Macaques at the Monkey Buffet Festival at Phra Prang Sam Yot
The Monkey Buffet Festival is held annually in
Lopburi
Lopburi ( th, ลพบุรี, , ) is the capital city of Lopburi Province in Thailand. It is about northeast of Bangkok. It has a population of 58,000. The town (''thesaban mueang'') covers the whole ''tambon'' Tha Hin and parts of Th ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
. In 2007, the festival included giving fruits and vegetables to the local monkey population of 2,000
crab-eating macaque
The crab-eating macaque (''Macaca fascicularis''), also known as the long-tailed macaque and referred to as the cynomolgus monkey in laboratories, is a cercopithecine primate native to Southeast Asia. A species of macaque, the crab-eating macaqu ...
s in
Lopburi Province north of Bangkok.
The festival was described as one of the strangest festivals by London's ''Guardian'' newspaper along with Spain's
baby-jumping festival. A photograph from the Monkey Buffet Festival at
Phra Prang Sam Yod temple in
Lopburi Province shows a monkey trying to get at fresh fruits and vegetables embedded in blocks of ice.
[Sukree Sukplan]
photograph
Reuters
References
Animal festival or ritual
Festivals in Thailand
Food and drink festivals in Thailand
{{Asia-festival-stub