Lopburi – Monkey festival

Last weekend was spent visiting Faye, Jenny and Liz in their placement town of Lopburi. It is a cute town just over 2 hours away from Bangkok, so we managed to get there after work on Friday evening with enough time to go to one of their local bars for a few drinks and meet some of their work colleagues and friends.

Saturday was packed full of adventure. The 9 of us (the visitors Jess, Leigha, Hanisha and Lindsey with the locals, Jenny, Faye, Liz and Ruth) took a pickup truck taxi for the day which firstly drove us to some beautiful sunflower fields. We spent a while here being typical girls taking hundreds of photos in different poses.

Next stop was a tranquil lake. We chilled here for the rest of day having a casual dip in the lake and waiting about 2 hours for our food to arrive. Standard Thai etiquette.

As dusk fell we headed back to Lopburi and stopped at a bat cave to watch them wake u and venture out for breakfast. Unfortunately even Jess’ amazing camera couldn’t catch the thousands of bats that flew out over our heads.

After grabbing some cheap street food (was so nice not to pay Bangkok prices the whole weekend!) and a little nap we headed out for a few drinks at a bar nearby. It was a lovely chilled evening chatting to new people that were also visiting Lopburi for the weekend either as travellers or fellow teachers. The night soon turned as the drinking games started along with dancing in the street.

We woke up with a trip to a local restaurant for a hangover breakfast to cure our needs before heading to the monkey festival. On a normal day in Lopburi monkeys roam the streets like dogs do in any other Thai town or city. They steal food, jump on cars, and climb up street lamps. Wherever you look you are bound to see a monkey cheekily staring back at you. But don’t get too close or taunt them as they can be vicious and attack. The monkey festival was slightly different as all the monkeys, hundreds of them, were gathered at the monkey temple (an old ruined temple were they live) to be fed. The people of Lopburi had bought a variety of food to the temple for the monkeys, from fruit and vegetables to ice and lollypops. Lots of tourists and locals showed up to give them food and take photos. The monkeys did not hold back they took food out of your hands and would jump on you if you let them. Jess and Lindsey were brave enough to let this happen. I was happy to just watch.

The monkeys were satisfied and so were we with an awesome weekend exploring a new town so it was time to head back to the city ready for the next week of teaching ahead of us.

With love from Thailand xxx