“We are afraid that the hungry monkeys will turn wild and vicious,” villager Saskara Gustu Alit said. About 600 of the macaques live in the forest sanctuary, swinging from the tall nutmeg trees and leaping about the famous Pura Bukit Sari temple, and are considered sacred. The Sangeh Monkey Forest typically had about 6,000 visitors a month, but as the pandemic spread last year and international travel dropped off dramatically, that number dropped to about 500. “A few days ago I attended a traditional ceremony at a temple near the Sangeh forest,” Gustu Alit said. “That’s why I have urged villagers here to come to the forest to play with the monkeys and offer them food,” he said.
