Lara's Singapore Blog » Animals

Bali: Ubud’s Sacred Monkey Reserve

Lara — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 01:19:49 +0000

Monkey Forest Road in Ubud terminates at the Monkey Forest Reserve – well actually it doesn’t terminate, but joins Jalan Hanoman (the monkey hero of the Ramayana) and swings back into town. But at this southern end of the town you can enter the reserve, paying a modest price to do so, and with the option of buying bananas for the inhabitants. It contains a whole slew of monkeys; I’ve seen estimates of 340, and new ones are being born all the time.

Naturally, since it’s Bali it has to have sculptures, and the biggest one in the middle of the sanctuary is an ornate swimming pool or bathtub-cum-fountain for the monkeys. They like it and hop in and out, and push each other around in the water like other primates I’ve seen.

The walkway to the bathtub has a concrete berm on the downhill side, where the monkeys line up. They eat the bananas that people bring them, take naps, feed their young, and interact with people. This boy scampered from the entrance to the berm and invited the monkey to play by sitting on the berm:

Note that the monkey has a buddy who has refrained from climbing the boy. I don’t know if they take turns, or if they decided he wasn’t big enough for two, but at any rate they didn’t gang up on him, which was nice. Actually, after closer inspection I’ve decided the buddy may have been preoccupied with nursing her baby.

The monkey took it to a higher level….

Everyone’s happy, and we have a photo op for the boy’s mother. And me, of course.

Of course there’s a temple in the Monkey Sanctuary. It’s not dedicated to Hanoman, but it is definitely monkey-dominated, and I noticed that they don’t keep a lot of delicate materials in the most accessible parts. You can see here the large sheltered platforms that would be used as dance venues ifa dance were scheduled. Despite the monkey access they’re very clean, so they must have a pretty devoted attendant keeping them that way. Human visitors must wear sarongs and sashes (available at the temple entrance) and then they can take even more monkey pictures.

Outside the temple there are lots of monkey statues along the walkways that divide the temple precincts from the surrounding jungle:

These statues look unnervingly lifelike. For comparison here’s a live nursing mother with her tiny baby:

The only unlifelike monkey statue is the giant Hanoman at a different entrance, in an attitude of prayer that I didn’t see any real monkeys assuming; it must be Hanoman, as it’s wearing the sacred checked cloth sarong and has a wise and blissed-out expression appropriate to a devotee of Shiva:

The monkeys like statues as well as fountains:

Or maybe they just like climbing to higher places. One grabbed the end of my pink umbrella and was considering whether he should climb up it, and then up my arm to the top of my head, but I persuaded him not to.

And that’s the end of my Bali blogging. I’ve spent almost as much time editing photos and posting them as I did on Bali. Which means it must be time to go back and see some more!

Bali: Rural life

Lara — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 01:22:14 +0000

These are cheery Balinese cows, in their little shelter about 50 feet from the beach. All the cattle we saw were these smallish red ones. There are little huts all up and down the precipitous slopes of East Bali, and I think they just move the cows to the ones with the lushest grass every day.

Here’s a fairly common sight, a barefoot person carrying fodder up or down the road, presumably to be fed to goats, cows, or pigs. Two loads of fresh weeds balanced on a pole. This looks like a young man toting the stuff, but we saw old men and women doing it. too.
Bali may be Hindu, but it is definitely not vegetarian. The people feed the animals, who feed the people. They eat beef, as well as pork.

This is the entrance to a newer house along the rural road in Amed. There was a lovely wooden door in a green exterior wall, left open so I could peer inside and see a pretty pebble-paved path and a statue of Ganesh. This seems to be the architectural style, to have an open gate with a deity looking out. Sorry the vine obscures Ganesh’s trunk.

Here is a simple family temple compound, on the cliff overlooking the Japanese shipwreck. It’s a little neglected – needs new paint, and the offerings scattered on the ground are probably a week old; usually they are fresh and green, replaced at least once a day by the family, so maybe this family was on vacation for a week. Anyway, if you look closely you can make out a cat in the little shrine on the left. It had been sitting there happily sheltering from the sun, but when I approached with my camera it departed, so it’s mostly a gray shadow.

Singapore Birds: Black Bazas!

Lara — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 06:51:43 +0000

I saw at least four of these this morning on my walk. Apparently they’re migrating south from Thailand – unless they’re locals, but I’d never seen them before. They’re in the area where the dollarbirds were nesting back when I posted about them. Anyway, the feathers on the crests are very cute and floppy. Now let’s see if I can find a picture of this bird’s lovely back:

What a beautiful bird – a subtle red spot near the tail is brighter in the morning sun than on this picture, but Mr. Poh captured the white speckles, the bright, pleasantly predatory eye. These are in the same family as the local buzzards, eagles, and raptors, but are about 11-12 inches long and live on bugs. Their flight in the trees seems to be a smooth swoop.

Pigs Take Over Dorms

Lara — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:50:58 +0000

This morning I saw an infant wild pig meandering calmly around one of the students’ residence halls at NTU. I was all excited, of course, and stopped a passing jogger to share the wonders of nature with her. She seemed unimpressed: “There are many wild pigs here.” After she ran off, I watched, and the janitor from the hall tossed the piglet some bread. I guess that with only YOG athletes in attendance, as opposed to hordes of undergraduates, the pigs have come to feel comfortable on the NTU campus, and are gradually colonizing the place.

That and the fact that the YOG fence makes it very difficult to get back to the jungle. It can’t come down too soon.

Chinese Gardens: Confucius and water monitor

Lara — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:26:17 +0000

The Singapore Unitarians, that small but doughty band, met for a tour of the Chinese and Japanese gardens this morning. I have lots of pictures of statues that I’ll post separately, but here were some highlights:

This is the big Confucius statue towards the southern end of the garden, complete with a couple of dragon-y pillars in front of him and flanked by topiary bushes. We saw him towards the beginning of our walk. And below, the fellow with whose company we ended the tour:

As I think I’ve mentioned before, there are a lot of water monitors in Chinese Gardens.

Lizard photo

Lara — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 02:04:57 +0000

At least the YOG fence gives the lizards a place to hang out. I like its long toes.

Our neighbors: Parcur snails!

Lara — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:15:03 +0000

I was walking between downpours this morning, and saw a lot of snails climbing the YOG fence. Here are the approaches of 3 of them:

Who says you need opposable thumbs to grasp objects?

Ant Architecture

Lara — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 01:41:43 +0000

The little guys have been busy; this sand castle wasn’t there yesterday. In fact, it poured rain yesterday, so this structure dates from sometime last evening. Not bad!

Our neighbors: Very Large Snails

Lara — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:57:37 +0000

To see the scale of this bad boy, I took a picture of him next to my shoe. My toes are about 4 inches across.

Anybody for escargot?

Our neighbors: Chrysalis??

Lara — Sun, 23 May 2010 07:54:07 +0000

This thing caught my eye this morning; it was attached to the evil YOG fugly fence, and it wiggled, although there was no breeze. I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of the picture – although fully caffeinated, I didn’t shake when pressing the shutter.

Something was emerging from the top end, and if you look carefully you can see, not a butterfly or moth’s head, but a rounded caterpillar. While I watched it didn’t succeed in shaking off the cocoon or leaf, or whatever it was, but, holding on to the bottom edge of the horizontal bar, it moved the whole apparatus a centimeter to the left. If you know what this was, please let me know in the comments.