Bundi and Some Monkey Business

I arrived in Bundi at 4:15 am and was quickly shuttled to my guest house where the staff, having been woken up unnecessarily early, was still more than helpful and showed me to my room.

I woke at 10:30am, had breakfast and immediately began to wander around the city. I decided to explore the most famous sites first, which I usually save for last, and ended up getting the shit scared out of me. This is why I shouldn't break routines.

First I stopped in the palace and and quickly made my way though. Once I had my fill I excitedly moved on to the Taragarh; a massive fort overlooking the palace and city. The path up was really sketchy and had places where the path completely disappears. This was only slightly alarming. The other red flag was that there wasn't a single soul in sight and every now and then a bird would jump out of a tree and fly away or monkey would run across the path behind me. I walked the rest of the way up with stones in each hand, just in case.

When I got to the top I realized there was still no one around. This made for an eerie like ghost ruin. I was now getting increasingly uncomfortable. I then got even more uncomfortable when I stepped a thorn as big as my pinkey and it went right through my sandal and into my heal. This happened repeatedly over the next hour roaming the sight. All aside, I still managed to talk myself into going into the abandoned buildings to climb into the dark stair cases and explore. Atop one of the towers, I figured I should read up on the site. The second sentence makes it clear that this is not a place to roam alone and if you feel so daring to take that risk, you must be armed with at least a sturdy stick. Why? Because the site is swarming with packs of monkeys! Now I'm totally bugging out. I scurry to find some kind of stick or shaft and end up stumbling upon a flimsy, fallen branch covered in thorns. I smoothed the stick out with a rock and pointed the tip. This thing was completely useless but it looked intimidating. So I figured now would be a good time to get the hell out of here. As I made my out of the site, the path was blocked off at every turn by packs of monkeys, they came out of no where. They weren't showing any signs of aggression or anything but were still intimidating given the circumstances. After realizing they are blocking the ONLY way down, I had to man up and walk through them....alone....sacred out of my wits. Fortunately, the monkeys were just as afraid of me as I was of them and they scattered as I got half way through. This sent all the hairs on my body straight up.

When I got down I was greeted by some locals who knew exactly what I went through. We then all sat laughing, attempting to talk, and picking the remaining thorns out of my Chacos.