Location: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

So today didn’t go at all how we thought it was going to go… we started out playing with puppies, getting massages and having a tasty breakfast. Good start right?

Before I say anything more I would just like to preface this with:

DON’T PANIC.

Okay now that that’s out of the way… We met a couple from the Netherlands at breakfast, Elise and Ray, and we were chatting away about Bali and fun things we’ve done, recommendations for where to go next, story swapping. You know. The usual traveller fare… when Max starts talking about how they have to go to the monkey sanctuary. Of course they should we had such a great time! “They’ll even climb on you it’s amazing!”

But then it came out that the monkeys were play biting Max, more like nibbling at his shirt, and Elise gets kind of concerned like ‘well do you have your rabies shots?‘

Errrrr no?

We slowly investigated where the monkey had been biting Max, and sure enough there was the teeny tiniest little scratch and a bruise. Like one layer of skin that’s barely the size of a grain of rice. (Although it was exactly where we’d seen a tooth mark yesterday that we had dismissed.)

We’re off to see the doctor!

Luckily it was about a two minute walk to the drop in clinic that was totally empty, save for the few nurses and a doctor about our age. They examined the cut and immediately determined that although they weren’t really concerned, they needed to treat him just to be safe.

Well! As I waited in the lobby here’s a fun list of quotes from the afternoon:

1. “Six shots today?!”
2. Max: “will these hurt?” Doc: “well I’m not gonna lie to you.”
3. “Sav these needles are like three inches long.”
4. *Max laughing really loudly.* (A few times. About six times.)
5. “This is the price of monkey friendship!”

We returned to the hostel with a couple different courses of anti-virals and antibiotics, as well as a schedule for the next three shots we have to get him over the coming weeks. Elise and Ray joined us and we all visited by the pool for a couple of hours, before heading out to grab what was effectively Indonesian tapas. I didn’t know that was a thing but I’m really glad it is! I am truly in love with the food here as everything we’ve eaten has been amazing. Ramon grew up eating Indonesian food, so he had a few good insights for ordering. The four of us hung out back at the hostel until they literally turned off the lights and took our bean bags away. Okay yes that’s a clear sign we should go to bed. We have all made plans to sightsee together tomorrow and it sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun!

All said and done Max is totally fine. Really we were taking more of a precaution than anything and he’s not going to start foaming at the mouth or turn into a weremonkey at any point soon (contrary to all the teasing he got from Elise, Ray and I).

Sav