As soon as you step off the train, something darts through your field of vision. It is nimble and you are not sure if you really saw it. Then again, more and more little creatures fly through the trees and along power lines. Monkeys everywhere. Wherever you look there is a primate watching, waiting for an opportunity to take some food. A fruit seller chases one down the street, knife in hand, as the monkey makes off with one of her customer’s bags of rambutans. A young monkey learns to stalk a human with food in their hand and when discovered shoots up a telephone pole like a rocket. These simian inhabitants welcome you to a city that is as much theirs as it is the humans who call it home. Lopburi, the city of monkeys, is your first destination in a whistle-stop tour of the provinces north of Ayutthaya in central Thailand.