The Lopburi Monkey; Lopburi is the Best Place to Get Close to a Thailand Monkey

I moved with my family to Lopburi just over a year and a half ago. I was offered a job in a secondary school in the old part of the city. I had briefly passed through the area on a couple of occasions, but the only thing that I really knew about the place was that it was the home of the famous Lopburi monkey. I had also heard that once a year they had the Lopburi monkey festival. I have always been a bit fascinated with these creatures, and my previous sightings of the Thailand monkey had left me feeling really excited.

I now see the Lopburi monkey on an almost daily basis; when you enter the old part of the city they are everywhere. These little guys have the run of a large area and you see them sitting like drunks in doorways, dancing on cars, and trying to grab any food that they see. Occasionally you hear that one has managed to get onto a train and go travelling only to later return home. A large congregation of them gathers near the entrance to a small shopping arcade where they wait to snatch bags off unsuspecting passers-by. Many of the locals walk around with sticks to shoo them away. Not that they want to hurt them though, although they can be a bit of a nuisance sometimes. The Lopburi monkey is well respected; not only is the country predominately Buddhist, a religion which discourages hurting living things, but local folklore views harming these animals as being very unlucky. It is quite amazing really, there is a lot of busy traffic in the part of the city where the Lopburi monkey stay, but I have never seen one killed.

The local people have so much respect for the Thailand monkey that they have a special festival every year in their honor. The Lopburi monkey festivaltakes place every November near the end of the month. A large banquet is prepared for them and they get to party for the whole day. There are two gangs of monkeys in Lopburi, and they don't get on very well, so care has to be taken to keep them separated. People travel from all over Thailand and the world to see the Lopburi monkey festival. It is a nice reward for these rascals that do so much for local tourism.

I never get tired of seeing the Thailand monkey; some of my fellow workers have had problems with them and one even had to abandon his bag of shopping, but they never bother me.