they keep stealing my stuff, is the game encouraging me to shoot them because I don't want to. Is there another way of getting my stuff back without shooting them?

I was just talking about this is another thread. Follow the 1st one, he leads you to goodies, blast the rest...they bite and they steal.

The first one should grab a medi pack from you but he will drop it eventually.

Oh damn, I let it run away with my med pack because i didn't want to shoot her. At this point I found one that stole a key right in front of me, I loaded the game and took it fast before it got to it. I don't know it just feels wrong shooting them.

I felt the same way. That will change later when they start to attack. Untill they do it's fine to ignore them so long as you are fast enough. I was going to mention grabbing it before them but in the 10 million times I've played TR3 I've only been able to beat them to it twice. :P OH, off topic, when you finish the rain forest go to Area 51 FIRST! TRUST ME! It saves you a lot of aggrivation later on.

Oh thanks, I didn't know I can choose where to go

This game is way harder then the previous two, I'm only at the second stage in India and I made a poopload of saves and I think I'm stuck too, also those invisible platforms are insane, I have no idea how I managed to figure that out.

The statues should indicate where the platforms are with their "breath". If you are totally against walkthroughs ignore this but if you get desperate this link is the best one out there IMHO.

http://tombraiders.net/stella/tomb3.html#walk

you just have to beat the monkeys to the items. it's not too hard to do