Lop Buri - April 24th

A quick day trip took us around Lop Buri to experience a little of rural Thailand had to offer. To our surprise it had monkeys to offer, and lots of them. Like pigeons to NYC and Venice, or squirrels to Seattle, Lop Buri has tons of monkeys simply running a muck around town. On power lines, tops of buildings, squatting on street signs, dodging cars (sometimes riding on them as well), the monkeys were everywhere and certainly to our amazement. The two of us probably seemed strange to some of the locals as we walked, jaw dropped and taking photos, of Lop Buri’s monkeys - I would imagine we were not the first, however.

Enough with the monkey business…we wandered the town and found that there wasn’t much to see or do. So as we knew best we found the street that was lined with food carts and started sampling. Liya was finally able to find a bowl of Tum Yum Soup (a spicy shrimp soup with lemongrass), and she and her palate were pleased with the results. One dessert stand had traditional Vietnamese three color dessert that was so good that we returned later to have it again. The remainder of the evening was more walking and sampling of the local goods. At 9pm we boarded our overnight train (always an adventure) and started the course north to Chiang Mai.