In Reply to: Bit nervous about Monkey Forest posted by Aimee on Monday, 13. July 2009 at 09:21 Bali Time:
I went to the one in Ubud years ago and have no desire to go again. A few years ago, a driver talked us into going to the one at Sangeh and it was fabulous. From memory it only cost us Rp10K each to get in. There were 3 of us, all women, and we had about 4 guides with us as we were the only ones there. We got there early before the tour buses turned up, so I guess that helped. The guides had food (no extra charge for it) and they picked out which monkeys to encourage over to feed and made sure any 'cranky monkeys' were kept at bay. If you wanted a monkey on your shoulders and feed it, the guides set it all up, but if you just wanted to look, no problem either.
Of course one of the guides had a polaroid camera and charged us about Rp30K each for pics, but it was part of the novelty and not compulsory. We followed the path through a gorgeous forest, loads of baby monkeys around and not even a hint of any aggression from any monkeys at all. From the end of the path back to the car park was through a bit of a market set up, but they weren't at all pushy for a sale.