As we were walking one of the Balinese men came up and was talking to us as we were walking. He said he would show us around. At first, we were trying to figure out a way to nicely decline, our opinion changed very quickly!
When we stepped onto the path to the temple, we were greeted with a horrifyingly scary encounter. You see, the Uluwatu temple is also known as the monkey temple. The entire grounds of the temple is covered with monkeys. There are big monkeys, small monkeys, baby monkeys... you get the picture. There is only one problem- these monkeys are mean and aggressive and rude! The locals call them "cheeky monkeys". These monkeys have basically, unintentionally, been trained this way. If a monkey steals something from a tourist, the local guides will offer the monkey food for the stolen item. These monkeys have a learned behavior that the more things they steal, the more food they will get. Now, let me return to our horrifying site...
The six of us girls were laughing and talking and admiring the beautiful trees and our surroundings. As we enter the path we see two girls walking towards us about 100 yards away, when all of a sudden, out of no where and quick as a flash, a good size monkey rans out of the brush from their left and goes straight up to them and starts to climb one the girls with a backpack. The poor girl is so startled that she screams and is thrown off balance by the monkey and falls. When she falls, the money goes straight to her feet and steals her left shoe, right off her foot and darts back into the trees.
All of us are just staring and simply couldn't believe our eyes. The Balinese tour man with us, pulls a sling shot out of his pocket and snaps it (it was empty) at the monkey, and the monkey scampers off. The man explains that if we stay with him, no monkey will bother us because they stay away from the sling shots. So, all our minds were made up, it was worth it to pay the guide to stay with us, so we wouldn't be attacked by monkeys.
It ended up being the best thing to have the tour guide! After we walked a few hundred yards, he invited us to leave the path, hop a fence to see the beautiful sea shore from the cliff!
We walked through a construction site of a new cliff side restaurant. When this restaurant opens, it will have the best view in all Bali! The walls were made from crushed shells with sections of plexiglass, so you have a clear view of the ocean. There were beautiful rock formations all along the outer walls. It was absolutely breathtaking!
After taking a bunch of pictures, we made our way back to the path to the temple. The walkway follows the edge of the cliff, with spectacular ocean views!
We were also able to see many more monkeys stealing items from unsuspecting tourists. The number one thing that we saw being stolen were glasses! The monkeys would climb straight up a person and grab their glasses right off their face, then run away. It was something else! We never got approached by a monkey, our guide kept us safe. We were able to get up close to a few monkeys who had already been given food in exchange for a stolen item.
As we walked along the path, we could see the ocean, and the beautiful temple growing out of the side of the cliff!
We got to the temple and were able to walk around the grounds. The temple was beautiful. The gates were grand, ancient, and uniquely beautiful.
We were not able to enter the temple, so we admired the beauty from a distance.
We still had a little time before we needed to meet up with our driver, so we continued following the cliff-wall path. We got to a beautiful look out point and were able to snap a picture with the temple far in the background.
We then cut through the forest to get back to the parking lot. We saw many more monkeys in this area, but true to our guide's word, we were not approached by a single cheeky monkey.
Wow!
ReplyDeleteSo, I might have missed it. But could you explain the sarongs and why they are worn — and provided for tourists?