happy birthday to....

As you may know, the King of Thailand is highly revered by the people. In addition to being the longest-reigning current monarch in the world (61 years on the throne), he is also the longest-reigning ruler in Thai history. He has ruled through tens of different electoral governments and military reigns, and seems to be the only timeless fixture of the Thai government.

On December 5^th, Thais celebrate His Majesty’s birthday which is affectionately referred to as Father’s Day (though some argue that the title of the day is reminiscent of 1984. If you were not aware, every Monday, what seems like the entire population of Bangkok wears yellow polos, in support of His Majesty. You can imagine his birthday would be no different, and this is how getting off the ferry looked:

(The sign says “Long Live the King”)

Walking to school:

But the festivities themselves took place in Sanaam Luang (roughly translates as Royal Field), which is across from Thammasat. Steve and I went to muay thai practice, then over to check things out, and were confronted by so many people, we couldn’t even get close to the free muay thai fights.

Steve took the opportunity to try some new foods, here’s a sugary corn thing:

The crowd gathered to watch the king drive by; here they are forming in front of the Grand Palace grounds:

On the other side of Sanaam Luang:

By far the best picture was taken by Steve, and I am very grateful to him for taking it. It kind of sums up how I feel sometime, about being a farang in Thailand:

In case you didn’t catch it, here is the same photo cropped slightly:

That’s all for this post. In case you haven’t heard, it looks like I’ll be finishing up my blogs from Iowa, because my flight was moved up… to tomorrow! Love and miss you all!