Lopburi Monkey Festival is one of Thailand’s most unique event that is held every year at Phra Prang Sam Yot temple in Lopburi Town. During the festival, around 3,000 long-tailed macaques who live in the area are treated to large colourful feast of a variety of fruits. Locals believe that such a tradition brings good luck to them.
Lopburi Town is located in Lopburi Province around 150km north of Bangkok or a 2hr 30mins car ride away. Our visit to Khao Kho via Lopburi coincided with this annual event which was a bonus to us. If you are keen to join in the festivities, this event falls on the last weekend of every November.
A brief history on Lopburi Province and its capital. The province has a long history dating back to at least 1,200 years ago with significant historical relics discovered. Lopburi is believed to be under Khmer Empire during the 10th century. The influence of Khmer Mahayana Buddhism can be seen in the town’s architecture. In the late 13th century, the Thais fought against the Khmer and declared independence. Since then, Lopburi has been ruled by Thai Kings.
Phra Prang Sam Yot is a Khmer-style temple built at around early 13th century and one of the oldest and most well-known landmark in Lopburi Town. The name Phra Sam Yot means ‘three holy prangs’ or tower-like shrines commonly used in Khmer Buddhist architecture. The prangs are inter-connected, built of laterite, sandstone and decorated with styled stucco.
Two ruined headless statue of Buddha sat beside a complete one in a meditation pose.
We reached Phra Prang Sam Yot just past 10am with the event well underway. Instead of multiple buffet tables, there was one main table and a few tuk tuks filled with fruits, such as their favourite bananas, longans, oranges and dragon-fruits.
Most of the food were already been eaten and the place was pretty messy.
Some macaques had already eaten their fill and left the venue. Those left behind must be slow eaters. LOL. Besides fruits, there were also packets of syrup drink for the primates. We watched in amazement as one of them confidently held up a plastic bag and drank the red coloured syrup drink from it.
Do remember to keep all your foodstuff and water bottles in your bags, away from the monkeys’ sight. I neglected doing so. A monkey deftly climbed onto my backpack and took away the water bottle sticking out in a side pocket. It then tried to open the bottle cap, albeit unsuccessfully. Daddy gave it a helping hand and the monkey happily enjoyed a drink from the bottle. Another one saw this and decided to check out his bag. If it had been successful with unzipping the bag, it would have gotten himself a bottle of water as well.
One playful monkey also jumped onto my shoulders, pulled my hair before running away to ‘fight’ with another. It was fun and entertaining to be able to interact with them in their natural habitats. Our kids loved it.
To enter the temple, admission is charged at 50 bahts (US$1.60) per pax for foreigners. We gave that a pass as the kids were more interested in the monkeys.
Tip:
1. Try to get there super early or stay for the night in the town before the festival. Many tourists were already there watching the ongoing feast. We know we were late when we saw the macaques having fun at the neighbouring shops with bemused onlookers.
2. Besides engaging the services of a driver, the easiest way to get to Lopburi from Bangkok is by train. Trains depart the capital’s Hua Lampong station regularly on an almost hourly basis in the morning for an approximately two hour trip.