The Monkey Buffet Festival is quite an unique Festival in the very cultural country of Thailand. Set up in the province of Lopburi, North of Bangkok, the Monkey Buffet Festival is held for the benefit of the monkeys. 4000 kilograms of fruits, vegetables, cakes, candies is set down in front of temples on tables, in pyramid or just on a simple mat for the delight of the 3000 monkeys living in the area.
The Monkey Buffet Festival also host plenty of activities in relation with monkeys: music and dances with young people dress like monkeys, monkeys costumes, monkey masks… Monkey sculptures will also flourish around the area.
The Festival was invented in 1989 by a local business man in order to boost the tourism in the Lopburi province. Since thousand of visitors come every year to see the numerous monkeys filling they stomachs.
The temples where the festival is held have been build in the 10th century by the Khmer dynasty with a similar architecture from Cambodia’s Angkor Wat. Now, they belong to the Monkey territory.
A word of wisdom: these monkey are very accustomed to human presence and they won’t hesitate a second to climb on people and “borrow” valuable or food for an undefined period of time.