One of the attractions of Ubud, in Bali, is the Sacred Monkey Forest, which happened to be only a 15-minute walk from our hotel. C had been to this forest on each of her previous visits, so she was eager for me to see it for myself.
The first day we went, it began to rain as soon as we paid our entrance fee (15,000 rupiahs, or approximately $1.64). Fortunately, we had our umbrellas as it had been overcast all morning. The monkeys were not so handily equipped. They huddled in the crook of tree limbs, under the shelter of leaves, or in the few structures with roofs. One small pavilion, about four feet square, that we came upon had four monkeys of varying ages tightly packed together near a corner post. The flash from a tourist’s camera angered one of them: it hissed and darted toward the tourist, who hastily backed up and then left. Watching these damp, forlorn creatures became too sad, so we left.
A few days later, C went to the forest herself. While sitting on a low wall, she felt a touch on her hand. It was a baby monkey-and when she removed her bag from her lap, the baby traipsed across her, followed soon after by its mother. But there was no one to photograph this moment of C’s lap as Monkey Pathway.
The next day we both went to the forest. Now the sun was shining, there were many monkeys about, and many tourists feeding them. One woman put some food on her chest, and a monkey jumped over to grab it. Again, C sat down on the wall. Soon a monkey approached and climbed across her lap. Another followed. A third puts its paw on her bag, looking like it might try the zipper. (It’s worth noting that C had just had a massage with cardamom-scented oil; did C smell like Baliness food?) Then a fourth clambered up her back and appeared to be searching through her hair-where is that food?
Then she was mugged. Another monkey rifled through her tote bag, found her water bottle, and ran off with it. Several feet away, it sat down, unscrewed the cap–yes, they’ve learned how to unscrew the lids–and tried to tilt the bottle. But there wasn’t much water left, and the monkey didn’t realize how much it would have to tilt the bottle. So it knocked the bottle over and lapped up what water spilled onto the pavement. Another monkey grabbed the bottle, ran a few feet, spilled some more water and licked it off the ground.
Meanwhile, many tourists had gathered and were shooting pictures of C and her new friends. Or perhaps the monkeys saw C as bait to attract more humans who might actually have food for them. More clicking, more monkeys. Finally, C had had enough. The monkeys weren’t going away, so she would have to get out from under. “That’s enough,” she said, and extricated herself very carefully; after all, as far as the monkeys were concerned, she was just another statue set among them.
C. had this literal monkey on her back; does it work as a scarf?
Tags: Add new tag, Bali, Monkey Forest, monkeys
July 25, 2008 at 2:23 pm |
So here I am traveling myself, in Vancouver. I’m a bit lonely, all by myself, as the conference hasn’t started yet and I know no one. At the same time (my usual ambivalence) I appreciate making all the decisions about where and when to go places, according to my own tastes and needs.
Geographically, I love what I’ve seen here. I knew the bay and snow-capped mountains would be magnificent, as I’d heard a lot about the beauty of the area — they are. The campus of the University of British Columbia is the most beautiful I’ve seen, far more interesting and lovely than Berkeley’s, in my opinion. The diversity of the students is impressive: all races and many ethnicities, including what we call Native Americans (and they call here First Nations) in abundance. There is a large building housing a program for study of First Nations. There are also tons of tourists from Asia — I guess that makes sense, as they share the Pacific.
Two neat places I’ve seen so far are the Museum of Anthropology and the Japanese Garden, both on campus. Large groups of Native American (aka First Nations) children from the area were touring the museum, which featured towering works from their cultures: vivid totem poles, gigantic ceremonial shared dishes, carved boats and other art works. Our guide explained, in neutral tones, that the First Nations were not literate, and so their major events (such as a new chief or the death of an important person) were celebrated with other tribes (aka Nations) by way of announcement and formalization. This custom of “potlatch” involved carving these gigantic ceremonial objects, making huge shared feasts, and giving every visiting member of the other tribe gifts large and small. The entire culture revolved around the importance of the potlatch — which was made a criminal act from the 19th century up to 1950, when Parliament finally declined to renew its criminality. Not only were arrests made for anyone who carved new objects or held the ancient feast, Indians (FN) were forced to surrender all tribal objects to the government, which presumably blithely destroyed much of it. As everyone knows, children were also forced into boarding schools to “assimilate” and forbidden to speak their native language. All this made me literally sick, but leaves me with a dumb question: why? The guide explained that the government “wanted everyone to assimilate to British culture”, but why would a minority following their own ways peacefully be such a threat that you would make laws against their having feasts?
This morning I explored an entirely different area, the part of the campus devoted to Asian studies. The Japanese garden is so beautifully arranged and maintained, but what was really astonishing is the wooded area before you get there. In a wonderful stand of extremely tall Douglas Fir and Red Cedar trees, there was a sign that you should be careful of falling baby herons. It seems they are nesting at the very top of these trees — so tall you have to bend your head all the way back to look up to the top of them —and sure enough, I heard much flapping and screaming, while the shadows of their agitated wings flitted all over the forest — fantastic.
Just then I noticed a lady standing quietly nearby with elaborate binoculars strapped all around her neck and waist, not your ordinary opera glasses. She turned out to be a naturalist who is in charge for her society of this area’s birdcounting, and has been monitoring and charting the birth of the herons. She lent me her binoculars and I could see two half-grown babies (herons are not small birds) standing on branches near the enormous nests and jumping up and down excitedly — apparently the parents had just made a food delivery. The sign, she said, has to do with the fact that the babies are learning to fly, and often plop down on the path. Plus, she said calmly, the ones who plop down are often dead. This is because the mother lays 2 eggs (sometimes three) with two days between each egg, so the babies are not the same size — the parents then feed them in size order, i.e. the second doesn’t eat until the first is full, and only then comes the third’s turn, if there is a third. For this reason the second, etc. starves to death as often as not — she said it’s “nature’s way of trying to maximize survival”. Cruel, I cried! She was not moved.
Time to head to the city of Vancouver, before my conference starts tonight.
July 25, 2008 at 10:51 pm |
Wow! Makes me want to really go to Vancouver. I did spend a couple of hours in the airport in the middle of the night on the way to Bali, but saw nothing.
That is so horrible about the Canadian government’s attitude toward the Native Americans/First Nations. Western culture can almost seem a classic example of the inferiority complex, loudly and bullyingly proclaiming superiority which masks deep feelings of inferiority. What is the root of that?
July 26, 2008 at 3:24 am |
Was the monkey who fingered C’s hair “grooming” her, as they do to each other to cement relationships and as a a “friendly” gesture? How cool? The only thing that might equal this experience was one related by a lady who recently returned from China and had the opportunity to actually play with baby pandas iin Woolong National Reserve, Sichuan Province.
July 26, 2008 at 4:57 pm |
I’ve been asking people about the extermination of the First Nations culture, and the answer I’ve gotten so far is that it was motivated by fear that loyalty to the tribe implied disloyalty to the Canadian government, while the meetings of the tribes in potlatch were feared to be occasions for plotting rebellion. It’s almost too pat to believe.
I’m so jealous of the lady who played with the baby pandas!
August 8, 2008 at 4:25 am |
The British have a dismal record of suppression of Native population/culture in Australia also. They did the same kidnapping/indoctrinization of Aboriginal children there in the 19th C. in an effort, I suppose, to “civilize” the “darkies.” These were far from a warlike people, who had a symbiotic relationship with their stark environment that kept them alive and thriving for centuries before their country was invaded by the Europeans.
August 21, 2008 at 10:32 pm |
This reminds me of my experience with monkeys in Algeria. They came up to us by the side of the road in a residential neighborhood of a tourist town! I have video of my mother-in-law “bottle feeding” a thirsty male with our water.