India Travels 13

This is the wildlife episode of our trip! Yes - it's a monkey - but it's a very special monkey - It's the Guard Monkey at the Jaypee Palace Hotel in Agra - it kept the street monkeys off the property. He was fierce!

Move over Harry Potter - Christine has her Nimbus 2000 and is ready for a game of Quidditch. OR... she just a witch and has her ride!

But, you all do know her motto: "If the broom fits, ride it!" We stopped at a bird & animal sanctuary on our drive to Jaipur. There was lots of water and lots of birds. This is a crane.

This is an antelope and yes, it was close to the road. We were on a bicicyle powered rickshaw and enjoyed the peaceful, open-air ride thru lovely setting.

Cutest little lizard and Scott got a wonderful shot. There were wildlife photographers staying in the lodge in the reserve. Some stay for weeks waiting for that perfect shot.

Another crane with a deer in the background. The reserve had many small "island" they had made over the years to promote nesting birds. At one time this was a maharaja private hunting preserve and he had the trees cut down so his guests could get better sight lines.

Christine saw this monitor lizard at the side of the road. It was 4 foot long and even then guide missed it! I stayed on the rickshaw while Scott got the better shot.

National bird of India is the peacock. No matter how many you see, they are still a thrilling site.

This was the luckiest monkey on the drive to Jaipur. Our driver stopped to buy bananas and knew just when to stop and called them in. They like the bananas, but they were too many monkey to all get a banana, so we threw this guy a whole apple. Vikrum grabbed the rest of the apples from us and broke them apart and gave pieces to the rest of the group. This monkey wasn't gonna share no how, no way!

Only about a quarter of the monkeys that enjoyed bananas and apples. Vikrum told us that he regularily stops and feeds them, but not apples like Americans.