Monkey Forest, Ubud

Monkey Forest is full of cute little Balinese monkeys and Carol and I spent the morning wandering the paths in their home, several acres of ancient trees, a river and a sacred spring. We had just been shopping for some sandals for Carol and one of the cheeky monkeys made off with the shopping bag that the sandals were in! I heard Carol yelling, "Hey, give that back!!" She was chasing the monkey and having no luck retrieving her shopping bag! It is quite a common occurrence in this park where the monkeys are very familiar with tourists, for them to "steal" sunglasses (right off your head), handbags, shopping bags and anything else they might think would be edible or fun to play with! We had read about it, and promptly forgot as we were caught up in the whole experience. Just as we thought the bag was gone, never to be seen again, a calm older Balinese man wandered into the forest and somehow reclaimed Carol's property. I guess we will not forget that experience and Carol and I will have one of those stories to reminisce about for years to come.

 

The Culprit after the fact