Thai Festivals 2026: Lopburi's Monkey Buffet Returns

Of all the Thai festivals 2026 has left to offer, none is stranger, cheaper or more photogenic than the banquet Lopburi throws for its monkeys. On Sunday 29 November, the central Thai town piles several tonnes of watermelon, pineapple, durian, lettuce, jelly and soft drinks into careful pyramids on the grounds of a thirteenth-century Khmer temple, pulls off the sheets, and hands the lot to roughly two thousand crab-eating macaques. Entry costs nothing, the town is about two hours by train from Bangkok, and the whole spectacle is finished by mid-afternoon.

That combination makes it the single easiest day trip on the November calendar, and an unusually good reason to break up a few days of Bangkok tourism with something no other country does. It is also a festival with a fixed rule rather than a lunar date — always the last Sunday in November — so you can plan a Thailand itinerary around it years ahead. The 2027 edition will fall on 28 November.

What actually happens on the day

The setting is Phra Prang Sam Yot, three weathered laterite towers built when this was a Khmer outpost, sitting in the middle of Lopburi old town beside the railway line. A local hotelier started the banquet in the late 1980s as a thank-you to the macaques and a way of putting the town on the tourist map; the deeper story ties to the Ramakien, the Thai retelling of the Ramayana, in which Hanuman's monkey army is rewarded for its service. Either way, it worked.

The morning opens with dancers, speeches and a ribbon-cutting. Then the covers come off the tables and the arrangements are gone within minutes. The rest of the day is macaques eating, fighting, stealing from one another and dozing on the ruins. Feedings are staggered through the day, roughly at 10:00, midday, 14:00 and 16:00, but the opening assault is the show. Arrive by mid-morning or you will be watching the aftermath.

What has changed for 2026

Two things are different this year, and both will catch out anyone planning around an older guide to Thai festivals 2026.

The first is the venue. Lopburi's macaque population passed 3,000 and conflict with residents peaked in 2024, prompting a round-up and sterilisation programme that moved most of the troop to a purpose-built shelter at Pho Kao Ton, south-west of the old town near Tha Hin. The main banquet now takes place there, with a smaller, sterilised group still living around Phra Prang Sam Yot and San Phra Kan and smaller events staged at the temple. Check with the TAT Lopburi office which site is hosting the headline sitting before you commit to a taxi.

The second is the railway. Lop Buri 2 (Tha Wung) opened in December 2025 and took over fourteen long-distance services, while ordinary, commuter and local trains still use the old city-centre station a few minutes' walk from the temple. Lop Buri 2 sits outside the old town, so a ticket on the wrong service means an extra songthaew ride at the end. Check the station name on your booking, not just the city.

Getting to Lopburi from Bangkok

Trains leave Krung Thep Aphiwat through the day and take two to three hours. A third-class seat is around 50 baht, which is one of the great bargains of Thailand vacation planning; air-conditioned second class costs more and is worth it on a festival Sunday. Of all the Thai festivals 2026 offers, none is reached more cheaply. Book through the SRT D-Ticket app and confirm whether your train calls at Lop Buri or Lop Buri 2.

Air-conditioned minivans from Mo Chit take about two hours and cost in the region of 110 baht. Driving is about 153 km up Highway 1 and takes two hours outside rush hour. Coming the other way, Ayutthaya sits an hour south on the same line, which is why the two pair so neatly in a single trip.

What else is worth your time in Lopburi

The banquet occupies a morning, so give the afternoon to the town. Phra Prang Sam Yot itself charges foreigners a token entry fee of around 50 to 80 baht depending on the season. Five minutes away, Somdet Phra Narai National Museum fills King Narai's seventeenth-century palace: 150 baht for foreigners, open Wednesday to Sunday 08:30–16:00, and closed Monday and Tuesday, so the festival Sunday works perfectly. Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat, opposite the old station, is another 50 baht and about as atmospheric a ruin as central Thailand has.

Late November is also when the province turns yellow. Sunflower season in Lop Buri and neighbouring Saraburi runs from about November into January, with the earliest blooms in Phatthana Nikhom, Chai Badan and Khok Samrong districts and the best-known fields below the limestone cliffs at Khao Chin Lae. Each field only flowers for about ten days and most charge nothing to walk in, so ring the TAT Lop Buri office for current recommendations rather than trusting last year's photographs. It is one of the quieter pleasures of Thai culture in the cool season, and almost no foreign visitors know about it.

Fitting Lopburi into a Thailand itinerary

This is a day trip, not an overnight. Lopburi is a pleasant provincial town with a good night market, but the strongest reason to stay is to pair it with Ayutthaya an hour south — our Ayutthaya guide covers the temple circuit and the train times. Base yourself in the capital instead: see our Bangkok destination guide for neighbourhoods, transport and the Bangkok street food streets around Yaowarat that make the best possible end to a long day on a train.

The timing also lands in the busiest fortnight of the Thai year. Loy Krathong falls on 24 November, five days before the banquet, and the Pattaya International Fireworks Festival runs on 27 and 28 November, the night before — see our Pattaya and Jomtien guide if you want to chain the two. Put together, the last week of November is arguably the strongest single week in the whole calendar of Thai festivals 2026.

Practical tips before you go

• Carry nothing loose. Sunglasses, hats, phones, open bags, water bottles and ice creams all get taken, fast. Use a zipped bag worn across the body and a camera with a wrist strap.
• Keep food out of sight until you are several streets clear of the temple. A rustling bag is read as an invitation.
• Do not feed or touch them, do not hold eye contact with a large male, and never step between a mother and an infant.
• Bites and scratches happen every year. Wash the wound with soap under running water for several minutes and see a doctor the same day — rabies risk means this is not a wait-and-see injury.
• Go early. The opening ceremony and the first feeding are the event. By early afternoon it is a town full of very full monkeys.
• Bring cash. Temple and museum gates are cash-only and small notes make life easier.
• Confirm the venue and your station. TAT Lop Buri (+66 3677 0096-7) can tell you where the main sitting is being held this year.

Thailand does not lack for spectacle in the cool season, but very little of it is free, half an hour's walk end to end and genuinely unlike anywhere else on earth. If you travel to Thailand in late November, give up one Sunday to Lopburi. Among the best places to visit in Thailand on a day trip from the capital it is the one people still talk about years later — and of everything in Thai festivals 2026, it is the one that costs the least and sticks the longest.

Source: Visit Thailand Today, 2026 — Lopburi Monkey Buffet Festival 2026: date, what changed and how to go (2026-10-20); It's Better In Thailand, 2026 — Monkey Banquet Festival in Lopburi (2026-10-15); Wikipedia — Monkey Buffet Festival (2026-10-01); Wikivoyage — Lopburi travel guide: attractions, admission and transport (2026-09-01); TAT Newsroom — Sunflower season starts in central Thailand (2017-11-01).