Monkeys at Taj Mahal & Everywhere

I got attacked by one of the monkeys while I was at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. They really let animals just run rampant, even in their tourist attractions and holy shrines. Cows have priority on all roads. Pigs and goats eat through the refuse piles (we're talking four to five foot heaps of blackened compost lining roads). Feral dogs scurry about. And the monkeys simply run amok.

At the Taj Mahal, I was crouched down using my zoom lens to take a picture of a monkey with the Taj behind him. Then all of a sudden he vanished from my lens (narrow FOV when zoomed). So I lower the camera and see the little bugger crouched right in front of me, poising to spring from his hind legs and jump on me. I immediately had visions of some crazy monkey disease in India oozing from my bleeding neck (why did I envision a vampiric monkey? I dunno). I stood up, put my arms in the air to "be much bigger" and made a loud noise which scared him away. Perhaps I should add, these aren't little monkeys running around India either - many are the size of small children like this one.

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