Monkey Attack!!!!

25th of June 2005 was my first day of holiday in Bali. It was.. impressive, I can say. On that day, many new things happened to me. On 24th, I arrived in Ngurah Rai airport with mixed feeling. Partly tired, due to workload and lack of sleeps on the last few days, but mostly I feel like screaming “Yippeeeeeee!!!!” and announcing to the whole world that finally my time for holiday comes. It’s my first holiday after 2 years of working. My cousin picked my up from airport, whom I haven’t seen for around 8 years. Luckily nothing much changed from us, so we both didn’t approach the wrong person.

Arriving at Sanur Paradise Plaza Suites at around midnite, I met my flat mates: R, A and C. R and C were my seniors in NTU. Different school, different batch and halls of residence limited our exchange of conversation back then. However, we hit it off instantly and we were no different from old friends anymore. Our loud voices accompanied our journeys. Teasing and laughters were also not left behind.

Saturday morning, we left our residence at 8.15 am to head towards Ayung River for my first Rafting Adventure. It was… WOW!!! The only drawback is the “natural stoney staircase” to and from the riverbank. The steps were sooooo high and it seemed like an endless journey. Our calves went shaky. Our breath went short. But it was all paid off when we reached the river. Wow, totally wow. We rafted below a gorge, below hundreds of bats. We passed through waterfalls, everything was still untouched. Though sometimes the rock hindered our cruise, but it is still better than a man-made one, right?
We could see more rainbows during our adventure than all the rainbows we have seen in our life.

The adventure was concluded by a lunch feast. A buffet of rice, fried rice, fried noodle, pecel (Indonesian mix of vegetables with peanut sauce), fried chicken, fried tahu and tempe, chicken satay, macaroni soup. Desserts of fruits, banana fritters and tapioca fritters just made it complete. The drink… Teh Botol Sosro, a bottled sweetened tea which is always missed by Indonesian abroad…

Next, after we went back to our suites, we went for massage at 3 pm. However, none of us really enjoyed it. So the story skips to Uluwatu Temple. It’s a Hindu temple above a cliff, in the southern part of Bali. From there, we can see beautiful sunset with the background music of ocean wave thumping the cliff. Everything was sooooo breathtaking. All visitors must wear decent clothings, those who wear shorts or mini skirts must be covered up by Balinese Sarong.

So here we were, amazed by the scenery, the weather, the ocean sound, and everything….

I forgot that there are many “wild” monkeys around!! They get “wilder” the higher you go (the place where you can find less visitors). When I was a bit off-guard, a monkey grabbed my glasses. It just stopped by my shoulder in a very tiny moment, and the next thing I knew is that my eyesight went very blur (what with my minus 925 and 875 plus astigmatism, my eyesight without glasses was significantly blur!!). I let out my soprano scream and few native people came and bribed the naughty monkey with peanuts or dunno-what since I couldn’t really see.

Afterwards, I always made sure that I held my glasses. My friend R walked beside me and holding her necklace’s pendant. But at one second moment, I was A BIT unattentive and there went my glasses for the second time!!! This time was scarier as the monkey stood at the top of one pillar and behind it was the cliff with the wild ocean wave below!!! My glasses could say good bye to me while flying down anytime. My friend also went panic. The guys, A and C could even hear our soprano screams. Luckily the person there could help me get my glasses back.

Well, twice is already more than enough for me. So off I went with R walked beside me and showed the way out.

With this, I definitely scrapped off the idea of going to Sangeh, The Monkey Forest.