Bali's Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary and more!

Lee and I both had night flights from Bali so Lee arranged a driver for us to see some of the highlights on Bali including the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary; I was walking past when this monkey jumped on me and decided to stay

There are 5 monuments on one side of the river at Gunung Kawi and 4 on the other; President Obama lived in Indonesia as a child and has visited this shrine

Rice had just been planted in the Ceking Rice Terraces; Bali is famous for it's beautiful rice terraces (including one that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site but it was too far away)

This would have been Lee and me waiting all day at the Bali airport; instead Lee got us a driver so we could see Bali and the cost was only $56 for the whole day

This temple in the middle of the Sacred Forest Monkey Sanctuary dates from the mid-14th century; admission to the monkey sanctuary was only $5.60

We saw some enormous banyan trees on Bali which are sacred to the Hindus; for the Balinese, the tree is a symbol of unity and power and is depicted on the national coat of arms of Indonesia

I kept getting Lee to inch closer but this was as close as he would get; the monkey didn't seem bothered as he was content eating (I don't think the monkey would have shared though)

The main food of the monkeys is sweet potato but they also like bananas, corn, papaya leaf, coconut and cucumbers; there was plenty of food throughout the sanctuary as these guys were very well fed

Thriving Ubud was congested with American stores (including Circle K); we didn't spend the night at the Ubud Four Seasons like the Obamas did

Gunung Kawi is an 11th-century temple and funerary complex in central Bali that is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the 23 ft high cut rock shrines are carved into sheltered niches of the sheer cliff face

We had to climb up and down 272 steps to reach the Gunung Kawi shrine near Ubud; while we were at the bottom torrential rains came and turned the steps into a waterfall!

There are millions of deities in the Hindu religion and I wonder how you can even know the 100 most important ones; there tend to be more goddesses than gods and, typically, they represent spiritual concepts

Bali has a very modern airport with non-stop service from Istanbul, Moscow, London and all major Asian cities; unfortunately, North Americans have no non-stop service but you could visit Japan, Singapore or Hong Kong en route

Indonesia has banned Chinese visitors due to coronavirus; the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary was full of stone carvings of the various Hindu gods

About 1060 macaques occupy the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary; you're told to not bring food into the park since the monkeys will steal anything (including hats and hand sanitizer)

Locals are buried in temporary graves until they have a community cremation ceremony which, for this community, is only once every 5 years; Hindu customs were followed everywhere we went on Bali

All females participate in protecting and rearing the many babies; the male monkeys live to be 15 on average while the females live closer to 20 years

The monkeys spend a large amount of time grooming each other; our driver highly recommended Komodo National Park (rather than Raja Ampat which he thought was too expensive)

Bali is the only Hindu part of Indonesia, with the rest of the country being majority Muslim; Bali had modern roads and was much more Westernized than other places I've seen in SE Asia

Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary; this area is known for cool glass bowls melted to conform with part of a tree which is used as the base; woodworking is a popular profession with lots of furniture made in the area

There are plenty of Russians visiting Bali (see lower right); the Ubud area has become more famous due to the best-selling book and movie (starring Julia Roberts)- Eat, Pray, Love