Alas Kedaton — Attraction in Bali

Really upsetting experience. The monkeys were cool, but the fruit bats held in captivity and available for photo ops was disturbing. They keep the bats locked up at night in a small structure and they force them to be handled during the day for tourists to take pictures with (unlike the monkeys that are free to come and go but choose to be there, and to me do not appear harmed by being photographed because they are in control of their movement). At the end, you are subjected to an extremely uncomfortable sales pitch while locked in a small room full of extremely overpriced souvenirs. They say they have to close the door so monkeys don't come in, but there is no excuse for LOCKING the doors. I felt very very uncomfortable immediately just due to that. Then the woman relentlessly begs you to buy something. Literally begs. I didn't want anything because none of it appealed to me, and I was running out of room in my suitcase, so I had to decline over and over again. I felt bad, so I offered her a tip instead. This seemed to upset her even more and her tone got even more confrontational, begging me to "come on, just buy one little thing" and groan and sigh loudly when I politely declined for what must have been at least the 20th time. I recommend skipping and going to the Ubud monkey forest instead. The space is much larger and more beautiful, no exploited fruit bats, and no excruciating...

Alas Kedaton temple and forest is located in Kukuh countryside, Marga Sub district, Tabanan Regency . It is a small forest measuring about 6-7ha located in the middle of the rice field in Tabanan regency, west part of Bali. In this place you'll see hundreds of monkeys in their natural habitat. It's one of the Bali attractions where monkeys exist, free and peaceful. High up on the big trees many bats area hanging and singing with their loud voices. It's very easy for the visitor to make videos, pictures - and meals might be taken in to offer to monkeys although sometimes this will make you a target for a monkey mugging which might be an interesting experience. The monkeys in Alas Kedaton Temple are very tame and free gallivanting in temple yard, so that the calm atmosphere is sometime solved by noise voice of the monkey, which are playing around and scrambling of food. The monkeys who dwell in Alas Kedaton Temple, there are jump up and down in temple wall, take a bath in moat or there is also hang out in few leaves representing impression view. The monkey like as custodian of temple, which are always ready to greet all visitor who are paying a visit to Alas Kedaton Temple. Beside monkeys, in Kedaton forest also can be met the bats and some other animals. At least 24 types of grove plant have been identified in Alas...

So you arrive in a run down parking lot, complete with starving dogs (no I am not exaggerating, see the pics) ... you are assigned a "guide" ... who first tries to sell you peanuts to feed the monkeys then takes you on a 10 minute walk around the compound, explaining the overpopulation of monkeys and how they could not exist unless tourists fed them.

Oh, and lets not forget the flying fox bats ... the nocturnal animals that normally live in dark caves that are displayed in the full sunlight and handled by tourists (for a fee of course) all day.

Well little does the unsuspecting tourist know but this "guide" is also a shop owner ... these shops are cages with locks like prison cells ... of course this scam is not revealed until the end where they take to to "their store" and literally plead, I mean seriously beg you to buy something ...

In our case I attempted to just give the lady a tip for taking us around the run down facility however she was almost frantic that I had to buy something ... once I had enough of that I turned to leave and actually had to unlatch the caged "store" to get out ... it really is a poorly run and maintained facility not to mention a straight out pathetic scam.

Take a pass unless you really want to see monkeys, just know you will be hustled...