The Sunflower Festival in Thailand starts around November and goes on until about February. The best places to see sunflower fields are in Lopburi Province and Saraburi Province. It was Lopburi where we went last weekend to see the sunflowers. Thousands of people from Bangkok head this way at the weekends for a day trip to take pictures in the sunflower fields. For people in Lopburi it has started to become a major tourist attraction. Each farm takes turns in planting the sunflowers so that there is at least one area of blooming flowers during this period. According to latest statistics, there is now 12,000 acres of sunflower fields in Lopburi alone. As well as being a tourist attraction, they also extract oil from the sunflower seeds and of course make tasty snacks.

The best places to see sunflowers in Lopburi are in the districts of Phatthana Nikhom, Chai Badan, and Khok Samrong. From Bangkok, we took Highway 1 north through Saraburi and then turned off onto Road 21 a little while later. A short distance along this road we came across two major sunflower fields with beautiful mountain backdrops. We then later turned right onto Road 3017 towards Pasak Jolasid Dam. We had an enjoyable picnic at the dam and then drove back along Road 3017 towards Lopburi. Again we saw plenty of sunflower fields. Some were on the main roads. Others had signs telling us where to turn off. If you have a car and drive around this area then you will surely have no problem.

Most farmers will charge you about 5 or 10 baht to enter their fields to take pictures. We found others along side roads which were free. The places that charge admission usually also have stalls selling souvenirs and snacks relating to sunflowers. They also offered tractor and cart rides throught the fields and also a few places had elephant rides. Most Thai people just went to the sunflower fields to take pictures. Usually of each other. If you don't have your own transport, then you could join the special train trip that goes from Hua Lamphong Station in Bangkok to the sunflower fields around Pasak Jolasid Dam. The train goes only at the weekend and on public holidays. It leaves Bangkok at 6.40 a.m. and returns eleven hours later. Prices start from 255 baht and go up to 675 baht for first class.

For more information about Lopburi Province, please visit our www.ThailandGuidebook.com website. We have lots of pictures of our trips to this province and also maps and lists of hotels. Don't forget to visit our popular forums at www.ThailandGuidebook.com if you need any help in planning your holidays. All festivals are also posted on our www.ThaiFestivalBlogs.com website. All of these sites are part of the internationally acclaimed Paknam Web Network.

One of the more unique festivals in Thailand is the annual Monkey Party in Lopburi, about 150 kms north of Bangkok. It was started some twenty years ago by a local businessman called Yongyuth Kitwatananuson. He put on a buffet lunch for the monkeys as a way to say thank you to the animals for all the tourist money that they had brought to the city. This soon became a tradition and is now firmly an event on the national festival calendar. I went there for the first time this year and there were literally thousands of people there. So many that I think they have started to outgrow the limited space they have at Pra Prang Sam Yot temple.

These days it is more of a spectacular event as the local administration have taken over the proceedings. There is now a parade through town, cultural shows and vendors selling food and souvenirs. You could go there as a day excursion from Bangkok as it only took us about two and a half hours to drive up there. However, we decided to go the day before and stay overnight as we wanted to visit some other attractions as well. Some hotels were full but we didn't have much of a problem. We booked in advance at HotelsCombined.com. The Monkey Party was due to start at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. The party is held every year on the last Sunday of November. We were there nearly an hour early and there were already many people milling around taking pictures of the monkeys. But really, you don't need to go so early.

In the end, it started a bit late as we were waiting for the Governor to arrive and then for the parade. Around the temple they had set up stands for the "Chinese tables" and also large blocks of ice. These had fruit encased inside of them. Though in this picture you can see some sunflowers which is a symbol of this province. The parade arrived a little after 10 a.m. They brought with them the colourful table tops and dancing monkeys. The governor opened the proceedings by using a mallet to bash open one of the blocks of ice. He then tempted the monkeys down from the temple with a plate of smelly durian fruit. They seemed to like it. Fruit and desserts were then placed on the table tops around the temple. However, as there were so many tourists pushing and shoving to get a good viewpoint to take a picture, the monkeys didn't come down at first.

I think next year they will have to rethink their planning. There was plenty of space around the back of the temple. They could have put more tables there. In the end, they had to move the tables closer to the ruins so that the tourists didn't surround the tables. It was great fun but really too many people. I am not sure if the animal activists would agree with the food served at this monkey banquet. I would have to check, but I don't think sweets are that good for the monkeys. But, they certainly had a good choice of food and picked and chose things that they liked. It was amazing to watch them even open a can of Coke. They are that clever. You really have to be careful when you visit this temple. If you are carrying a plastic bag, the chances are high that it will be snatched away from you by one of the monkeys.

You don't need to go early for the festival. This year there were four rounds at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Most people went for the first round to see the opening ceremony and to watch the cultural shows. It is a good idea to combine a visit to the monkey party with a trip to the sunflower fields. I will tell you more about this in the next blog. Visit ThailandGuidebook.com for tourist information, maps and more festivals for Lopburi Province. If you are looking for hotels, you can try HotelsCombined.com. They do the hard work for you by looking for the cheapest deals available. They can sometimes beat other hotel sites by as much as up to 70%. Try their Lopburi page if you are planning on visiting this area.

http://www.thai-blogs.com/images/loykrathong_english_intro.mp3

Happy Loy Krathong. This song is sung by students from Sriwittayapaknam School in Samut Prakan, Thailand. Click on the play button above to hear the song in Thai and then English. Below is the lyrics for the Loy Krathong song in English.

November full moon shine
Loy kratong Loy kratong,
And the water's high in the river and the klong,
loy loy kratong, loy loy kratong,
Loy Kratong is here and everyone is full of cheer
We're together at the Klong, each one with their krathong
as we push away we pray, we can see a better day

There are hundreds of festivals that take place all over Thailand. Some are famous and are often promoted. However, there are quite a few that are only known to local people. Maybe this is for a good reason, but some of them are real gems which are really worth going to. Personally I find many of these small festivals worthwhile. Today I went to another one which you won't find in any guidebook nor the websites of the Tourist Authority of Thailand. This was the "Luang Phor Pan Revering Ritual" in Bang Bo District in Samut Prakan. I had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be one of the best festivals I have been to in Thailand for a long time. I will definitely go again next year as I had a really enjoyable time. Everyone was so kind to me and made me feel at home. I love these festivals, that despite there being thousands of people, I am the only foreigner there.

Luang Phor Pan was a revered monk at Wat Mongkol Kothawas in Klong Dan Sub-District during the reign of King Rama V. He was famous for his meditation techniques. Although he died over 60 years ago, he is still worshipped by the local people. I drove over to Klong Dan early this morning. When I arrived, the monks were just finishing their chanting and there were hundreds of people in the main hall paying respect to the image of the monk. At exactly 7.09 a.m., the image was carefully lifted by a team of men and carried out to the nearby canal where it was then placed into a large boat. This reminded me of the "Rub Bua" festival in Bang Phli where a Buddha image is put on a boat so that the local people can line the banks to worship the image. However, this was slightly different. For a start, this was the real image. Secondly, there weren?t many people lining the banks. This is because everyone piled into dozens of different sized boats in order to take part in a water parade.

There were about seven boats that left the temple. Most of them were large open decked boats with no seating. I guess there were about 500 people on these boats. However, as we made progress down the canal, we were joined by dozens of more boats of various sizes. Along the way there were also people on the banks waving to us. We passed a fleet of fishing boats that were moored and off-loading their fish. A few of them also joined us for this merit-making water parade. By the time we reached the open sea twenty minutes later there was quite a large flotilla of boats. It was really an amazing sight and a wonderful atmosphere that is difficult to capture in still images. When I go next year I will shoot some video to share with you.

We went about three kilometres or so off-shore to a point where we started to do a large "wien-tien" around an imaginary point. Normally, these are candlelight processions around the main temple building three times in a clockwise direction. Here we went around in large circles three times following the boat carrying the image of Luang Phor Pan. Whilst this was going on, monks on that boat were chanting and consecrating sacred water which would be used later to bless the local people. We seemed to be going around in circles forever. I tried to count the boats taking part but I lost count after sixty. About forty minutes later we had finished going around in circles. At a temple it would have only taken 10 minutes. Then there was a mad scramble for each boat to get a small flag with an image of the monk and sacred writings. These were being handed out by the boat with the monk's image. They used a long pole but still it was chaos as everyone wanted to get a flag for their boat. Luckily, even though we hit a few boats, there were no serious incidents and we soon headed back to shore.

We finally arrived back at the temple nearly two hours after the start of the festival. I thought that was the end of the festival. I took some pictures of them off-loading Luang Phor Pan from the boat. I thought that they would take it back to the temple. However, they next loaded the image onto a decorated truck. The monks climbed up with it and then it set off for the next parade. This time, on land around the city. However, the way ahead was blocked by literally hundreds of motorcycles. I walked back up towards the main road to see what was going on. There I discovered that there was a bottleneck where all the motorcyclists were waiting to receive little red or yellow flags much the same that was given to the boat captains. I guess this was a kind of reward for taking part in the parade as they were handing them out to all the drivers. Unlike other parades I had taken photos of in the past, this one didn?t have floats. The truck carrying Luang Phor Pan was being escorted by hundreds of motorcycles and cars.

I waited near Klong Dan Market as the parade approached. The monks on the back of the truck were chanting and two monks on either side were sprinkling the local people with the sacred water that they had prepared earlier. Hundreds of people were lining each side of the narrow road to receive the blessing from the monks. I noticed they also gave offerings by throwing up bags of food and sweetmeats. Everyone was in a joyful mood and several people kept offering me food which I thought strange at first. I just put it down to the local people being so friendly to strangers. However, I soon realized that this was a major part of the parade. The pickup trucks and cars following on behind were handing out food and drinks to everyone who had just been blessed by the monks. Some people reached out their hands while others had baskets. People were handing out food cartons, ice cream, Thai desserts and drinks. It was really amazing the scale of generosity of the local people taking part in the parade.

Once the parade reached the old Suikhumwit Road, which runs through Klong Dan, it turned left and headed towards the border with Chachoengsao Province. I wasn't sure where it was going next, but I decided to walk back to my car near the temple so that I could try and follow it. As I walked back, I was given plenty of food and drinks which was really great as I was getting a bit hungry by this time. It took about fifteen minutes to walk back and I thought that when I got there I would reach the end of the parade. But, the cars and pickups stretched much further as far as the eye could see. This turned out to be the longest parade I had ever seen. It was also the first parade I had taken part in as I was now driving slowly behind all the other cars. I even received my small flag to show that I had taken part!

I drove eastwards out of town to the border with the neighbouring province. It took forever as there was such a traffic jam. Here the parade did a u-turn and started heading back to Klong Dan. Lining the road on both sides were people waiting with baskets ready to receive food and drinks from people taking part in the parade. It remided me a little of Songkran with people driving up and down in pickup trucks. However, instead of throwing water at the local people, here they were handing out goodies to them. This was such a great thing to witness and to take part in. However, as the progress was so slow, I decided to make a small detour to go and visit a tourist attraction which I will tell you about another day. I then drove back to Klong Dan where I soon realised that the parade was now going West out of the town. It turned out that they wanted to to give all the local people a chance to take part. What I didn't realize was that they were going to go all the way to Samut Prakan city which was over 30 kms away! This last photo I took at 1.35 p.m. along Taiban Road. It then did a u-turn and headed back to Klong Dan. Closely followed by a posse of about 300 motorbikes.

That was such an awesome festival and very inspiring. I loved the boat ride out into the Gulf of Thailand. And I loved the concept of giving food and drinks out to the local people. I have never seen anything like that before. You can see more of my pictures over at our site www.PaknamPhotos.com. If you are interested in taking part in this festival next year, keep an eye on our forums at www.ThailandQA.com where we post all the latest travel news and festival dates.