A meal fit for monkeys was served at the annual Monkey Feast Festival in central Thailand on Sunday.
Amid the morning traffic, rows of monkey statues holding trays were lined up outside the compound of the Ancient Three Pagodas, while volunteers prepared food across the road for real monkeys – the symbol of Lopburi province, around 93 miles (150km) north of Bangkok.
Throngs of macaque monkeys ran around, at times fighting with each other, while the crowds of visitors and locals grew.
The animals started to pounce as the beautifully planned feast was being carried toward the temple, and they swiftly devoured the primarily vegetarian spread.
The festival has a high level of entertainment value, but the organisers are careful to emphasise that it is not all fun and games.
According to Yongyuth Kitwatanusont, the festival's founder, "This monkey feast festival is a successful event that annually promotes Lopburi's tourism among worldwide travellers."
"In Lopburi, there used to be about 300 monkeys, but there are now almost 4,000. However, Lopburi is a city of monkeys, thus it's possible for people and monkeys to coexist peacefully there.
Such concord was evident in the monkeys' lack of timidity as they clambered up on people, cars, and lampposts. The observant animals occasionally turned their attention to things other than the plentiful feast.
Ayisha Bhatt, a California native who teaches English in Thailand, said: "A monkey was on my back as I was trying to take a selfie. He immediately pulled my sunglasses off my face, raced to the top of a lamppost, and spent some time trying to devour them.
The possibility of small thievery had little effect on the delighted spectators, while some were content to be cautious.
"We need to be careful with them; we should probably let them be. Carlos Rodway, a visitor from Cadiz, Spain, who had previously been unceremoniously used as a climbing frame by one brave monkey, said, "Not too close is better.
The festival, which has become a yearly custom in Lopburi, is held as a way to thank the monkeys for boosting tourism.
The theme for this year is "monkeys feeding monkeys," which is a change from previous years when monkey participation had decreased because of the large number of tourists who were frightened the animals.
