How Getting Ambushed By Killer Monkeys In Indonesia Helped Me Understand Life
A True Story (No, Really)
Great pictures don’t always have exciting stories behind them. The opposite is also true. Sometimes, mediocre pictures contain the best stories. Lempuyang Temple in Bali is a perfect embodiment of that truth.
Most of you reading this, if you have even a moderate interest in social media travel accounts, have probably seen the famous gateway to heaven photo at Lempuyang. Some of you may have even visited there yourselves.
About two years ago I posted my own version of this iconic Instagram photograph to my own feed and it got a lot of engagement relative to some of my other posts during that period. From an aesthetic standpoint, it is a beautiful picture, but the real life experience behind it is much less enchanting.
Side Note: You’ll find that a lot of Bali is set up this way. Entire destinations on the island are designed and maintained with one goal in mind — to attract Instagram tourism. To that end, they do serve their purpose. The photos taken in these scenic locations are truly captivating. They entice more tourists to go to these spots to get their own versions of the same exact photo and the local people get a steady stream of income. At least it was that way before covid times, but back to the story…
The location of the gateway is at the bottom most part of this Hindu complex. For those who show up without sarong wraps, they can be rented before embarking on your journey. However, if the sole purpose of your journey is to get the gateway to heaven photo, then the journey will be rather short. The gate is found not too far from where you rent the sarongs.
After climbing some stairs, you are greeted by what is supposed to be a holy place, but resembles more of a photoshoot than a place of worship. There’s a long line to be able to have your chance at Insta-fame but there are also lots of enthusiastic photographers snapping away from other angles. Eventually, if you’re patient enough, you too can reach the front of the line. You then pay a small fee to two men that take the money shots on your behalf. Friends or kind strangers behind you take some candid extras.
As you can see above, the result is beautiful.
On the other hand, you have this much less aesthetic photograph below.
This picture was taken at the topmost temple within the Lempuyang mountain complex. It took three and a half hours to hike up there and it was very much “in the clouds”.
Not figuratively, but literally.
Although it is much less likely to garner thousands of likes on your feed compared to the gateway to heaven, it represents something so much more personally rewarding. Even now when I look at it, I get hit with a nostalgic flashback of the entire uphill trek that it took to earn it.
The single biggest highlight of the day’s adventure came a few minutes before reaching this — the last of six — temples. Me and my two compatriots had a true Indiana-Jones-like experience.
As we slowly walked through the misty clouds, a particularly thick layer of solid, white air drifted to our west. Within seconds, a monkey on the ground was unveiled to us.
It began walking in our direction.
Moments later, more of his friends appeared through the cloudy wall of whiteness. There were probably about six or seven of them in total. The three of us paused.
Instinctually, I stomped my front foot forward, waved my arms and hissed at the leader. I made an on-the-spot assumption that it would work to scare him and convince him and his squad to retreat.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
He hissed right back and showed his teeth.
Now I’m not fluent in Balinese monkey body language, but my gut told me that whatever his intent behind the gesture and sounds was, it wasn’t gonna be good for the humans.
It didn’t bode well for my confidence that the surrounding ambiance already had that cloudy, fluffy, we-could-already-maybe-be-in-heaven-and-not-know-it look.
Our distant evolutionary brethren continued marching towards us. Realizing that we were about to get ambushed, we looked at each other with the understanding that it was time to run backwards from whence we came.
So we took off and sprinted for approximately two minutes until we could no longer hear them trailing us.
Once we reached safety, we were faced with a game changing decision:
Would we make it past the final boss and his henchmen, or would we cower and make our way back down?
The choice was clear. We didn’t make it that far, to only get that far.
The final of the six temples would be reached and it would be reached by us. That was the goal. We would accomplish it. There was a group of Hindu pilgrims that was slightly ahead of us and we hadn’t seen them pass us in the other direction yet — which meant they must’ve made it through. If they could do it, then so could we.
After some brainstorming, a children’s rhyme would reveal our path forward — sticks and stones. We dispersed within a short audible radius of each other and began gathering. When we felt that we had accumulated a sufficient amount, we marched onward to the site of our initial retreat.
Sure enough, the monkey bandits were waiting for us. We assembled into a triangle formation, shoulder-to-shoulder. I felt my inner Russell Crowe activate the Gladiator within.
“Lock your shields! Stay as one! As one! As one! Hold! Hold! As one!”
Okay, maybe we didn’t have shields, but in that moment, you couldn’t tell me nuthin! I was ready to avenge the murder of Marcus Aurelius.
As both sides began inching closer towards each other, my squadron began throwing stones while simultaneously wielding sticks in all directions. With no detailed expectations other than us hoping it would somehow disperse our little friends without hurting them, we were pleasantly satisfied with the results.
There were a few monkeys that didn’t give up right away, but most of them did. The holdouts quickly realized they were abandoned by their crew and retreated into the clouds shortly thereafter as well. Nobody was hurt.
We stayed in triangle formation — just in case! — for about another minute as we slowly walked toward the final temple.
A few minutes later we reached our destination.
… and I have a few photographs as a beautiful memory of the whole experience.
And what a beautiful memory indeed.
It’s not only a memory because of the story, but it also reinforced for me certain practical elements about life.
Starting with the fact that life is one big journey, made up of lots of smaller journeys.
For some journeys we plan.
Others are spontaneous.
Some journeys may be short and relaxing. Enjoy them for what they are, even if it sometimes feels like it’s not long enough.
Others are long and tiring. Be determined and resourceful, and you will see them through to the end.
Sometimes our vision of how events are going to unfold, don’t match up with the reality of how they actually end up unfolding.
Unexpected characters and events may be introduced to throw us off our path — but — if we are able to improvise to adapt to our new circumstances, then we will increase the likelihood of reaching our destination.
It all comes down to taking stock of new factors when they are introduced into an equation, seeking to understand their impact, and then adapting as necessary to be able to achieve the goal — regardless of the obstacles.
Most of this is probably common sense to a good lot of you, but I find that many of life’s good-rules-to-abide-by are better followed when awareness is shined upon them every so often. That holds true whether that awareness is in the form of surviving and overcoming a sudden monkey ambush, or in the form of reading an article on Medium.
Stay well my friends and may you overcome whatever ambush life throws your way.
Thanks for reading.
