctuary. The Monkey Forest lies within the village of Padangtegal, which owns it. The village's residents view the Monkey Forest as an important spiritual, economic, educational, and conservation center for the village. I like the option of paying our own entrance fee (which cost $80,000 IDR/$5 USD) giving us the option of what we wanted to do at the place. I suppose the main thing that attracts tourists to come is to interact with the monkeys. However, I had more fun watching the terrified reactions of the tourist reacting to the monkeys. The Ubud monkey forest is a bit different from a zoo, because the monkeys are free to come and go as they please. The monkeys have lost their fear of humans. Generally, they will not approach humans who they believe are not offering food, but they invariably approach human visitors in groups and grab any bags containing food that the humans have. They may also grab plastic bottles and bags not containing food, as well as reach into visitors' bags and trouser pockets in search of food, and will climb onto visitors to reach food being held in a visitor's hand, even if the food is held above a visitor's head. The visitor will notice the interesting phenomenon of numerous obese monkeys, a testament to the almost unbounded food supply the huge number of tourists entering the forest provide. Since I wasn't that interested in the monkeys they left me alone. I myself enjoyed the park grounds itself. The Monkey Forest Ubud has 186 species of plants and trees in 12,5 hectares of forest. The Monkey Forest Ubud has 3 temples, namely Dalem Agung Padangtegal Temple, Holy Spring Temple and Prajapati Temple. I enjoyed just walking the heavily forested trails along a deep ravine and rocky stream which runs through the park grounds. Trails allow visitors access to many parts of the park, including the ravine and stream.

4michael d 5:00 PM Jan 5, 2023

Good fun. definitely do the monkey selfie.
Definitely worth doing. You can pay 50,000(aud) to get a 'monkey selfie'. This is the highlight the workers will get the monkeys to climb all over you. We paid twice. Don't stop at the first guy doing the selfies there are more people further in who aren't as busy and will spend more time with each person.