You monkeys you! You give me back my purse!
After meandering through Lopburi for most of the day and waiting for it to cool down, we finally made our way over to the monkeys’ stomping grounds. There are monkeys all over the city but they are especially concentrated around the Phra Prang Sam Yot ruins and the Phra Kan Shrine across the street.
This town is so grateful to the monkeys that they actually have a shrine especially for them. When we visited the shrine we were lucky that the attendant there took the time to show us exactly what to do.
We bought flower offerings to leave and he taught us the protocol for leaving them, it was more elaborate than I realized. First we lit candles and then use the candles to light incense. Then the incense was placed before the altar and we proceeded up to the Buddha statue and placed our flower garlands around it. Then we added gold leaf to the Buddha statue in three places to represent our own spiritual connection: his heart, his body, and his neck. The guide was very sweet but the explanation he gave of each sounded identical: “So that you can do what you need to do.” And something about auras. I wish I spoke Thai. Next, we stepped off of the altar and rang the bell three times to signal to the “fairies” (we think he meant spirits). Then we added oil to the flame that was burning. Finally, we shook ___ and he gave us a fortune. Josh pulled on that specifically said he would have no children. I pulled one that said I would have a boy. The man read our fortunes, looked embarassed about the discrepancy and grabbed a more appropriate one for each of us!
We spent the rest of the evening wandering through the night market and waiting for our train to Chiang Mai.
