1/20/2014 - The day a monkey stole Christmas - part 1

Its never really possible to get your fill of Thai beaches and food, but the time had arrived to trade in the sun and sea in Thailand for the rice paddys, hillsides and muddy brown rivers of Bali.  We landed in what turned out to be a bit of a monsoon, but were quickly squeezing into a 4 wheel drive vehicle for the hour long trek to Ubud.  Its probably a good thing it was dark and rainy on the way up there because the road seemed to be more suited to a single elephant walking up it.... not cars driving on both sides.

The adventure of getting there is always part of the experience and before we knew it we were checking into the Sri Ratih Cottages for the rest of the week.  Nice place, lush landscaping, but the outdoor bathrooms in the rooms were pretty freaking cool.  Not the first night with the rain pouring in, but there is something very primitive and back to nature taking a shower outside when you're getting ready (I mean, there were walls and everything, effectively no ceiling, but still).  Sarah didn't even seem to mind the "yucky" lizards as much when they were in an outdoor bathroom instead of an indoor one.

After a hearty breakfast with some dark, rich Balinese coffee we trundled off down the same narrow and winding road to explore Ubud.  This involved crossing a deep ravine and tumbling river on what seemed like a sturdy bridge and hiking up a hill with vines hanging down to our heads.  Over the river and through the woods if you will, indulge me, it was Christmas after all.  At the top of the hill the town of Ubud came into view.  Mostly shops, restaurants, hotels, but no tall buildings and just a laid back small town vibe.  Trinkety souvenirs were high on the to-do list, but mission #1 was a visit to the Sacred Monkey Forest.  Our hotel had given us the standard directions of left, right, left, right right to get there.  If that makes sense to you, you're more intuitive than I am.  Anyway, after feeling like we had been walking for an hour and seemingly no closer to hordes of monkeys we finally did the unthinkable and asked for directions from the tourist police.  His hilarious response, "The Sacred Monkey Forest is on Monkey Forest Road."  Yes, we felt dumb and yes, we had all walked past Monkey Forest Road and all missed the sign.  At least we were on the right path now.

10 minutes later we were at the end of Monkey Forest Road and sure enough, monkeys were everywhere. We had been warned about not having any jewelry, drinks or food on us and it became immediately clear why.  Some people had put fruit in their pockets that they had purchased to feed the little critters and instead they had little furry friends following them around, snatching the food straight from their pockets.  For the past 18 months we had been looking for monkeys everywhere we had been, even joking about when they would drop by our condo and now there were more monkeys than people.  It did have a hint of a Planet of the Apes movie, at one point you felt like they might start talking and make us work for them.  At least there was no sign of the head of the Statue of Liberty anywhere.

After walking around for an hour and blowing through multiple MBs of memory on our cameras we decided on our way out to take a few photos of everyone right next to the little guys.  Lots of other people were letting them climb all over them, sit on their shoulders, dig through their hair, etc. so it only seemed right. This decision was about to touch off one of the longer running jokes of the trip, come to think of it, its still ongoing and make the Christmas of 2013 one for the record books........