Earlier this year, I posted about the different festivals in Thailand that I was looking forward to attending. After this weekend, I can gladly say that I made it to all five of the festivals I was excited about this year, which was topped off with a trip to Lopburi for the Monkey Festival.
The Monkey Festival is held annually on the last Sunday of November in the city of Lopburi, a province in central Thailand a couple hours north of Bangkok. The festival falls right around the same time as people in the States are celebrating Thanksgiving, which is convenient as the festival itself is a bit of its own kind of thanks giving feast.
History of Lopburi
The city of Lopburi has quite a rich history, having been founded in the 7th Century and being mentioned in Book III of Marco Polo’s “Travels.” By the 10th century, the area had come under Khmer rule, whose capital was the famous Angkor complex, home of Angkor Wat.
Ruins from this time remain scattered throughout the city. By the 14th Century, Siam, under the rule of Ayutthaya, had expanded and pushed back the Khmers, bringing Lopburi under Siamese rule. King Narai, the 26th king of Ayutthaya, built a palace in Lopburi and established it as a second capital before the Burmese came and pushed the Siamese to where the current capital, Bangkok, is located.
In 1947, it was decided to make Lopburi the military center of Thailand, and so renovations and expansions of the city began, bringing the city to where it is today.
Ruins and Monkeys
The Khmer style ruins throughout the city draw some attention from tourists, but the real attention getters are the macaques that inhabit the city and spend most of their time at these ruins.
The macaques move freely throughout the city and can sometimes be seen wandering into local businesses. Locals keep them at bay with sticks and slingshots, but on the whole the monkeys are considered sacred. It’s believed that they bear some relation to Hanuman, the Monkey King God, the hero from the Ramakien epic.
To honor the monkeys and Hanuman is one of the reasons for the annual Monkey Festival. At the festival, fresh fruits and vegetables, water and soda are all set out for the monkeys to eat all day. On the schedule for the day for four different feasts. And of course, being Thailand, there was music and traditional dancing for entertainment.
I had wanted to go to Lopburi to scope out these monkeys myself close up, but I was a little scared, and so planned my trip to coincide with the festival, one because it would be more fun, and two because they would be distracted by the food that was put out and wouldn’t bother me. Both of my strategies worked, I’m happy to say. Only one baby monkey jumped on my leg, and it was well before the food came out and I easily shook it off. No other macaques bothered me!