Lopburi Monkey Festival: Monkeys EVERYWHERE!

This past weekend I attended the Lopburi Monkey Festival!

Lopburi is a town very close to mine that has basically let wild monkeys take over part of the town. When I say take over, I truly mean take over. The monkeys are everywhere in this part of town. Walking down the street, climbing on apartment buildings, running by 7/11; everywhere!

Typically, the monkeys congregate at an old temple/ rotary in the city center, because many tourists feed them there. It's obvious that the temple was very beautiful during it's heyday, but it was ransacked by the Burmese many years ago and all of the Buddha statues in the temple are now head-less, unfortunately.

Each year, Lopburi holds a huge feeding frenzy festival to thank the monkeys for bringing tourists. The mayor comes and blesses the monkeys and "VIP" attendees sit under a tent and watch the festivities. Meanwhile, monkeys are running around everywhere, jumping on people. I saw one monkey jump on a tiny girls head for her (fake) flowered headband. He was NOT happy when he tried to eat it and he realized it was fake.

This year, the theme of the festival was "Monkey Truck Food." This basically means that huge trucks pulled up, trays of fruit and candy were passed out, and the monkeys went wild. The best way to describe what I saw is truly a monkey food fight. It was insanity! Monkeys were hopping everywhere trying to get their share of the feast.

As you can see, the monkeys were VERY well fed during the festival. It was madness watching all of the monkeys head for the food. If you were in the way, you better move, or they would climb right over you to get to the food!

This guy even stole the remnants of a coffee right out of a man's hand!

The only obvious way to cross the street when you're a monkey!

After the madness of the festival, we went on a beautiful drive through the country side.

Never would a festival like this happen in America, but this is the beauty of Thailand! :)