The Thai monkey festival returns as tourists return to Reuters

LOPBURI, Thailand (Reuters) – Tourists and locals alike saw thousands of monkeys in central Thailand’s Lopburi eat two tonnes of fruit and vegetables after the town’s Monkey Festival resumed after a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic.

Hundreds of macaques, also known as long-tailed monkeys, were seen climbing on top of people and piles of fruit, wearing bananas and pineapples.

The festival, which cost more than 100,000 baht ($ 3,000), is an annual custom for locals to thank the monkeys for attracting tourists to Lopburi, sometimes known as the “Monkey Province”.

“Today’s special is durian, which is expensive. Lopburi monkeys like expensive things,” said Yongyuth Kitwatanausont, who has previously organized more than 30 monkey festivals.

The theme of this year’s festival was wheelchair monkeys, and Yongyuth planned to donate it to 100 needy wheelchairs.

Tourists gradually return https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/month-after-reopening-thailand-sees-gradual-tourism-recovery-2021-11-25 after the government launched a quarantine -Vaccine for tourists free travel scheme in November, and the festival had a popular raffle.

Thailand saw more than 100,000 passengers in November https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailand-doubles-2021-visitor-numbers-after-easing-quarantine-rules-2021-11-26. as great as the sum of the arrivals of the first ten months.

“I am very happy to see this and now I am thinking of going to the next festival,” said Moroccan tourist Ayoub Boukhari.

“It’s pretty unexpected and the monkeys are pretty silly.”

Some tourists were seen playing with monkeys with their cameras. The revival of the tradition also pleased the citizens.

“This is the first time in two years that monkeys have eaten all kinds of fruits and vegetables,” said Thanida Phudjeeb. “I’m glad for them.”

($ 1 = $ 33.7600)