Jaipur: Round Four

We are oh so close to the Taj Mahal. It is 1:15am for me and we leave at 5:30 to catch this man-made wonder of the  world at sunrise as it opens at 6am.

We left Jaipur this morning but on the way out we stopped at a Monkey Temple. As I mentioned in a previous post, monkeys are pretty special around here. They are considered higher than untouchables (which are the folks outside of the caste system). This monkey temple was interesting and cemented local values in incredible ways. When we first walked in there were two temples with multiple holy men/prayer people (not sure what else to call them) by their various shrines created for various gods, most vying for your attention while assuring it will not cost you any money. We took a look at some if them but moved on quite quickly.

This temple property consists of additional temples at the top of the mountain, the temples with shrines at the bottom that i just referred to and in between there is a stone path connecting the two. As you move upwards you first pass the women's bathing pool. As you move up farther you get to the mens bathing pool. And the highest pool is the monkey bathing pool. Bathing in these waters (in the appropriate ones, of course) is considered to be good luck/holy. And at this temple monkeys are the most important.

On the way to the top there are boatloads of monkeys everywhere.  Couldn't tell you what kind hut they're grey and many have red keisters. And I think they're ugly. There was a man, the monkey whisperer, who came with chippata (naan like bread) and made some noises and a boatload of monkeys surrounded him. He was kind of like the Pied Piper monkey style. It was neat to watch him interact with them. 

Note: this is not the first time we've seen monkeys in India. They are quite common here, actually. We saw them in Jodhpur and Pushkar as well.

At the top of the mountain there were a couple smaller temples: one to Surya the Sun god and one to Durga (I believe), the god of health. They were quite similar to many other temples. The building in the left of the pic is the Surya temple as I overlook Jaipur.

It was just plain interesting to see so much time and effort put into creating a Holy place for monkeys. And it is so normal. Out culture has the same issues but in different forms but, it is still interesting. People lying on the streets and a pool with surrounding stonework create a place for monkeys to bathe.