Planet of the apes

Set down in Lop Buri and you'll find that the monkey is king, writes Steve Rhodes

Monkeys are everywhere just like being wound up as an extra in a "Planet of the Apes" movie.
It has been a long, hard journey filled with fitful slumbers and wild dreams, and when I finally stagger off the bus at the Lop Buri bus terminal, I can't help feeling that I must still be dreaming, and that I have somehow wound up as an extra in a "Planet of the Apes" movie.
Monkeys are everywhere, swarming along power lines and periodically leaping down and helping themselves to some choice morsel from a noodle vendor's cart before fleeing back to the safety of their lofty perches, just out of range of the enraged vendor's slingshot.
I make my way across the street in search of a bowl of fortifying noodles and discover Nirundorn Luengsak-sri, an earnest young man of extraordinary talent and ability, who has transformed the humble thong sandal into an art form with some deft strokes of a sharp knife and a vivid imagination. His designs were originally inspired by the monkeys but he has since branched out into more ambitious and lavish models.
Prices range from about Bt200 upwards, depending on the complexity of the patterns. Being something of a thong buff, I promptly snap up several pairs.
Nirundorn tells me an interesting story.
"Monkeys run this place," he says. He goes on to explain how the human population have even erected a temple in the middle of the town to accommodate the thousands of simians who populate the place.
The temple was built 800 years ago and has become the scene of an interesting annual event known as the Monkey Banquet.
Tradition demands that when you visit the temple and pray to the monkey god for help or advice, and actually get the help that you ask for, you must repay the monkeys with an offering of food. A local hotel owner who wanted to improve his business got wind of this and dropped by the temple to seek guidance.
Business boomed and he was so grateful that he now stages a massive feast at the temple every year where the monkeys gorge themselves on all manner of delicacies while the newspapers and television networks have a field day covering the event.
Nirundorn has asked the monkeys for help with his thong carving business and it is also doing very well. He suggests that I should pop round and have a look at the temple and then proceed on to the recently completed monkey hospital at the local zoo, which has been set up by the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand to treat ageing monkeys who, not as agile as they used to be, have been involved in road accidents.
The hospital has four staff made up of two vets and a couple of wranglers who help subdue larger apes while they are having minor illnesses treated without anaesthetics.
Then there's Colonel Virat Phupeangjai, once a director of the zoo. He retired four years ago and is now secretary of the Lop Buri branch of the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation.
Voluntary work at the hospital keeps him pretty busy but what spare time he has is devoted to writing. Recently he completed a book called "Mike", a hilarious account of the life and times of one of the zoo's more colourful characters, an orang-utan who was being smuggled out of Indonesia but was intercepted at Bangkok airport and sent to Lop Buri Zoo.
His subsequent adventures are chronicled in the colonel's book which is lavishly illustrated and well worth a read. It's available at the hospital for Bt95 and proceeds from the sale go towards buying much-needed equipment for the hospital, where visitors to the zoo are welcome to drop in.
In addition to Colonel Virat's book, there is an interesting range of souvenirs, the sale of which also goes towards equipping the hospital.
All in all visiting this rather obscure little town was an eye-opening experience. Without the monkeys, Lop Buri would be just another provincial town in Thailand. The monkeys have put it on the map and attracted tourists who would otherwise have no reason to go there, thus greatly benefiting the town's human population.