Monkeys, Red Pandas, and Monks! Oh My!

Cute critters do a lot to make a place great, in my book. So the sighting of Red Pandas that we had the other day on a hike out of McLeod Ganj kept me going for about two days. Rich and I were on a trail amazingly free of people or trash (India has a big litter problem, more on that later.) when he saw a dark shape dash away down a slope. I got the camera out and we stalked the elusive shape, well, ok, we continued to walk up the trail, but quietly. We discussed what we thought the creature was, it looked like a pine martin, a member of the weasel family, only larger and with a bushier tail. We were pretty sure it wasn't a cat type creature, the body shape was wrong, and it wasn't one of the many monkeys, wrong color and wrong behavior.

Around the corner on the trail and there it was again, dashing away up the slope, then another one dashed as well and we got a better look at it when it curiously peered back down at us. Red Pandas. Also known as Indian Raccoons. They are reddish golden on their backs with darker legs and belly, and a ringed tail. The faces have white mask markings, like our US raccoons but they are larger and longer. We walked a little farther and heard a horrible fighting noise coming from a tree, and two more ran down the tree and we watched them skirt around us. I got one photo where you can actually see the fast moving thing. Very exciting.

Monkeys and trash. As I mentioned, India has a litter problem. A big litter problem. It is everywhere, spilling down slopes in towns, covering the train tracks, in piles along the main streets of small and big towns. We see people just drop trash where they stand, and there aren't many options for them. Some of the hill towns are making a concentrated effort to clean up, like Simla, and have trash cans which say Use Me, but in most places the only option is to toss stuff down. I have been amazed at the length and breadth of the litter and here in McLeod Ganj, but part of the puzzle was solved. Monkeys and dumpsters.



We watched a gang of monkeys puling trash out of dumpster and dragging it all over the hill. Potato chip bags, plastic bags, bottles, you name it, the monkeys wanted a closer look. The dumpster lids are propped open so the monkeys have easy access. There would be a market for monkey proof dumpsters here in India, like the ones Yosemite uses to foil the bears. And today I saw a cow pick up the end of a trash bag in her mouth, lift, and shake. The trash that had been neatly contained, perhaps awaiting pickup, was now spread all over the street. Monkey and cow proof dumpsters would help a lot. A friend did point out that tradionally most of the trash would have been recycled by the cows into fuel; cow dung. But with so much plastic and other non-cow-munchable trash now in the packaging stream, the trash has no where to go.



Yesterday we did about a 14 mile hike up the ridge above town to get a better view of the Himalaya mountains. It was a great hike and the view was totally worth is. As a bonus we also had another question answered. (India generates a lot of questions.) McLeod Ganj is the residence of His Holiness the Dali Lama, and of the Tibetan government in exile so there are many Buddhist monks and disciples. Where there are Buddhists there are strings of prayer flags. Now, a string of prayer flags hung from a railing or balcony or small tree is pretty, but a string of prayer flags hung from forty feet up a pine tree, or thirty feet up a cliff is pretty amazing. How did they do that? Rich advocated for the rock tossing method, tying one end of the prayer flag string around a rock and tossing it into the tree, much like we did hanging our food bags from bears in the Sierras before the invention of bear proof canisters (there is theme of animal proofing going on here). On our hike yesterday we heard voices from around a bend in the trail, above the trail really. We stopped and looked up and saw the distinctive red robes of a Buddhist monk high in a tree, dragging a string of prayer flags after him. You didn't have to know the language to recognize that there was an argument going on. The Monk on the ground was yelling at the Monk in the tree. Probably to go higher. The Monk in the tree was yelling back. Probably to piss off. We kept hiking. Nothing we could do to help there.