Langurs were a common sight in both parks, so common that the guides paid them little attention. As we don’t have a lot of monkeys back home in Kansas, they seemed more interesting to me. So I photographed them as the opportunity presented itself.
I’m sure I must have seemed odd to the folks who grew up with them. When I lived in Washington it always amazed me that some tourists took such an interest in the squirrels. Of course monkeys – however common in India – are more scarce in other parts of the world. Squirrels, on the other hand, can be found pretty much everywhere.
At one point in Bandhavgarh I saw a herd of deer clustered under a tree. The guide said there was probably a troop of langurs up in the branches, and their movements made leafs fall down for the deer to eat.
The langurs were bold. During my first drive in Bandhavgarh the jeep had to swerve a little to miss one who refused to move his tail out of the road.
And two days later we were driving past a house on the other side of the park boundary wall when I spotted a langur running along the tops of the house’s fence, evading a couple of dogs in hot pursuit. Once he got to safety, the monkey produced a guava and started to eat it. I asked the guide if the people in the house left fruit out for the langurs. He laughed and replied, “No, he stole it.”
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