At the end of Monkey Forest Road is the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary,
”...a demonstration of the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. ”
In Bali, these cultural sanctuaries are an important part of Balinese heritage and also an important part of everyday live.
The sanctuary is home to about 220 long-tailed macaques, living in three distict troops.
The groups tend to use different areas of the forest at different times of the day.
To enter the temple (”pura”), we needed to dress properly
in sleeved shirts, sarongs,
and sashes.
Inside, we met one of the
friendly staff members, who
told us more about the
forest and monkeys.
The staff had different names for the monkeys.
We couldn’t pronounce the names in Balinese at all, we liked their translations:
”The friendly one”, ”The grouchy one”, ”The sleepy one”...
This is the second temple we visited inside the forest.
The Pura Prajapati temple is
a cremation temple located
next to one of the two graveyards in the monkey forest.