The village you pass through to get to Monkey Temple, Bahn Tham (or Thum) is a Yunnanese Chinese village with a rather square, squat style of building. A sure sign of a Chinese home is the red paper with good luck motifs pasted either side of the door and over the lintel. These good luck charms are replaced every lunar new year around the end of January. There is a small Chinese style temple and clan building, a reminder of how close we are here to China whose influence at one time extended well to the south of this point.