Monkey Business in Rishikesh

blog excerpt by Heather Hodnett, intern on the CFHI Traditional Medicine Rotation in Dehra Dun, India

Another funny thing happened…I had an encounter with monkeys earier this morning! I was just sitting on my bed typing this morning (after I got to sleep in, which was awesome) when I heard a plastic bag rustling in the entry room behind me. I looked around the corner, and there were two mokeys helping themselves to our snacks! I kind of freaked out since I ‘ve heard monkeys will attack people if they feel threatened, so I shut the door to the bedroom. Then I realized that the monkeys would eat all of our snacks if I didn’t scare them out, so I opened the door and started swinging at them with my pajama pants (that’s all I could think of to use!) They slowly just grabbed what food they wanted and walked out the front door, so I totally felt stupid that I was crazily swinging my pants back and forth to scare them off! I shut – and locked – the screen door, only to open it a few minutes later to take a picture of the baby monkey that was still sitting outside finishing the banana that was supposed to be my breakfast. It was pretty funny in retrospect!