India and more Monkeys

After 26 episodes of this show it’s hard to come up with new scenarios for these very naughty monkeys.  They have already raided several houses, a truck, 2 cars, a farm, a hospital, a children’s playground, a veg market (15 times!) a bicycle, a sweetshop, a bakery, lots of temples and a police station! However, this was the hottest time of year reaching 46 degrees celcius in the middle of the day so the monkeys would be spending a lot of time swimming. They love doing this in the temple pools and cattle troughs dotted around the city and I’d already filmed them jumping off the rooftops 6 metres into the water.  What I hadn’t filmed before though was them swimming underwater… It’s no good tying the GoPro to a stick because sticks are what Jaipur monkeys are beaten with by irate shopkeepers. The only way to get a camera close to underwater monkeys is to tie the camera to a brick and place it carefully on the bottom of the water trough pointing the right way. The trouble is, we had to empty, scrub and refill the trough with clean, clear water that the camera and the monkeys could see through. Monkeys have an uncanny way of recognizing objects that they are not allowed to touch and then try to touch them so most of the shots I was able to get are of a big monkey hand wrapped around the tiny GoPro camera trying to wrench it off the brick. I got the better of them though, as I usually do these days and filmed some extraordinary and unexpected underwater behaviour. The macaques are completely relaxed under the water. With their eyes open they swim several lengths with one breath picking up anything which might be a tasty morsel. 1Underwater Rhesus Macaques Underwater Rhesus Macaques 2Underwater Rhesus Macaques-1 Underwater Rhesus Macaques 3Working with Macaques Working with Macaques

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