Thailand: Lopburi (MONKIES!!!)

This is one of the posts I have been waiting for!  Why?!?  MONKEYS!!!!  

Can you believe I got to play with monkeys?  I can't, I am still in awe!  This was one of my favorite things we did for sure!  Okay, so lets start from the beginning.

  Brent and I woke up early.  Ron had arranged for his driver to take us about two hours North of Bangkok into Lopburi.  He had showed us a picture of a monkey on his head and I said "What do I have to do to make that happen?"  his answer "Stand there."  Needless to say, I was beyond excited.

When we got to Lopburi there appeared to be two sites, a temple and a shrine.  All my monkey instincts were pulling me to the shrine, but Brent said we had to go see the temple first... 

It was amazing.  Old, ruined, and we could run all over it.  Plus...

We got to see these cute little guys!  There were several monkey's running around and a lot of them were hanging onto their moms backs.  I was a little discouraged though because none of them seemed interested in us.  I thought I must not be very likeable.

We took our time exploring the temple.

Even though I was not likeable, I was NOT about to miss a chance.  This monkey let me touch him, but that was about it.

For how many Buddha's we had seen at temples, this one was sure lacking.

As we were about to leave, the guard told us we could actually go inside.

This is as daring as Brent felt in the moment.

You don't have to tell us twice!

This is the most I would let Brent joke around with the Shrine.  I have heard all the horror stories of people going to jail for disrespecting them, and I was not about to play that game!

After we finished at the temple we went to the shrine, what did we see?  The most adorable baby monkey's everywhere!

My second attempt at monkey contact....

SUCCESS!

I finally sat down, and one little guy hopped up to play with me...

Then two! 

And then three ( I still had one on my leg).  This was a dream come true!  I was playing with these guys for a good five minutes and loving EVERY second!  I finally had to stop when there were more monkeys than I had limbs. Brent took a ton of pictures of me laughing and smiling...

But he was not as excited about the experience

He had a  lot of bigger monkeys so I think he was a little terrified, and one kept trying to eat through his pocket to get to his phone!  

Behind the shrine (which we forgot to get a picture of) were some old ruins which all these monkey's played on.  At the Shrine, the monkeys were given food but you could buy fuit punch and drinks to give to them.  We didn't bother, they looked more than well fed and I don't think you need that much sugar if you only weigh 15 pounds.

Lopburi was a HUGE success.  We left feeling great about the experience.  I wish we had the ability to go back and play with them every now and again because all those baby monkey's were adorable!