The time I got owned by a monkey…

When we last saw our hero, she was escaping her imprisonment in a terribly dangerous Thai dungeon, then valiantly defeating the nefarious Suphan dragon in battle.  No jail cell was too secure, no nemesis too strong, no opponent any match for her bravery, tenacity, and sharp-wit!

And then came this guy:

Monkey face-off

And this guy:

deranged monkey; photo (c) Clare McLaine

And these guys:

tug-of-war

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

wah-waaahhhh…

Welcome to Lopburi.  The monkeys run this city and they are not shy to let you know who’s boss.  In the days leading up to our Lopburi weekend (purposefully coinciding with the city’s annual Monkey Festival) my friends were all expressing their apprehensions about visiting the macaques that populate this city and their anxiety about rabies.  But me?  Oh no!  I wasn’t scared.  Scared of getting my camera swiped by a monkey, maybe, but not scared of getting bitten.  Big hero… remember?  And so, like so many other heroes (Hercules, Anakin Skywalker…. I count myself in the same ranks as these men), my hubris was my flaw.  Sure enough, the Lopburi monkeys put me in my place.

Walking around Lopburi was a lot like being inside of the movie Jumanji, but instead of 1990’s computer animation, these monkeys were real.  Lopburi is over 1000 years old, and ancient temple and palace ruins dating back to the city’s prominence in Khmer and Ayutthayan empires are scattered throughout the city, towering proudly over modern urban architecture, traffic lights, and food markets with the wisdom of the ages.  Years ago, I imagine that kings and monks tread these grounds, but now it is the monkeys that reign over these ruins.  And monkeys there are… by the hundreds. 

Katrina, Clare, and I woke up early on our first morning in Lopburi, eager to see what the city was all about.  Katrina is my super quirky, super awesome friend from our orientation week in Bangkok, and by sweet coincidence I ran into her this weekend en route to Lopburi.  The first monkey we saw was a thrill!  Clare spotted it from down the street and Katrina scrambled to get her camera out but, alas, that sly little sonuva-monkey slipped away from view before she could get her shot.  The novelty quickly wore off, though, because as we got closer to the Phra Prang Sam Yot (a temple from the Khmer ages) we found that they were all over the place:  scaling buildings,

…. perched on the power lines,

… chilling in truck beds,

… stopping to enjoy a cool and refreshing beverage,

… and swinging- yes, swinging- through the streets on broken power lines.

And our hero cowered in terror.  Ohhh, the shame!  I was focusing on my camera viewfinder, trying to capture the monkey mayhem that surrounded me, when all of the sudden I felt a cold pressure on my foot.  I looked down and there was a little monkey, paw outstretched, staring right back up at me, as if to say “I am climbing up your leg right now whether you like it or not, so you better like it.”  The moment our eyes met I shrieked and jumped about three feet in the air.  I don’t think that the monkey appreciated this, because he bared his teeth at me and his posture took on something of a fighting stance, and that’s when our big hero started running down the street, away from Mr. Monkey.  But Mr. Monkey seemed to take this as an invitation, so Mr. Monkey and friends started chasing after.

Our hero escaped, unscathed except for her ego.  Clare and Katrina were cracking up behind me.  I was laughing too, of course, and I imagine that plenty of Thai people who witnessed this scene while passing in their cars and motorbikes probably got a good chuckle out of it, as well.

Once I had recovered enough from this initial scare, we went on to Phra Prang Sam Yot to see the monkey-infested ruins.  If the streets of Lopburi were like Jumanji, visiting the temple was like stumbling upon King Louie and his gang from The Jungle Book (if you aren’t sure what I mean scroll to the bottom of this post).  Monkeys are everywhere. Exploring the ancient temple, Clare, Katrina, and I were all nervous and jumpy, trying to avoid becoming jungle gyms to potentially diseased primates.  Looking back, I am really rather embarrassed by how much anxiety I felt, but every time I turned around there was another monkey around me.  And some of them did look rather… deranged.  We were given sticks to shoo them away, but the monkeys would often grab onto these and try to steal them or climb up them instead.

mid-day nap time

Later that night, we relaxed our nerves by frolicking in fields of sunflowers and exploring some monkey-free ruins– free to wander and admire the architecture without anxiety about the furry demons.  But the next day it was time to face my fears.  Sunday was the Lopburi Monkey Festival, an event held on the last weekend of each November to thank the monkeys for bringing prosperity to Lopburi.  A lavish feast is laid out and the little simians are free to indulge to their furry-hearts’ content.  The banquet tables were unreal.  Tables upon tables of food in bright colors and beautiful designs.  It was a spread fit for a king, but to be demolished by a community of monkeys.

To be honest, the banquet was a bit of a disappointment.  I had watched YouTube videos of the Monkey Festival and arrived Sunday morning expecting the monkeys to ravage the feast.  And I guess this is what they normally do, but this year they had either learned some table manners or were just not that hungry.  The banquet tables were all together on one side of the temple, but the monkeys didn’t really attack until the festival staff had divided them up and spread them out around the ruins.  They still went nuts, but it wasn’t quite the chaotic scene I was hoping to see.

The real excitement of the festival was my second chance with the monkeys.  Having been complete wussies the first time around, Clare and I made a pact that we would both have monkeys climb on us this time.  When that first monkey came around and grabbed hold of my dangling tie-dyed gaucho pants, I took a deep breath, braced myself, and let the monkey have his way with me.  And before I knew it, I had four on me at once– gnawing at my beaded bracelet, climbing up my purse, grabbing for my water bottle, rummaging through my hair.  It was awesome.  But also disgusting, and I jumped in the shower to scrub every inch of my body the moment I got back to the guesthouse. 🙂

(And here’s King Louie…)