Thai town lays out monkey banquet

LOPBURI: It is a feast fit for a monkey king. Yesterday, the central Thai town here put on a five-star banquet for its hundreds of macaque inhabitants, sparking a mass simian food fight.

Lopburi has been laying on an annual feast — part merit-making tradition and part unabashed tourist attraction — for its monkeys since the late 1980s.

This year’s feast featured a smorgasbord of fruit that was quickly demolished by the hungry guests, who squawked and tussled as they gulped down their feast, much to the delight of a horde of onlookers armed with cameras.

While Thailand is an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, it has long assimilated Hindu traditions and lore from its pre-Buddhist era.

As a result, monkeys are afforded a special place in Thai hearts, thanks to the heroic Hindu monkey god Hanuman, who helped Rama rescue his beloved wife Sita from the clutches of a demon king.

But the inhabitants here take their love for monkeys to a whole new level.

The festival takes place on the ruins of Phra Prang Sam Yot, an 800year-old Khmer-era Hindu temple and one of the town’s most striking landmarks.

“It’s pretty awesome to see so many wild monkeys just roaming around the streets,” said Amanda, a tourist from the United States.

“They were eating over there with lots of food to choose from and they were attacking each other and running around and jumping on people.”

The regular feeding has left Lopburi’s monkey population notoriously unafraid of humans.

“The monkeys are crazy,” said Fang Xi, a 36-year-old sales manager from China.

“One of the monkeys wanted to steal my hair clip and didn’t want to get off my shoulder. Two other girls were afraid and ran away.” AFP