December 5th is King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 82nd birthday. Our timing couldn’t have been better to be in Bangkok for this occasion.
Around lunchtime as were wandering about the street stalls along Sukhumvit Street we heard music in the distance. So like so many others we poked our head out onto the normally traffic crazy street and there was a parade approaching. Music, dancers, Thai’s dressed in incredibly colourful costumes and lots of pink tshirts being worn!
The King is currently in hospital and has been for the past two months with phumonia so the idea of the pink tshirts is for good luck. The last time the King was in hospital he wore pink when he left the hospital so this time around everyone else is wearing pink as a good luck and good health message to the King. As the parade passed us there were Thai girls handing out little lanterns with words of wisdom printed on them and also candles. I wasn’t sure what the candles were all about so we just carried on with our day and the parade ended.
Later that evening we were back out looking for somewhere to eat and as we crossed the Sukhumvit street back to close to where we were earier we noticed a lot of Thai people standing out on the street facing the traffic in a line where the bus lane would normally be in Ireland. They were all holding unlit candles and waiting for something to happen so nosey Rosco decides to go out there and ask one of the guys in the line what it’s all about and with that Ligita and I were handed candles and were ushered into place in the line of people. Ok so we were the only westerner’s but hey it was fun. So the guy next to me spoke great english and explained that at 19:19 the whole country would light the candles and sing Happy Birthday followed by the Kings Anthem. And so they did.
We stood there and raised our candles when we were supposed to and kinda hummed along with the Thai population. It was quite a scene. It was followed by a huge fireworks display in another part of Bangkok which we could unfortunately only see on a TV at the side of the street.
It was great to be in Bangkok for this occasion but unfortunately we weren’t in the best part of the city to really enjoy the celebrations at their best. Saying that the city was colorfully decorated throughout and this combined with the incredible Christmas displays made for a very different Bangkok to the one we saw the last time we were here.
We’re off to Chiang Mai tomorrow for 5 nights to do a spot of trekking and to train as a Mahout, otherwise known as an Elephant driver!
R.
