Monkey Temple
Last Saturday, on our day off, a good ole boy from the UK named Tom McIver, who is one of VIN’s lead volunteer coordinators, and I visited what is known as Monkey temple. Legend has it that centuries ago the entire Kathamndu Valley was under water and basically a lake. From this lake sprung a large, an extremely large, mound. It mystified the natives of this land so much that both Hindu and Buddhists built, on top of the mound, a monstrosity of a temple in addition to many little temples where people of both religions can worship. Over the years several families of monkeys have migrated to this temple (formally called Swayambhunath Temple: PRONOUNCED: SWAI-EN-BOO) and they are all over the place and so comfortable with the foot traffic that you are warned if you use the temple for a place to have a bite to eat, as snack maybe, the second bite of that snack will belong to the monkey. There are even stories of these animals taking a swipe at cameras. Wonder how many rupees they could get for a camera? Wikipedia Article on Swayambhunath Temple
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