VISITING LOPBURI – MONKEY TOWN!

TRAVELLING TO LOPBURI

I arrived in Lopburi in the early afternoon, travelling by train in 3rd class, amongst many Thai locals. One thing I realised early on, was that these trains do not run on time! They might set off from Bangkok on time, but later down the line anything goes, so my train was running about 30 mins late. Never mind though, I’m in no rush.

Train journey to Lopburi

The journey itself was just over an hour with views of the countryside. A great way to travel to take in more of the Thai scenery.

During the trip a woman was accosted by the transport police for stealing a kid’s wallet. Upon seeing them approach, she tried to dispose of the evidence out of the window, but they managed to grab her and stop her! I best keep an eye on my stuff!

ARRIVING IN LOPBURI

I arrived in Lopburi, perhaps somewhat naively expecting taxis to be readily available. How wrong I was and also it became apparent very quickly that there wasn’t as many English speakers as I was used to.

I got chatting to a local guy who had a kind of bicycle taxi, who offered to take me to my accommodation, but having checked the map, realised it was over 8km away and that he definitely had no room to cart my baggage around, so it wasn’t going to work.

I decided to start walking in the general direction, hoping that a taxi would present itself.

About 1km into the journey in oppressive 35 degree heat I stopped at a shop to get some water. I asked about possible taxis and apparently there’s just no taxis in this town. I was starting to think I’d made a huge mistake booking myself somewhere to stay that was so far out of town.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be deterred, so I carried on. After about 2km and sweating my nuts off I came to a pharmacy. There were a couple of women standing outside and seeing the predicament I was in, they ushered me inside to see if they could help.

One of them spoke quite good English, so I was able to explain where I was staying and that I had no way to get there. She was keen to help me and started looking into options for me.

To my good fortune, a woman that was shopping there offered to take me and along with her and her husband, I jumped in their car.

These guys were absolute legends and, if you’re reading this, then thank you so much!

They wouldn’t accept payment for helping me out, but instead wanted to get a picture taken with me and the man (a professor at the local university) gave me his business card, so we could stay in touch!

Here they are. I was so lucky to find people like this and generally I’ve found that the Thai people are so keen to help out people in need!

Legends!

HOMESTAY

So I’d arrived at the ‘homestay’ where I was planning to spend 2 nights.

The place was great. It was out in the middle of nowhere and I had my own cabin, near a small lake and next to an awesome restaurant.

The difficulty was that no one spoke very good English, so I needed to get by using a lot of hand gestures, translation apps and google image searches.

The woman that checked me in called a guy to get me a lift into Lopburi town for the next day and we arranged this for 12.00 the next day or so I thought.

This first night I just relaxed in the cabin, enjoying some of my own space. Had a lovely meal at the restaurant – Pilot Por’s Gallery Coffee and Restaurant – and streamed the Liverpool vs Swansea game, which we lost pathetically.

My Lopburi cabin

STRAY DOGS

The next morning I was feeling energised and in need of some exercise, so I got dressed and decided to go for a run to get to grips with the local area.

It made sense to go for a run first thing before it got too hot, so I set off around 9 am. The local area was mainly dirt tracks and country lanes and I noticed that there were (much like Ayutthaya) a lot of stray dogs around.

Not wanting to disturb them too much, I gave them a wide berth when running past them, but as I reached a junction I saw 6 or 7 dogs which started barking wildly and running towards me. This made me pick up the pace!!!

Fortunately they didn’t get too close and didn’t persist with the chase, but this made me think that running around here was not a good idea, so I headed back to the accommodation.

MONKEY TOWN

Crossed wires it seems, as the taxi driver rocked up at 10am instead of 12. Hastily I got dressed and jumped in the cab where he took me to the centre of Lopburi.

This place was crazy. Monkeys everywhere! It’s as though they run this town and we’re just guests here.

Temple monkeys

They mainly congregate around a couple of small temples in the centre of town, where there’s people employed to feed them at regular times in the day to keep them isolated to these areas.

The monkeys do spill out though and can be found roaming the streets a good couple of hundred yards from the temples.

Monkeys roaming

In just one of the temple areas there’s roughly 500 of these things!

It was amazing to wander around the grounds of the temple with these monkeys swinging around, trying to grab at your bag and all of your possessions.

Here’s me getting mildly assaulted by them:

Monkeys love me

KING NARAI’S PALACE

After having had my fill of monkeys I went for a wander around the town and visited a couple of temples and King Narai’s Palace.

Certainly one to check out if you’re in town.

King Narai’s Palace

Buddha posing with the dice

I headed back to the cabin and had a good rest before heading to Phitsanulok the next day on my way further North to Sukhothai.

Until next time…