Did that monkey just fall out of a tree?

Today we took a trip over to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. We did a lion and tiger safari, sounds much cooler than it was actually. I'm sure it's a good day - bad day kindof thing but on this particular day we were able to view: one tiger head sticking up in a pool of water, two sleeping tigers barely visible behind three layers of cages, and a lump of two snugly lions. It was not a very adventurous safari and we probably would have seen more at a zoo but at least I can casually drop into conversations that 'oh yeah... I went on a tiger safari in India..."

We took a car over to the other side of the park (for which we were incredibly ripped off..) and spent an hour climbing ruins of ancient caves. It was amazing and the view over the entire park was really beautiful. It's on my top three favorite places in India list.

While at the caves I took a few pictures with people. Funny story, some Indians are so sheltered that when they see a white person they want their picture taken with you. We're often captured in the "you stand over there so I can pretend like I'm taking a picture of you but turn it at the last second and get them" pictures but sometimes people will just come up to you and excitedly brandish a camera in your face. After the photo shoot I met a very nice old Indian man named... Richard?

When we were climbing down from the caves we saw a monkey! Just chilling out on the stairs. Many pictures were taken, everyone was excited. Then we saw a couple more further down... then more.... then suddenly we were surrounded by a hoard of howling monkeys fifty strong. They were leaping around on the trees above us and one landed on a faulty branch. The branch, and they monkey, actually fell out of the tree and landed behind Nya.. who starts screaming, thus making two other girls scream, plus the howling of the monkeys, and the monkey who was rolling down a hill after falling fifty feet out of a tree. It was a sight to behold.

(don't worry, the monkey was fine)

Let's see, what else. I learned some naughty words in Hindi, I won't repeat them but suffice it to say I can now curse someone out in three languages. My internship actually ended up falling through. We were able to spend one day at a tv set and three days at a film set but that's four days out of thirty and none of them were spent at the movie we were supposed to be interning for. Bummer. Also bummer for Peter Gaya Kaam Se because they've pushed back their beach shoot so much that it's likely not going to get finished... unless they want to shoot it during monsoon season. I finally got real Mendhi! It should last for at least a couple weeks so everyone at home will be able to see it. I've finally picked a Bollywood film star to have a crush on. The lucky winner: John Abraham.

Another random train of thought (sorry this is a long one, I have too much time on my hands tonight..) I feel so... served? all the time and it drives me nuts. Let me explain that. If you go to a restaurant the waiters bring a bowl of food and then serve it to you. Then they come back every 5 - 10 minutes (depending on how expensive the restaurant is) and serve you more. If you try to put more food on your own plate they actually run and grab the bowl away from you. I got so frustrated with it that I actually freaked out the other day and refused to hand over my bowl of rice. People are so pampered here. I saw a mother hand feeding rice to her ten year old son this week (like no spoon... hand in mouth and then let him lick all five of her fingers... another handful). Women don't carry purses, so they can't have money/ID/phones because I know they're not stashing them in their saris.... I guess women just depend on their husbands for those things? They also hand feed their husbands.. just found that out. Agh! I'm too independent for this country. F.Y.I if anyone thinks it's funny and tries to feed me because of this blog you're getting bit.