In November (2007), we took a trip to Lopburi, 3 hours north of Bangkok. Lopburi is famed throughout Thailand for its fields of sunflowers. The sunflower festival reminded me of many of the rural festivals in the USA; at this one there were sunflower seeds being roasted and sold, fresh honey, elephant rides for the kids, and hoards of camera-toting Thai families. We joined in.
Lopburi, like Ayutthaya and Sukhotai, contains a great number of 500 year-old ruins from the historic heydays of Siam. Lopburi has the added attraction of monkeys at its temples and hosts an annual monkey festival. The troops of monkeys frolic in the town, swinging from electric wires and stealing bags of food from out of hand, before congregating at one temple in late afternoon. A local boy who seems to know all the monkeys keeps them from becoming too rowdy with a swat of a bamboo stick. The monkey in this pic was at the train station.
We were lucky to be in Lopburi for the annual Loy Kratong festival. Throughout Thailand little rafts are decorated with candles and incense and placed in waterways and ponds in homage to the water goddess. Lopburi adds a Loy Kratong parade.
