Affentempel Lopburi und Wat Chantharam (Thailand Part 7)

On our way, we made a stop in Lopburi. There is a temple in the city, which would not be special if it had not been taken over by monkeys.

There are many wild monkeys living in the city, roaming the streets, power lines, and houses.

In the surrounding area, it seemed that many houses were vacant. We wondered if the monkeys had driven out the residents. In any case, they sat in the empty windows and on the houses, keeping an eye out for food.

On the streets, cars had to honk at some monkeys to get them off the road, as they had made themselves comfortable there.

At the temple, we were given a stick at the cashier so that we could defend ourselves if necessary. But we left our backpack in the car right away. We saw monkeys jumping on backpacks to search for food.

There were several containers of water that were bustling with activity. Smaller monkeys jumped from the fence into the water and happily splashed around, while the older ones preferred to drink in peace.

On our drive to Uthai Thani, our navigation system told us to take a ferry. Unfortunately, it no longer existed because a bridge had been built instead. However, the bridge was not yet finished, so we had to go back and take a detour.

Therefore, we first went to the hotel before heading to Wat Chantharam (Wat Thasung) temple. Since our navigation system initially sent us to the wrong location, we wandered around a bit before finally finding the temple.

When we arrived, it was 3:58 pm and we realized that it was supposed to close at 4 pm. So unfortunately, we had to leave again, but we planned to come back here the next morning.

In the morning, we arrived a little too early in front of the closed gate and waited together with an Asian tour group for the temple to open.

Inside, we were dazzled by the light reflected from the numerous columns with mosaic mirrors.

Since we were the first inside, we were able to take some pictures of the golden Buddha statues before they were blocked by Asians kneeling in front for a selfie.

Then we headed north to the ancient city of Sukhothai.