Day 7. Risking Rabies and hunting for art.

What a difference a day makes!
After yesterday’s emotional release and an early night, I awoke feeling fresh and ready for a new day. I had decided that today was monkey day - In Ubud there is a monkey forest!

The Ubud Monkey Forest is a nature reserve which also has a Hindu temple on site. It’s official name is the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary or in Balinese : Mandala Suci Wenara Wana. The Monkey Forest is as an important spiritual, economic, educational, and conservation centre for the village which attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists each year and contains over 700 monkeys! Due to it being such a big attraction, I had been warned that it can get quite busy, so I made a point of getting up and out nice and early in order to try and avoid the crowds. It worked! I got there, and although there were tourists there, it wasn’t busy, so I often got to walk through the forest in amazement on my own and get down with nature.

What an amazing experience! One

of the items on my bucket list is to hold a monkey, and hold a monkey I did - several times! Hold a monkey is probably the wrong description. I got jumped by monkeys several times, is probably more fitting. You would walk through and all these little monkeys would be running around you, and if they smelt food on you - you would get it! Within the first 5 minutes, I had my bag ripped as they tried to go into my ruck sack, clearly smelling yesterday’s left over croissant that was shoved and squished at the bottom. I had also (intentionally) wrapped some fruit in a tissue, in an attempt to attract my furry friends. They had that away in seconds too. Another monkey then stole my bottle of water, which was cool to then see him try and open it. He started smashing it against a rock in an attempt to get it open; which only reminded me of how similar we are to these primates...

You hear tales that they jump on you, but until you are there and see it with your own eyes and experience it in person, you can never know the delight and excitement of this place! There are beautifully carved stone statues of monkeys, gods and weird monster type things, dotted all over the place; a beautiful temple is also situated in the centre of this beautifully green forest. Such a beautiful place to just wander around… After about 3 hours or so, I noticed it was starting to get rather busy with tourists, so having walked around for ages already, I decided to try and find the exit. As I was heading for the exit gate my photographic eye caught a beautiful shot that I just had

to get. There was an ornately carved stone wall adjacent to a row of trees with a beautiful little foot path separating the two. The sunlight was breaking through the leaves and so floor was bathed in speckled light. I KNEW it would make for a fabulous photo. Unfortunately, in the distance at the end of the foot path was a small group of tourists, so I decided to just sit on a wall and wait for the tourist to move on, so that I could get my shot. As I sat there quietly, I looked to my left and this little monkey game bouncing out of the trees, running up the path - straight for me. It then jumped on me, which I wasn’t expecting, and was a little startled, which in turn startled the monkey too, and as a result the little shit BIT ME!
Two American lads came over to see if I was ok, initially I didn’t think it had broken the skin, however as soon as I put some antibac on it, it became apparent that the little shit had broken the skin and sure enough out came the blood. Oh shit…

I then decided that getting out of this place was a good idea, and that actually, these littles creatures are not as cute as I had first thought! I then headed for the first aid station where I had it cleaned and had iodine put on it. Because the bite is so small I really didn’t think much of it, plus the staff assured me the monkeys do not have rabies - and that was good enough for me!

Eventually, I made my way out of the forest avoiding every single monkey that so much as came close to me. I then decided to hit the market again, which I had seen briefly the following day with the cooking class. As I made my way up the road I stopped off to look at a few pieces of art and found a small

shop at the bottom of the high street, near the forest, selling very cheap art! I am hoping I will be in a position to buy my own house in a year or two, so have decided to start buying pieces to hang in my new house for when I eventually become a home owner. I started to haggle for 3 paintings, however I soon realised I didn’t have enough cash on me anyway, so told the artist I would be back after I had found an ATM or money exchange booth. Turns out the cash machines were at the other end of the long stretch of road, so after walking for about 15 minutes I found an ATM, but soon realised I was closer to ubud market than I was the art shop; so I decided to continue up the high street to the market. On route, I stopped off at a restaurant as I was starting to feel a bit sick and had a bit of a tummy ache. I figured it was just hunger pains, so I ate, and then headed up to the market. Turns out the food market is only on from 4am - 10am. 10am onwards is the general market, selling everything from jewellery to ornaments, to masks to clothing. This is the same market that Eat, Pray, Love was filmed. I didn’t take too many photos here, as to be honest, it was not as exciting to snap as I had anticipated. Plus, it was quite busy and I wasn’t really in the shooting mood. I found a few art stalls and had a browse, but nothing jumped out at me quite like the 3 canvases I had seen earlier that afternoon. Eventually I made my way out of the crowds after having bought a few items, and worked my way back down the high street to find the first art shop where my three canvases awaited my return. I managed to catch the guy before he closed his shop, and I bought my three pieces of art for an absolute steal! It’s so cheap here!!

The rest of the evening was pretty low key. I grabbed a quick massage on the way back to the hotel, then had a swim, and finished off my afternoon with an afternoon tea. Delightful. What a lovely day (minus the monkey bite)!

I had already posted on Facebook about my monkey bite, so by the time I got back to my hotel, I had a few messages from various people who seemed to be a lot more concerned about the monkey bite than I was. Eventually I decided to make a phone call and spoke to a doctor. It was then that I realised that this is quite serious. The doctor told me to go to hospital immediately and ensure I got a rabies shot as soon as possible, as there are several cases of rabies in Bali and to err on the side of caution, I should get it checked out. I then proceeded to Google rabies, which is the worst thing I could have done as I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night as my mind was wurring with the possibility that I might have rabies and would die in 3-12 weeks. Damn you Google!

I also did some research into hospitals in the Seminyak area (my next destination) and found a decent looking private hospital with positive reviews. I decided I would go the following day as soon as I arrived at my next location…