Lopburi

Ruins
Monkey
Monkey from inside the temple
Monkeys from inside the temple
Monkeys from inside the temple
Monkeys from inside the temple

Monkeys from inside the temple
Landscape from the train
Landscape from the train

Me sweating on the train
Train
Train
Sunset from the train

Next stop on the way to Chiang Mai was Lopburi which is famed for its monkeys. It is about an hour on from Ayyuthaya and we caught the train there for the afternoon, leaving our bags in the stations cloak room. We arrived at Lopburi just before lunchtime and wasted no time in going to find the monkey temple.

On our way there we could hear singing and chatting and so we followed the noise and found an open air performance of what looked like a thai soap opera with the actors in traditional dress. We sat down and tried to understand what was going on. In the end we decided that it was some form of street rap battle, as the actors seemed to trade insults and take it turns to call the other actors names (judging on the reactions of the receiving actors). Whilst sitting there we noticed our first monkeys. They were hanging about in the tree above us.

We found monkey temple with its carving of monkeys but didn't see any live ones. We walked about and came across a ruined wat with some monkeys sat inside the gates. We paid admission and got a few bags of nuts and a stick each. We asked what the stick was for and found out that as it was to be used on naughty monkeys. The member of staff actually said the word naughty even though she didn't speak hardly any English?

I had control of the nuts and as we approached the wat a stream of monkeys came running at us. I threw a few nuts and more kept on coming. One even jumped up and tried to grab the nuts out of my hand. This was definitely the place to see monkeys.

One of the little buggers jumped on my leg and tried to climb up me. I tried to wiggle him off, but he was too far up my thigh. Mark had to waive his stick at him and eventually and some mini screams from me, he jumped off. Thank goodness. Although I've had a rabies jab, i didn't fancy a monkey biting into my leg!!!

We walked around the wat and saw hundreds of the little critters, they were all resting at the sides of the wat with the babies in the adults arms sleeping. We ventured inside the wat where no moneys are allowed inside. The windows have bars and so we could feed the monkeys close up and managed to get really close to the babies. The only downside of being inside the wat was the bats. There were hundreds of them roosting on the ceiling and some even started to fly around the chambers, causing us to practically walk on our hands and knees to avoid them.

After leaving the wat we headed back into town and saw more monkeys climbing on the cables that run through the city. We had lunch and caught the train to our next destination which was a four hour train ride away.