Monkey Buffet Festival

The festival was started in the late 1980s by a local businessman as a way of drawing visitors, and it has run each November since: tables are laid at Phra Prang Sam Yot and the Kala shrine with several tonnes of fruit, vegetables, sticky rice and soft drinks, arranged in elaborate displays, and the macaques are let at it while crowds photograph. It is genuinely popular and it draws large numbers. It also sits inside a situation that has become serious. Lopburi's macaque population grew enormously on the back of decades of feeding, and by the 2020s the town centre had troops fighting in the streets, businesses abandoning premises, residents caged behind grilles and municipal authorities running sterilisation and relocation programmes. Feeding is the mechanism that produced that, and animal welfare organisations have criticised the festival directly on those grounds. Both facts are true at once.

What you actually see

• The laid tables - tonnes of fruit and vegetables arranged as displays.
• The macaques - the town's troops taking the food in front of crowds.
• The old-town setting - the Khmer prang and the Kala shrine.
• The wider situation - a population problem the town is actively trying to reduce.

When to go

Late November, usually the last Sunday. Lopburi is two hours from Bangkok by train. Carry nothing loose - the monkeys steal constantly and bites need rabies treatment.

Honest expectations

The monkeys bite and steal, and any bite requires medical attention. The festival is contested: feeding is what created Lopburi's macaque crisis, and welfare groups criticise it. Crowded, and the town centre is genuinely degraded by the wider problem.

Nearby

Phra Prang Sam Yot and King Narai's palace are in the old town.