A Morning of Monkeys

It is not often in a lifetime that a teenager is woken by monkeys and not a nagging mother.

This is what happened to Anthony on our weekend away in Pench. This is Rudyard Kipling country and splendid it is.Nestling in the deciduous forests at the corner of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra states this is a little gem.

The game lodge where we stayed had beautiful gazebos, built higher than the bungalows and it was there that Anthony chose to sleep one night. A bed was made, a mosquito net put in place and a romantic lamp and candle were lit to show him the way.

The curtains were firmly drawn around the gazebo the next morning when I woke up. I was reading my book in the light breeze of the morning enjoying being lost in the story, the verdant green and the bird call.

Suddenly a rustle of leaves and a family of langur monkeys appear. They are black faced, gregarious and you can watch them for hours.

On this occasion they decided that jumping all over the roof tiles was great fun and then they started sitting on the gazebo sides as in the picture. Next thing you know they are jumping in to the curtains and waking up a very surprised teenager as getting in was easy but getting out was more complicated. They had races over the tiles and managed to throw a few to the ground with a resounding crash. They darted in and out of the gazebo and foraged in our shower area.

 A mum lovingly held her baby to her as they perched on the side of our bungalow roof. It was a show stopping performance and when they tired of what was on offer they moved off leaving us smiling widely at the nature of this awakening.