Lopburi (Attack of the Macaque)

Most travelers probably come to Lopburi for two reasons: to appreciate its important role in Thailand's history by exploring its ruins and museums and to check out the infamous monkeys that live side-by-side with humans there. It's a much smaller city that Ayuthaya with narrower streets, less vehicular traffic and a lazier vibe. Food doesn't seem to be as big a focus; most markets and food stalls close early at night, disappointingly.

I took the train from Ayuthaya to Lopburi with Vinny and Lena, 13 baht (less than $0.50) for the one hour and ten minute ride. I stood for much of the ride because the car was filled, but had a nice conversation with a Thai man bringing medicine north from Bangkok to his sick uncle. He was very friendly, updating us several times about how many stops remained until Lopburi. The train had large open windows punched out in its metal frame through which I watched ripe and flooded rice fields pass by as well as a few farmers at work. On the ceiling metal fans revolved in twitchy circles to keep us cool.

The first thing that caught my attention when I hopped off the train was a seemingly unrestored, crumbling 13th or 14th century ruin. What made it particularly beautiful at my first glance was how casually it stood there, with roads running around it as if it were any ordinary building or monument. That's what I learned to appreciate about the city: it both respects its history and also leaves many structures alone to assume their natural beauty rather than masking it through artificial restoration or reconstruction. Every few streets piles of broken bricks sit covered in moss, interspersed with modern functional buildings. The main historical attraction in Lopburi is the Phra Narai Ratchaniwet, actually an enclosed area that holds the former royal palace of one of Ayuthaya's kings, Narai, and the Lopburi and Central Thailand museums. I spent a bit too much time there, lost in my imagination wondering what life must have been like at different times in Thailand.
 

Phra Narai Ratchaniwet

Soon after walking further into the city from the train station, I met the monkeys. They walk the streets, mount the ruins, climb and claim the rooftops and ledges. I was watching one on the side walk in front of me when I felt the impact of something behind me and turned to find a larger monkey trying to steal my water bottle from my hand. Vinny gave his to a monkey and it opened the cap like a human and raised it to its mouth. I wanted to take a video of this behavior, but the monkey I gave my bottle to wasn't as smart. It tried to puncture holes in the plastic with its teeth to get the water. Lena got frightened and decided to sacrifice me by shoving her bottle in my hand and running away. Two days later I had the honor of visiting the monkeys' capital, Prang Sam Yot, where my "security guard" who walked me around the premises explained the ruins' history and taught me a bit about the primates. 2,000 of Lopburi's 4,000 monkeys live there, and the city has apparently been home to them forever. As we made our way around the ruins, monkeys cowered and flinched in my security guard's presence. I wondered if he'd ever had to use the stick he was carrying around and shaking at them.

Don't get on his bad side.

View from my hotel room first thing in the morning

Good luck, man

Beggars

Although some food stalls and eateries shut down earlier in Lopburi than Ayuthaya and Bangkok, there's always something open if you're hungry and there are some notable aspects of eating in Lopburi that should be mentioned. Along the train tracks on the old city side are a series of food stalls with a variety of cuisine and tables with stools which my friends and I visited a few times during our stay. Fried chicken, as far as I can tell, is the unofficial food of Lopburi. You find it all over the place. Vinny and I came across fried chicken on a skewer from one corner stall and to my delight it wasn't overly breaded, greasy, or dry, but cooked and seasoned perfectly.

Muslims making tasty coconut and veggie-stuffed egg pockets

The morning market in Lopburi has a number of intriguing foods and ingredients arranged in a chaotic maze that not even I could navigate through without getting lost (ha ha). Besides the mundane foods like vegetables, fruits, and conventional meats I came across smiling pig faces, large dead frogs, eels, snails, and turtles clambering over each other to escape their bucket of doom.

Unrelated to food and much less appetizing is the national obsession with becoming white in Thailand. At every pharmacy and 7-Eleven, the shelves are lined with products that contain "whitening" agents. I can't understand the practice of trying to permanently change your skin color, but I can appreciate the humor in the products that Thais waste money buying. Here are two of literally hundreds:

Anti-Soft White Cream and Pink Nipple Cream: To Be Whiter and All Day Confidence. I want to work for this company just to come up with the names. Maybe Anti-Thai Armpit Cream (with vitamin C & E).

I've gotten much closer to Lena and Vinny. I learned more about them and their interests, especially Vinny, who I bonded with a couple of times at the food stalls by the tracks while Lena stayed in the hotel, sick. He taught me some German words, I clarified English words he couldn't summon during conversations. We exchanged lists of movies and television shows we enjoyed. He educated me about psy-trance parties, Stuttgart, traveling in Asia. On our second night, the three of us played a drinking game by the end of which we had to dance, make an animal sound, sing the first verse of our respective national anthems, and I think something else after each time we drank. Before Vinny and I left for Phitsanoluk--Lena would stay behind to recover before heading straight to Chiang Mai--we all went up to the roof. There we found a caged up dog, a depressed solitary monkey with exposed teeth where a chunk of lip was missing, and an assault rifle. We posed with the gun and took pictures, always uneasily pointing the barrel away from each other. There was some rattling inside when we shook it, so hopefully it was an air-soft gun, but it felt frighteningly real in our hands.

In Lopburi I discovered that a sense of calm unlike anything I'd felt before had infiltrated me. The anxiety and loneliness of Bangkok and even before Thailand was gone. I could sit still doing nothing, just look around my room on my bed, and be content, desiring nothing. I don't know what the word for that feeling is, contentment, relaxation, happiness, but it's something I hope lasts.

View from balcony on my floor