Monkey Forest – Old & Lost

11 April 2018 – Ubud, Bali, Indonesia – Day 3 – Monkey wins!

Published on April 11, 2021April 23, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Today is our last day in Ubud which is a shame as it has been a nice relaxing couple of days and we really like this hotel with it’s quiet pool. We didn’t rush as we were going to go to the Monkey Forest today which was just up the road from our hotel a mile or so. Once again we had a nice breakfast at the resort. I went with the English breakfast and Doug opted for pancakes this morning. Smallest pancakes I have ever seen but Doug said they were good and that is what counts. Since we still got fruit and a bread basket there was definitely enough food.

After breakfast I thought I would just confirm our travel arrangements for tomorrow for the Fast Ferry to Gili Trawangan. It is a good thing that I did as it turned out we no longer had our reservation with the company that we thought we were booked with. There are many companies that run ferries and lots do not have good reviews and have sketchy safety records. Turned out we were now booked with one of these companies that had really poor reviews. Some reviewers commented that they would have given the company a minus number if they could as the service was that bad. After a lot of back and forth discussing it with Doug (he was still in the hotel room) and the lady at the desk calling companies we managed to get a reservation with Blue Water Express. She was hesitant to suggest Blue Water Express as it is really expensive. I told her we weren’t concerned about the price, we were concerned about safety and our lives. I think it is the most expensive company there, IDR Rp 3,160,000 = Cdn $280.00 for the two of us return, but has a fabulous safety record and reviews. They only had space available on the early morning ferry which meant pickup would be approximately 6:00 a.m. We were fine with that. Booked our return trip at the same time as they seem to book up quickly. I have to say this was a very stressful 45 minutes. While she was on the phone trying to book our ferry another man came down to the desk who also wanted to book a ferry. Bet he was happy when I was done. Hope his booking went faster.
It was now time to head out to go to the Mandala Suci Wenara Wana (Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary). The road was not the best we have seen, but we definitely saw lots of beautiful flowers on the way. Lots of construction going on here, with what appears to be many more accommodations being built.

We knew we must be getting close when we saw this big guy in the road. Have to say he made me a little nervous as he started to follow us down the road.We arrived at the entrance with no more big guys following us. Thank goodness! As soon as you entered there were signs with guidelines on to follow. It always amazes me as to how many people can NOT follow rules. Saw so many people touching the monkeys. Even saw a few teasing them with water and food. If you get a serious bite it could mean a series of rabie shots for you.

Just after we entered this little guy came over to us and the battle was on. The monkey won and stole Doug’s bottle of water. It only took a few seconds and he had it. We got one of the Monkey Rangers to get it back for us, as it had not been opened yet, and we were going to need water on this yet another hot and humid day. Doug ended up with a small bite from the monkey but we had our first aid kit with us so cleaned it up and put some Polysporin on it. Just as we finished we saw another guy with quite a scratch on his arm so we gave him an antiseptic wipe for him to clean up with.
There were so many monkeys that I could have spent a lot more time there just watching them and their antics. They can be so funny and they are so smart.This guy really wanted a drink of water but couldn’t quite get a grip on the tap. He certainly tried though. We do have video of some monkeys playing with water spouts spraying water up. It was hilarious to watch them blocking the water.

I have a feeling that whoever left this bag of cement out was going to be in trouble. Mr Monkey was having a great time trying to empty it.

As we got closer to the exit we came across the Monkey Cemetery.

Our time at the Monkey Forest had come to an end. Before we left we came across this guy. I could have gone around again but……

Nope Doug didn’t want to, so we headed back to hotel where we spent a couple of hours in and around pool relaxing and soaking up this beautiful tranquil place.
After resting a bit we headed out for dinner thinking we would choose one of the restaurants that we had seen during the past two days that looked good. But nope, we didn’t and found UNO Ristorante Italiano. Menu looked good and prices were reasonable for Indonesia. We ordered a Calabrese pizza as it was the closest that they had to a pepperoni pizza. Calabrese: tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, spicy salami, onion, roasted red paprika, black olives, fresh chilli and basil. It sounded delicious but didn’t quite live up to my expectations. For some reason I thought it would be spicy but it definitely needed more heat to fall into the spicy category.

I ordered a Cosmopolitan and boy was it strong. Doug had one of his favorite drinks…..Bintang!
You would think that it was Doug who had the strong drink, or just too much monkeying around today! LOL

Back to the hotel we headed to pack up for tomorrow as we were on the move again. Tomorrow was going to be a VERY early morning for us. As the sun went down we headed outside to take some pictures of our hotel at night. The pictures do not do the place justice and it is all lit up and just beautiful at night. I think I was too impatient as many of my pictures turned out blurry. Guess I will just have to come back some day to take more night time pictures. We would definitely recommend this place, Bucu View Bungalows, to stay.

7 April 2018 – Kuta, Bali – Day 4 – Amazing Race

Published on April 7, 2021April 7, 2022 by Old&Lost2 Comments

Today was going to be fun filled touring day. We had so many places to see on the agenda. Thankfully we had booked a private tour with Balik Tour in a comfy SUV for just the two of us and we would have no waiting around for bus loads of tourists. You know how those tourists can be! This was the busload leaving from our hotel.

We were picked up from the hotel at 9:00 am in a nice Toyota SUV and headed off to the first destination, a temple. We hadn’t been to a temple in over a week and were starting to feel temple withdrawal. Not really! Before we got to the temple, we had to battle the rush hour traffic. The scooters reminded us of Vietnam, where no one was safe from them, as they droved everywhere, including the sidewalks. Same here.

But not only did we have to battle scooters, cars and trucks, we had to deal with the wildlife on the road. Coming right at us.

We got to our first stop, a Hindu Temple, Pura Taman Auyn in Mangwi-Bandung. Had to drive under an arch.

Driver dropped us off and would wait for us. In we went to tour the place. It was a big area.

Out we went to find our driver. We are always happy when we are able to find our driver. Some are easier to find than others.

Next stop was a small family-style coffee plantation, Tegal Sari Kopi Luwak. They grew and made their own coffee, plus other herbs and spices. It really was just a drop and shop stop. What was amazing to us though, was how the place looked like nothing from the road side, but once you got behind the wall, the place was amazing.

You get a short tour and then you taste their products, but can’t get out of there without going through their shop.

Beautiful lush gardens. Our guide was pointing out all these different plants that they used to make the coffees, teas and spices. Of course, neither of us remember what was what now.

I do remember that they make a very expensive coffee out of this guys poop! This is a Civet Cat

Coffee Beans + Civet Cat Digestion = Poop Coffee

Here are the poop beans. Poop coffee beans are collected from the poop, washed, roasted, brewed and transformed into aromatic cat poop coffee. That is a definite PASS from me!!!

After a little education, we had to sample the products. Can’t say I was overly fond of any of them. Then we were shuffled into the shop. Of course we ended up buying something that we will most likely never use. I always feel obligated to make some kind of purchase.

UPDATE: Three years later we still have the unopened product. I just happened to see it the other day. Guess it is time to throw it out. And to think that we carried this around the world, taking up precious space in our backpacks. LOL IDR Rp 60,000 = Cdn $5.31

We headed off to the next stop. The clouds were starting to roll in. Really hope we don’t get caught in rain today. Our one big day of sight seeing here on Bali.

Our next stop was Daya Tarik Wisata Ulun Danu Beratan, a Shaivite water temple (Hindu Buddhist) in Beratan which is up in the mountains. That probably explains why it looked like rain.

Tickets in hand we proceeded through the entrance way. This place had pretty big grounds to cover from the look of it, including a lot of water front property.

It always amazes me when I see ‘house’ plants that I have growing, out in the wild here. This is a plant that I called a ‘shrimp plant’. I have no idea if that is the proper name or not, but I had one for a couple of years before it died on me.

I have 2 of these Brugmansias and even though mine are in pots they still grow big and I have to trim 2 -3 feet off them every fall to bring back in the house. I store them in our unused bathtub for the winter months.

Everyone was taking pictures of this and standing on it taking selfies, so I figured it must be something important and needed to take pictures of it also.

The clouds are quickly moving in. Hope they move right on by us.

There was this small group of men fishing. Sure looked relaxing. I wonder if it was some of the workers, during their lunch break. There were many workers around building and sprucing up everywhere.

Doug was getting tired of taking selfies. For every selfie that I post, I have probably taken 100 or more. You would think by now, that I would be better at it, but I am not. Either part of us cut off, background too blurry or we are too blurry. Don’t they say “Practice makes perfect?” Well I am still practicing and a long way from perfect!

We had been here an hour by now and we always feel like we shouldn’t leave our drivers too long. Mind you they probably enjoy the break and are many times found chatting with other drivers. I would imagine they all know each other in this business. I am sure that there were many other buildings that we could have explored but we decided to head out. Of course there was a shopping area on the way out. A pretty random sign for their EXIT. We didn’t get rained on!

We were now headed off to get some lunch. Our driver took us to a beautiful restaurant here in the mountains somewhere. We were seated at a great table near the side, with a spectacular view overlooking the valley and hills.

Unfortunately the skies opened up, the winds picked up and the rain poured down. We were in for a big thunderstorm. Everyone had to move from the open sides of the restaurant as there were no window coverings at all. We moved more into the center of the restaurant, but had to move again right up to the wall, as the winds were so strong and we were still getting wet in the center. The water was even seeping down the interior stone walls, but at least we were out of the wind now.

They offered an all you could eat buffet, but we ordered off the menu as we would never eat enough off the buffet. We of course bought our driver lunch also. Lunch was inexpensive here, but they did add on 20% tax and service fee. IDR Rp 201,000 = Cdn $17.50 Can’t go wrong with those prices to feed three people lunch.

Since it was still pouring down, the driver went out and backed the vehicle up to the entrance, so we wouldn’t get soaked.

We were headed of to the Monkey Forest, Pemerintah Kabupaten Tabanan. The rain had let up some, but we were still getting wet.

Quite the monkey to greet us. The guide took a few pictures of us. She obviously had a difficult time with focusing as most turned out blurry.

We didn’t stay here long, as the rain had not stopped completely and I am not even sure if there was much to do here, or if it was really a stop to bring business into the shops here. They had a whole area of bats and there were so many baby monkeys around. Just adorable. Monkeys were adorable, not so much the bats.

Of course we ended up in the shop owned by the guide. It gets tiring after a while. And yes, we did purchase something. This time it was can ‘cozies’ that we can at least use by our pool.

Next stop was the whole reason for us booking this tour. We wanted to go to Pura Tanah Lot for the sunset. Pura Tana Lot means temple in the sea. Tanah Lot was the Leg 6 stop in Season 29 of the Amazing Race. Air date was 4 April 2016. We are great fans of Amazing Race.

Once we got in, we could go left or right. We went right, of course the wrong way to get to the Tanah Lot, but we still saw plenty.

There was a small beach here and we saw a surfer or two.

There were A LOT of people here. I bet they were all tourists!

I will pass on the snake and that is what we did, passed right on by.

When the tide is low, which it was, you can go into the temple. However, the line was at least an hour long to get over there. We didn’t have the time, nor the energy to bother with that. We wanted to see the sun set and would have missed it. So we toured around the grounds.

This is the entrance to the Tanah Lot, photo taken from the back side, since we didn’t walk back up to the actual entrance side.

My failed attempt at trying to get a picture of Doug holding the sun. Oh yes, we tried numerous shots! Plus a few other ‘trick’ shots. Epic fail! LOL

The attempt of getting a selfie with the sun setting behind us.

However, I think I got a few great shots of the actual sunset.

Out on the hillock is the Batu Balong Temple. You can not go in this temple, only photographs, which I took when we went right instead of left. It sure makes for spectacular photos during sunset.

It was now 6:15 pm and time to head off back to our driver and back to our hotel. It had been a long day, as we had been on the road since 9:00 am. The traffic was absolutely insane and it took us 1 1/2 hours to get back to our hotel. Tanah Lot is approximately 20 km north-west of Kuta, where we are staying.