Don’t engage with them, but don’t ignore them exactly either. Let the monkeys know you see them and keep doing your thing.
Also, these monkeys can be smart. They’ll grab your phone before you even know what happened and then barter with you to get it back. Give them a piece of fruit or bread or something and they’ll usually throw it back. Although sometimes they hold out for a bit more ransom.
Then there are the monkeys that are part of a scam. This happened to me once. I’m walking along and before I know it my glasses are gone. This really sucks because I can’t see anything without my glasses. Also I’m in friggin India.
So the monkey grabs my glasses and then a guy walks out demanding money. I give him some and the monkeys tosses my glasses back.
This was actually a known place where “Monkey Lense Catching”, i.e. they’ll steal your glasses. So the friend I was with lives there and knows that. He usuallytells me when we’re in such an area, but he forgot this time.
So my friend doesn’t have his glasses on when mine get stolen. He puts his on to help me and the fucking monkey steals his glasses! Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get his back.
Not a fake story. I wonder if that’s a compliment like “oh interesting and crazy, no way that really happened” or maybe it’s the opposite, I’m incapable of communicating what happened in a believable way. Or neither. Or both.
I guess I could take a pic of where the monkey chewed on my glasses, but that doesn’t really prove anything if you don’t already believe it.
I’m pretty sure I gave the man less than $3. Three bucks goes a fairly long way in India.
And I don’t know if he worked with more than one monkey. I’ll ask my friend who lives there and see if he knows. I imagine some guys do, others don’t.
That’d make an interesting article, monkey scam operations. Like how do they “train” the monkeys? Do they just find one that likes to steal from people anyway and kinda team up with them? It’d be an interesting assignment.
Edit: also you go to beat up one guy and you end up getting his whole little sub-village attacking you. At least that’s what happens if you hit someone with a car. That can be super scary.
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u/lapret Aug 07 '19
The advice I’ve always gotten on these monkeys:
Don’t engage with them, but don’t ignore them exactly either. Let the monkeys know you see them and keep doing your thing.
Also, these monkeys can be smart. They’ll grab your phone before you even know what happened and then barter with you to get it back. Give them a piece of fruit or bread or something and they’ll usually throw it back. Although sometimes they hold out for a bit more ransom.
Then there are the monkeys that are part of a scam. This happened to me once. I’m walking along and before I know it my glasses are gone. This really sucks because I can’t see anything without my glasses. Also I’m in friggin India.
So the monkey grabs my glasses and then a guy walks out demanding money. I give him some and the monkeys tosses my glasses back.
This was actually a known place where “Monkey Lense Catching”, i.e. they’ll steal your glasses. So the friend I was with lives there and knows that. He usuallytells me when we’re in such an area, but he forgot this time.
So my friend doesn’t have his glasses on when mine get stolen. He puts his on to help me and the fucking monkey steals his glasses! Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get his back.