I was in India for the first two weeks of October on business. My dad and uncle joined me for a week of it as tourists. I'm finally wading through all the photos and video and trying out iMovie for the first time, so the next few posts will probably be about the trip. When you get sick of it, go visit tvtropes.org. It has nothing to do with India, but is a strangely entertaining site.

We spent a 3-day weekend in Jaipur and visited the holy monkey temple called Galta. It's pretty well hidden with no signs to indicate you're on the right path. It was raining and a man on a motorcycle led us the last couple of miles there. We (unintentionally) timed this visit perfectly. We tried to feed a few monkeys some peanuts, but they were all running past us -- dozens of them descending the hill like fire ants after the mound is disturbed.

They were headed to a guy on the stairs cutting up cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes. We worked our way through the crowds of monkeys to the top of the stairs where a man beckoned for us to crawl into a small temple and leave a tip in exchange for a blessing.

Once the fresh food was gone, the monkeys regained interest in the peanuts we had purchased at the front gate. While I was distracted, a large monkey knocked the bag out of my hand and the peanuts spilled down the steps. Some of the aggressive ones would pull on your pant leg for a peanut. And if you held two or three peanuts in your hand, they would pry open your fingers to get them all at once. We were warned to not try this with monkeys you find elsewhere in the area -- these ones were accustomed to tourists.

These are rhesus monkeys. Photos of the more impressive (but not as friendly) langur monkeys coming in a later post.