MONKEY FOREST AND UBUD MARKET (07/11/09)
Only a 20 minute walk fom where we were staying in Ubud was an area known as Monkey Forest. Literally an area of forest inhabited by a large number of wild Long-Tailed Macaques they are fed by the rangers which encourages them to stay in this one area. This baby was crunching on a lump of raw sweet potato.
We could get fairly close to the monkeys although if you got too close they would start baring their teeth and threatening you. It is best to back off- there is no rabies treatment in Bali.
The monkeys are so well fed that many abandon the quest for food and just laze around.
An important part of a Macaques social life, grooming. This process reinforces social bonds and hierarchies as well as keeping their fur clean and free of parasites.
Watching a baby Macaque in a tree. The babies are incredibly entertaining, we spent the best part of an hour watching just one.
A Macaque family in a tree.
The paths through the forest, as with almost everything in Bali, are lined with stone carvings of various shapes and sizes.
By no means as bad as those we had seen at Uluwatur, the Macaques were still open to a little theft. This one had stolen a bottle of water and was very proud of the fact. It was doing it's best to tear it to pieces but every time it bit down water was squirting out in jets from the hole it had already made.
After a morning with the monkeys we decided to ake Elinor to look around Ubud Market. The large market has a massive variety of gods from fabrics to puppets to instruments and fruit and veg.
An inevitable part of visiting an Asian market- haggling. Whilst you can significantly reduce the prices, spending five minutes bargaining every time you look at something can get pretty exhausting.
Enjoying looking around.
Adam decided he might want a Balinese shirt and decided to try one. Unfortunately out of the thousands of shirts for sale in the market he managed to pick the one with a scorpion in it. This is it after the market stall holder had mashed it- but not before stinging Adam on the back three times. The initial pain was an extremely sharp burning which progressed into cramps around the entire abdomen combined with agonising shooting pains right up the spine and nausea. We got antihistimines and anti-inflammatories from a doctor but the pain stil lasted for over 12 hours. Needless to say it wasn't too fun.
Anyway by the evening the pain had subsided enough for us too go out for some food. By this point Adam had decided that actually he was really happy and excited to have been stung by a scorpion, although a little sad that the market lady had mashed it- after all it was just trying to get a bit of sleep in a nice dark place.
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