Ruined wat across from the tain station.

For the next leg of our trip we were only able to get a second class fan car, but this didn’t much worry us since we were only going a few hours up the tracks to Lopburi. The 2nd class seating was comfortable but basic. We had individually assigned captains chairs and the trains windows were open. The morning was cool and it was very pleasant. Our plan for Lopburi was to get off one train, explore the town, including a ruined wat inhabited by monkeys then board a later train heading on to Phitsanulok for the night.

We disembarked the train at Lopburi station at 09:45, left our big bags in “Left Luggage” for the afternoon and headed out to find Prang Sam Yot. Of course, Lopburi was a one time capital city of Thailand and as such, is covered in ruined temple and administrative sites. Directly across the small street from the train station was a large ruined wat complex. We skipped it since our time was short and we wanted to find the monkeys.

After a short walk of 5 or 6 blocks we ran into our first monkeys congregated on the side walk, climbing on the buildings and cars and just generally hanging out. Directly ahead across a street was Prang Sam Yot, a ruined wat that the monkeys congregate around. We continued on. The temple is an official park and they charge a small admission fee. They also sell monkey food. Adrian bought a bag of sunflower seeds.

Ring the bell to send the train on its way.

We had not made it 50 feet when a group of monkeys approached Adrian. The lead monkey paused for a second and then lept onto Adrian’s stomach, grabbed the seeds and was off running with Adrian running behind yelling “those are in plastic”. All the while I was so surprised and then laughing so hard that I did not get any actual pictures of the event other than Adrian chasing the monkey and the monkey fleeing up the side of one of the buildings.

Luckily you don’t need food to get close to the monkeys. In fact, if you stand still to long, you become a monkey jungle gym as I found out. We spent an hour photographing the monkeys and exploring the small temple site before heading out to find some street food for lunch.

After lunch we headed to Phra Narai Rotchaniwet, the ruined capital’s administrative complex which housed a museum (no photos please) and the brick remains of many buildings and a defensive wall. Then it was back to the train station for our 13:00 train to Phitsanulok.