To end the second day of our Bali trip, we decided to watch the sunset at Uluwatu, the southern most tip of Bali I believe. Due to a horrible traffic jam (apparently one of the worst in Bali), we were stuck for quite long while and needed to take alternative routes to reach Uluwatu. This resulted in us arriving quite late and jostling with hordes of other tourists to take photos of the sunset, the dramatic cliffs of Uluwatu, the strong turbulent waves that crashed into the cliff base and the hordes of thief-like vicious monkeys.
You must be wondering why I have labeled the monkeys as 'thief-like vicious monkeys', well its rather simple, we have a theory that the monkeys in Uluwatu are training to steal (rather quickly and deftly, I might add) spectacles, blink blink, earrings and other knick knacks they can get their paws on. Now to get back the things that have been stolen, you need to pay one one of the locals to get it back from the monkeys. They basically trade with the monkey - the monkey gets a raw egg and you get your earring or spectacles back. Tsk tsk tsk! and btw, its not cheap to get your goods back. So my word of advice, hold on to your possessions real good or else just take all accessories and sunglasses off and put them in your bag for awhile. It's really not worth it to have your items stolen and then paid for to be rescued.
A word of caution: Do not fight with the monkeys. There are heaps of monkeys there and they will attack I believe if you fight with them. I saw a rather tall beefy white man who pulled a rather large monkey by its tail when he was climbing away trying to escape with a possession of the man I guess, but the man tugged several times and the monkey was thrown onto the floor. There was a lot of commotion with other monkeys trying to get to the fallen monkey, tourists scattering around whilst trying to get a good look at the fight and the locals shouting at the white man to stop his craziness. Anyways, the locals stepped in and nothing much happened after that.
I saw another white lady being mugged by a monkey right in front of me. She lost a pretty dangly earring and had to pay to get it back. Before paying, she decided to try her hand at being a monkey whisperer and to coerce the monkey to give her back her earring. The monkey who probably felt hungry just barred its teeth (many sharp ones at that) at her and proceeded to also hiss at her. I guess the lady realised a monkey whisperer she was not, so she paid the local some money and all was well ~ she had a earring, the hungry monkey had his egg which he refused to share with another monkey and the local got his pay for the day.
I like happy endings, don't you? *snicker*
Anyways, it was a pity that we didn't get to see more of Uluwatu. There are very many dramatic seascapes that one can capture and apparently the lace and cloth in Uluwatu is awesome. Perhaps one day I will return to Uluwatu but see other parts of the southern tip.
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| Sunsets @ Uluwatu are legendary |
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| One of the local monkey whisperers |
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| B trying to get a good pic of the setting sun |
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| The thieves a.k.a monkeys of Uluwatu |
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| The hordes of tourists jostling for a view |
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