Langurs, the other kind of monkey

Often, where you find rhesus macaques, you’ll find langurs. This second type of monkey is different from their macaque cousins in several ways: they have long tails, cream-colored coats, black goblin faces, are strictly leaf eaters (and therefore don’t bother humans the way macaques do), and are adapted to living in the trees with their ability to bounce gracefully from place to place. The locals differentiate the two as “red monkeys” and “black monkeys.” Since they eat different foods, the two kinds of monkeys can occupy a similar territory, although they generally don’t intermingle.

A small band of langurs stopped near our hotel earlier this week to graze on the leaves and flowers of the bushes growing there. Even though I was battling both a nasty chest cold and the end of a bout with traveler's diarrhea, I grabbed my camera and went down to take some photos. Langurs seem to generally be less concerned about the presence of humans, so I was able to get pretty close and get some good shots. Unfortunately, humans seem to be wary -- even frightened -- no matter what kind of monkey, which tends to result in the chasing off of the monkeys with rocks or the waving of sticks. Thus, even the langurs got a little agitated after having me and Danny watch them for an extended period of time, and they eventually took off down the hill.