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