Thailand-Day 22-Lopburi

Our bus trip from Ayuthaya to Lopburi was one of the reasons I like to do so much traveling now when I’m young. It’s not that I think I am more tolerant, I just think that because my body is in good shape and I’m maybe still a bit foolish, I tend to take situations that might infuriate others with a few jokes and sarcastic comments. Our bus was a local bus which in this case meant that it never went above maybe 30 mph the whole trip, even when on the highway, and was stopping ever so frequently to pick up anyone on the side of the road that might be flagging it down. I remember that it took considerably more time for the bus to cover the ground from the bus station back past our hotel than we had covered on foot going there. Added to this, the seats lacked much legroom and our driver was quite the dance music enthusiast and he kept some super-poppy Thai dance music at full blast the entire ride. Add the enormous collection of Buddhist trinkets adorning the inside of the bus, and it was almost like an amusement park ride.

We went to Lopburi for one reason, which was because the guidebook noted it as monkey town. Both Danthemanstan and I have agreed that when traveling, we really enjoy seeing anything out of the ordinary. This town was reputed to have troops of monkeys roaming its streets. Now, stray dogs were everywhere in Thailand (linking it with Greece and India as countries that need more Bob Barker PSAs), but monkeys are just a whole different animal (pun intended). We saw some random monkeys climbing on the electrical wires and store awnings as we made our way through a crowded street market to an absolutely fabulous dinner. After dinner, we made a very misguided decision to go grab a beer at one of the maybe two bars in the town. The fact that there were only three of thirty tables occupied should have maybe been a sign, but we sat down and ordered a beer. Then the band came onstage and played some Thai rock music ten times as loud as the already loud music had been. I don’t really know what clientele they were trying to reach with deafening music to no crowd. Even at a skeezy booth in the corner farthest from the stage, Danthemanstan and I could barely hear each other speak. Needless to say we drank our beers quickly and escaped back into the lazy peace of a small Thai town settling in for the night.

After getting up the next morning, and walking towards the part of town that supposedly would have some monkeys, we saw that the guidebook wasn’t messing around at all. As we turned a corner all we saw was a big troop of maybe thirty macaque monkeys fighting over a bag of sugarcane that had been thrown out or more likely, left for the monkeys. Some were still fighting, but most were voraciously eating the sugarcane. It was pretty weird indeed to see monkeys walking along the streets, hanging from telephone poles, chilling atop roofs or street signs, and generally ignoring people unless they were offering food. Most of the vendors selling food had sticks or whips at their side to keep away the town’s most famous residents. We checked out a set of temple ruins, which actually turned out to be more monkey lounge than ruins. It was simply teeming with monkeys. The ticket vendor even offered a bag of snacks to feed the monkeys, but judging by those I had already seen; I don’t think the monkeys were having much trouble getting food. We also went by another temple (which you can only look in) that really advertises itself as the place to see monkeys. It had ropes and lots of trees along with all sorts of signs warning about the monkeys, but not a single monkey. It seemed hilarious that maybe the monkeys don’t really want to follow the set-up that the locals have arranged for them in order to make tourism easier. The town was pretty easy to cover in an hour or two, so we headed to a pleasant outdoor restaurant with some nice shade, took out some books, and ordered beers. As weird as the monkeys were, after watching them for a good part of a morning, we started to treat them like the locals and weren’t surprised as one crossed our path.