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| Monkey looks innocent and friendly. Looks can be deceiving certainly. |
Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary commonly
called as Ubud Monkey Forest, was one of the tourist attraction at Ubud,
Bali, Indonesia, even ranked 4th at Tripadvisor. This is where you
can have interaction with monkeys while walking along the forest with sunlight
filtering through the trees. There are three temples in the forest but we haven’t
seen any due to an incident that happen just few minutes of walking around.
We didn’t plan to go anymore because
one of our friends is afraid of monkeys but our driver suggested that we
stopped by for few minutes and it’s along the way to our next stop. So we
agreed and we were accompanied by local tour guide. After few minutes, one of the monkeys who we
were about to cross paths walk towards me and climb to my legs, my back then
stayed at my head even there is nothing we were doing to provoke it, not
feeding any of them at that moment and not calling or playing with them, we
were just walking to look around. The monkey was on “beast mode”! (as we,
Filipinos use ‘beast mode’ to indicate aggressiveness) and I got multiple
scratches on my shoulders and legs. I’m calmed even i can feel its claws in my
skin but my friend got panicked and the monkey got more aggressive and its
fangs were out. It took few minutes for the animal to calm and for the guide to drive
it away.
Based on my traumatic encounter
with them, I DON’T RECOMMEND TO GO THERE AT ALL. Or if you still do, you’ve
been warned! Make sure you received rabies pre-exposure prophylaxis before
heading there else you’ll have same unfortunate fate like mine that need to go
through the post-exposure prophylaxis anti-rabies vaccination, wherein I have
to go through five intradermal regimens which cost me S$150 per shot (It’s crazy how
expensive it is in SG). One dose of the vaccine should be
administered on days 0, 3, 7, 14 and 28.
Details for the vaccination: http://www.who.int/rabies/human/postexp/en/
Details for the vaccination: http://www.who.int/rabies/human/postexp/en/
