Summer has gone, rainy autumn days of grey Oslo inspire some nostalgic mood and finally after some busy weeks of work I've got some time (and inspiration!) to go through all my hundreds of photos and recall one of the most memorable journeys ever done.
So....welcome and let me introduce you to my favourite Indian sight - Monkey Temple.
This is one of the popular touristic and local spots within the mainstream "Golden Triangle", and there are plenty of reasons why it is so favoured both by foreigners and local people. The first time we visited this little extraordinary piece of spirituality was on our way from Agra to Jaipur, during the pouring rain (ehehey, rainy season!), which, yet, didn't prevent Indian women from taking a bath in a pond of the temple. Once we saw the temple, it went without saying that we had to revisit it once the weather allowed us.
Luckily, a public holiday dedicated to the Independence day of India created opportunity for so many Indians to go to temples and entertain themselves in all possible ways. This, of course, allowed us to completely feel authentic atmosphere of this holy monkey place.
One of the staff members told us BBC made a documentary about the temple and I'm still hoping to find the recording any time soon.
Our driver used to to tell us: "Take some bread, go feed monkeys. They bring good karma"
Probably they do when you actually manage to feed them without being attacked for more by those that hang around the roads. In the temple most of them were very calm and let you feed them and take pictures without any hassle. There was even one fellow monkey who thought it was a totally great idea to photobomb my picture by jumping on me to pose for the camera.
I couldn't resist from watching those little babies for another half an hour. The way they live, play, eat, communicate with humans that either worship and feed them or just go to look at them and feed them anyway makes a whole monkey world, which can only be compared to human in the way they express their emotions.
A little bit up on the hill we found a male bath, where females couldn't go unless the female was a tourist.
One of the things that impressed me the most was presence of colour. I felt like somebody suddenly adjusted saturation to the maximum and my eyes were extremely satisfied by being able to have such a variety of hues. It's like instead of eating green apples you were suddenly offered a tropic fruit salad!
Another local habitants that cannot be forgotten to mention are peacocks. Have you ever heard how peacocks sound? I finally have got an idea, since you can hear them from every forest of Jaipur. If I had to describe it I would say that's the kind of the sound that mermaids in the lake from the 4th Harry Potter made.
The most adorable thing about Indian people is their deep connection to the nature and its representatives. Each living being, no matter if it is a mouse, a peacock or a monkey has a meaning in this world. And this was my main lesson of that day.
