A Day off with Monkeys..

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  Lopburi, Lop Buri, Thailand
Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Lopburi is commonly called the Monkey City, and for good reason. There's a lot of them.

School was canceled on Tuesday for some reason so on a spur of the moment, Charlotte, Julie Ann and I just decided to grab the train 20 minutes away to Lopburi, where my host sister goes to school. The train was set to leave at 9:14 am. It departed at about 11:45 am. That's the Thai definition of punctuality. We ate a coconut to kill time. The train itself was much more modern than the one in Kanchanaburi. By modern I mean it had windows that you could pull up.

The monkeys are everywhere. The climb along the telephone wires, all over the buildings, everywhere! They'll grab at your bag if you have something from 7-11, they're quite dexterous and clever. It was seriously like Monkey Kingdom. I felt like we were in a movie trapped with a colony of monkeys who were planning our savage deaths or something. We discovered that they like bright colors. There's a picture of Julie Ann getting jumped all over to testify to this. At first, they're pretty cute. They jump on you and are always trying to rip your head apart, probably checking your hair. Julie Ann had way too much hair though so this one monkey was just going crazy, he couldn't figure it out. It's a little scary. They scratch and it's hard to get them off, one even bit my shoulder. What is it with animals and biting me? Sometimes a few more will start jumping onto you and then you have one on your arm, another on your head, and another clinging to your shirt. Hectic. We were just giggling the whole time. We found that when you start skipping they'll jump off. The other tourists were just laughing and staying well away from the attack zone. Julie Ann tossed a piece of corn to one to see if it'd catch it, and instead it hit him in the face. At first there was just this shocked look on the monkey's face, and then it turned into a full snarl and he actually charged at Julie Ann. I was laughing so hard at her. Thankfully we made it outta there unscathed.

The past few days since I've been in Tharua, I've spent the bulk of my time with Charlotte and Julie Ann. One night my host dad even "forgot" to pick me up so I stayed over. We made pancakes. It's nice to go out with them and take walks, go to the market. I saw live frogs tied together with string, hopping around on a table for sale. To eat. It reminded me of that frog farm. If they all hopped in the same direction though, they could get free. Thailand will never fail to surprise me. But being with them, you get to make your own decisions and even be able to have a conversation. Such essential things that you don't even consider in your native country, until you go somewhere else and realize what a luxury language can be.

Loy Krathong was on Monday, the full moon. It's a big Thai holiday sort of celebrating the end of the rainy season and giving thanks to the river and such. That night I went down to the river with my sisters and host dad and it was quite the party scene, for Tharua that is. Thai people know how to throw a party. My camera died as soon as we got there, so not many pictures. But we floated our krathongs down the river. A krathong is traditionally made of intricately folded banana leaves with candles and incense and offerings on it, floated down the river. Nowadays they're made outta bread or styrofoam. Just in Bangkok, imagine over 10 million styrofoam krathongs being floated down the river. Pollution..  Ours were made of bread. Before you put it in the water, you're supposed to pray and let everything bad wash away, like old grudges, resentments, feelings, and all. I tried but I don't know how much really did wash away. I did pray for my Thai to improve though. The thing is I don't even know who I'm praying to.

Since the rainy season is over, its "winter" here. That means that all the other students wear full on sweaters and hoodies when it gets below 90 degrees F. There's a nice breeze too. I'll miss the crazy killer rain, but it's nice to have the wind in your hair. I'd almost forgotten what it's like. At night you can even see some of the stars. There's a husky dog in this town, a stray. Who on earth would bring a dog from an arctic climate to a tropical country? That's just cruel.
 Today we went to Ayutthaya to visit a temple and for the Thai students to sort of practice their English by acting like our "tour guides". We went to a shrine and did this thing where you shake a tube of sticks until one falls out with a number on it, and then you get that fortune. Then we went to feed the turtles. Pretty exciting, actually. They're massive. You feed them banana slices on a skewer. They're pretty competitive. The fish feeding though.. I swear, you could go down to these spots at the river with a net and have enough food for at least a year. The water right by the shore is just fish flopping around all over each other, and the water is calm elsewhere. I take a handful of pellets and throw them as far as I can, and there's an instant reaction as soon as the pellets hit the water. It's like they were all just waiting under the surface. It's like an eruption, all the thrashing, scaly bodies. Then they're gone, and the water is glassy smooth again.
We had dinner on a boat on the river. It was a bit precarious when there was another boat going by and making waves.

When we were in Lopburi, I saw a guy literally sleeping in the gutter, and we actually slowed down to see if he was breathing or not. There's people that just lie asleep in the middle of the sidewalk in the fetal position. People walk around them like there's just a stone in their way or something. P'Jaa and I saw a man like that in Bangkok and there were flies buzzing around him, I wasn't even sure he was alive or not. I don't understand why they do it. They're not even begging, just laying out there in the open sun. There was a guy on the train with deformed, tiny legs who was dragging himself down the aisle, stopping occasionally to wai people asking for money. Of course it's shocking and it's sad.. but it surprises me that it's one of the things I don't even give much thought to it anymore until later. I don't know if I'm just used to it or if I'm subconsciously accepted it for what it is. I guess I've just become desensitized. Is that good or bad?

Anyways hope you enjoy the pictures of the monkeys ravaging my head :)

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Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

More Monkeys	Surprise attack	Turtle feeding	Big Krathong
Ayuthaya at Night	Monkey Temple	They grab at your clothes	Loy Krathong
Loy Krathong	He's looking for something..	Julie Ann with the gong	Monkey hotel?
Little one	Monkey sign

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