Martha Loves Monkeys

While in Ubud, we braved walking down to see the greedy monkeys of the sacred Monkey Forest (you might remember them from here and here).  Martha was a bit wary, understandably:

We climbed down the stairs into the gulley to check out the amazing vines and temples:

Martha posed next to the terrifying statue of the baby-eating Rangda, the evil witch (and foe of the Barong, the lion-like creature we saw at the Balinese dance show):

Monkey on a monkey:

Ha ha... these guys were pretty funny.  I think we didn't get a photo of our best monkey sighting, though, which was a monkey lounging, just outside the forest, on a parked motorbike.  He was checking himself out in the bike's sideview mirror and jumping repetitively out of the shock of seeing himself.  Pretty hilarious.

Hear no evil, but eat as many bananas as you can get = philosophy of a Monkey Forest monkey:

Watch out, Martha!  Double-headed, long-tongued moss monster behind you!:

Bukit Lawang: Wading in Waterfalls and Rafting on the River

After a tough (but awesome) day of hiking, our Bukit Lawang trekking guides, Simon and Jakka, treated us to a dip in a lovely waterfall.  But first we had to crawl over some slippery rocks and then take a tube ride across the river (thanks to Jakka for dragging us across! I offered to swim, but they wouldn't have it.):

 

The waterfall was completely refreshing... cold, clean (seemingly, at least), fresh:

The waterfall was quite powerful- a good post-hike massage!:

After our dip in the falls, we ate a quick lunch and then headed to the river to tube back to town.  While the guides were prepping our raft ("raft" is generous... it was 4 tubes tied together and topped with our double-bagged backpacks), a troupe of macaques (maybe the greedy, food-stealing ones from earlier in morning?) marched along the riverbank on the opposite side:

Colleen was skeptical about the sea-worthiness of this cobbled together vessel:

But fears were quickly allayed when we took off down the river, braving the rapids... keep your ears open for a full rendition of the Bukit Lawang Jungle Trekking song about halfway through (also note that the song ends with "see the monkey, see the Mina, everybody RUN!"... remember Mina?)

Videography by the lovely Colleen:

Here's my view from the backseat of the "raft":

Selfie! (plus our cook who wore exclusively underwear while cooking but decided that fully clothed was the way to go for rafting?):

All in all, the rafting back to Bukit Lawang was pretty awesome.  Highly recommended!

Bukit Lawang: Monkey Town

Bukit Lawang is famous for being located next to a forest full of orangutans, but it is also chock full of other monkeys... while bopping around town we saw troops of long-tailed macaques (which I consider to be the rats of the SE Asian monkey world) hanging out in the trees.  

More interestingly, there was also a troop of Thomas's leaf monkeys that we saw on several occasions in Bukit Lawang (we also saw a couple in the jungle).  Thomas's leaf monkeys are endemic to northern Sumatra (meaning they are unique to this area) and are pretty awesome looking with their striped mohawk hair-dos.   On our last full day in town we were eating lunch on the second floor of a guest house, eye level with the power line that hangs alongside the road, and we captured this gang of Thomas's leaf monkeys on the move:

Monkey Forest, Take 2

Once more into the Monkey Forest, Ubud's nature reserve/temple complex/monkey sanctuary. 

The monkeys seemed significantly less aggressive this time around, but there were also far fewer tourists to jump on.   This big (balled) guy was crashed out right by the ticket counter:

 

Maggie and Chrissy posing in front of the main temple:

Lots of crazy statues throughout:

Chrissy, getting into the act:

Lots of grooming: 

Lunch time?

All dressed up and nowhere to go?  Remember the story from the last time I was forced to wear a sarong into this particular temple?

Bedawang Nala, a mythological turtle who supports the world on his back... he's surrounded by 2 giant serpents that bind him to human/earthly needs:

Boma, one of the guardian spirits: 

After hitting up the main temple, we headed down some stairs into a part of the forest that Liz, Meghan and I somehow missed last time...

There we saw some more cool statues, some seriously crazy Indiana Jones-esque vines, and some waterfalls:

The river is guarded by two large Komodo dragons:

So many vines!

On the way out, more terrifying statues of Rangda, a demon queen who eats children:

 

Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys: