A very large event in the King’s Honour
Thailand continues to be in an official mourning period for the passing of the King until November 14th. He died on October 13th. And then, for one year, there will be an un-official period of mourning for his passing. There have been many ceremonies, marches and events, all designed to allow Thais to be together during this past month. As I have written in previous Bangkok Blog posts, just about everyone in Thailand is genuinely heart broken over the King’s death.
On November 8th, a huge ceremony was held at the Grand Place in Bangkok, to again show respect for the King. Except this time, the event was not just about a religious, military, civilian or musical procession. This one was all about elephants.
Most tourists coming to Thailand generally want to see the elephants, most of which are up in the north of the country near Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. Thailand and elephants are synonymous and between elephant souvenirs, elephant rides and elephant parks, Thai elephants have gotten great market exposure.
There is one special herd of elephants, the so-called Royal Parade, that lives just north of Bangkok in the old capital city of Ayuthaya. These elephants essentially belong to the Royal Family and, on November 8th, they came down to Bangkok to march and show their respect to the King. They are well trained and they are really big. These are, after all, the Royals and so are larger than life – even elephant life.
Three photographers – Jorge Silva/Reuters, Lillian Suwanrumpha/ FP and Borja Sanchez-Trillo/Getty Images – took some incredible photos of the Royal Elephant procession at the Grand Palace. I grabbed some of them from the web and they are wonderful to look at. They show how well trained, how large and how regal these elephants are. In addition to the elephants, their mahouts and the crowds, there were even a couple of western guys photographed – one playing the bagpipes and another a trumpet. Bangkok is a very cosmopolitan place and the King was extremely popular.
Take a look at the slide deck above. The photos are lovely and the elephants are grand.