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Published: April 17th 2006
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Monkeys
What else? It is the Monkey Temple... The third and final part of the Golden Triangle ostensibly became a travel casualty. With the remainder of rupees in my pocket, no ATM card and an overnight trip ahead, I packed up and left paranganj and headed south via autobus. To Agra we joined up with a package and a private bus, this would be my first public transport in India and their bus system is notoriously sketchy. Alas, we wouldn’t hit the school busses for a while as the long trips are commissioned to the private bus companies and we hitched a ride aboard the India Greyhound.
With all the restrictions we had, arriving in Jaipur at 2pm was not conducive to seeing all that was to be seen. Both Royal and I were due back in Delhi, he for his Clinton work and me to try to convince the bank to give me back my lifeblood. We’d have a total of 18 hours and try to fill it accordingly.
The city of Jaipur at the base of some good sized hills, atop of which are temples. We commissioned an auto rickshaw for the remainder of the day after a ride on the bicycle rickshaw took us
half an hour to go three blocks. Maybe that’s cool for a Sunday in central park but we needed to get going. Our rickshaw driver took us to the Jaipur Palace, where we shelled out all too many rupees to wander inside a courtyard for another half hour taking pictures of the clock tower and other pointless artistic renditions of historic artifacts until we found the Monkey Temple.
There were two sights that appealed tome after minor research, the first was the Water Temple which I saw on the busride into town and the second was the Monkey temple which of course had to be cool. The name alone would draw a crowd, lket alone the prospect to play with monkeys. Our route to the temple that was tucked into a hill traced a path full of blind turns and wandering farm animals. On the hike up the hill, there were without exaggeration, at least 30 cows, 20 goats, 15 dogs, 5 pigs and the monkeys were just flying all over the place, through the rocks, in the trees, on the path; animals everywhere.
There was a bit of a bluff that overlooked the city, atop of which
was another temple of sorts but I followed the mass of worshipers that were headed to the temple. Our path wound back down hill after we thought we’d reached the summit of the climb, deep into a valley. Nearly every five steps, there was either a local that wanted you to stop and take their picture or a monkey that wanted part of whatever food was in your hand. You can’t see the monkey temple from the path until you turn a corner and voila, there it all is.
The first thing you see after turning the corner and passing through a small 50 square foot ampitheatre fill of monkeys and collected rainwater, there you’ll find the waterfall. The waterfall collects into a minor reservoir where there are no less than thirty kids swimming. They jump off the side of the reservoir where the stairs climb in and out of the canyon. As they saw us approach they’d dare each other to move one step higher or do one more twist in the air before splash impact.
Below the reservoir and the swimmers was an open field housing row upon row of people lined up eating dinner on
the ground as if they were having an army style picnic. Past cafeteria and more people requesting to have their portrait documented, the elders of Jaipur sat on the steps outside the Monkey Temple guarding inside the secret of how to wear a fat beer belly with pride. All about were monkeys of different varieties taking food from those who had turned their back from their plate and stupid tourists such as myself.
I was so excited when I found out that the monkeys would take the nuts I’d purchased outside the temple directly out of my hand that I got too close. The next thing I knew, I had one monkey grabbing at my bare hand holding morsels of nuts and another monkey snatched the entire bag straight out of my other hand. I was ambushed. The two of them proceeded to wrestle each other until one threw a right cross and scampered the bag to the top of a pick up truck. I’ve been outsmarted by two hungry monkeys, and I don’t even think they were that hungry.
Needless to say, our trip to the Monkey Temple lasted much longer than was originally anticipated so we
had maybe another hour of daylight before our day time in Jaipur was done. We took a quick ride to the Water Temple only to find it completely inaccessible. A large body of water separates the Water Temple from the shores housing a large congregation of Sunday family outings to the lakewalk. Coincidentally, alongside this lake, there was my first opportunity to ride an Elephant in India, which as some might recall was one of the only goals I had for this entire trip. Sadly though, the trunkers that were hauling tourists around were, though it looked bad, were painted in a way I felt undignified and decided to delay my much anticipated Trunker ride till we were in the Jungle somewhere.
The families that hung by the shores of the water were again mesmerized by the prospect of seeing their own picture and many of the children wouldn’t go anywhere that wasn’t by our side as we went along snapping shots of brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned it before but one of the most fun tricks I’ve found to do for some of the street kids I’ve encountered is record
Mother & Child
Blind Faith... with my video camera and turn the LCD picture around so they can see themselves on screen. The honest reactions of some of these children seeing themselves in motion are priceless.
So with the sun setting shortly after our departure from the Water Temple, our time in Jaipur was just about over. The only thing left to do was haggle with the auto rickshaw driver whose quote was, “however much you like” and navigate our way through another sketchy dinner. A bus ride awaited the morning with a trek back to Delhi where I would fight tooth and nail with the bank…
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