Wed 2 – Lop buri – Monkey City

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BronwenWeeGo.jpgMichelle and Ewa recommended going to Lop buri – 1 hr north on the train from Ayutthaya.  I love monkies so off we went.  We’re running late for the 8:37 train and there’s no tuk-tuk in sight.  We arrive at the station at 8:36 and grab a ticket and think we’ve just missed the train only to find out the 8:37 has broken down and not sure how long till it arrives.  The 9:37 arrives but we’re unable to switch as it’s already full..so we wait some more.  We decide to ditch our hotel in Bangkok and stay another night in Ayutthaya so we still have time to go to Lop Buri and take pics of the temples.

Finally at 10:50 the train arrives and we’re off…it’s packed…and there’s ppl constantly walking up the aisle selling food and drinks.  We arrive at Lop Buri and try to buy a ticket back only to discover that tickets are only available 30 mins before the train..doh.

So we grab a peddle car around the city.first making a stop at the bank to break some money…The bank teller doesn’t speak english but works out what we wanted..so we break 2 x 1000 notes..into 100’s and 1 into 20’s..man that’s a lot of notes.

They take us a couple of places and then to Monkey Palace.  Here the monkeys roam the streets.  Imagine wherever you would see pigeons in brisbane, there are monkies.  They are swinging on powerlines, jumping on cars and generally being naughty.  We go into the palace to take some closeups of the monkies…refusing to buy food as we don’t want them on us for fear of rabis and the big needles associated with it.

I get John to grab my zoom lens..and this is where we learn..don’t bend down.  3 monkies run up and jump on John and try to eat the nob on his hat.  The attendant chases the monkies away and then gives us a stick to fend them off.

So I take a few pics and John goes to chase a monkey away and then it grabs the stick…he starts to swing it..the monkey puts 2nd hand on the stick and starts to climb..eventually he drops it and the monkey runs off with it…very cheeky.

After awhile it drops it and wanders off.  John then goes to grab it and it’s a race..to see who can get there first…John wins.  We go into the enclosure to get away from the monkeys..so we’re behind bars looking out at them.  There are so many little babies..with mothers holding their tails so they don’t run off.

Outside I stand in one place for more than 5 seconds and the playful monkey jumps on me…hard to work out how to get the little bugger off.  Eventually he just jumps.

So we wander around the town and back to the train station and back to Ayutthaya.