BOOKED

Here I am in Bangkok yet again and what a historic time it is as today there is a royal barge procession on chao phraya, one of the unique events to commemorate the thai king’s 60th year on the throne. Sixty years! And still highly revered and respected by one and all. The only king in the world perhaps that is truly liked and loved by his subjects. The only king that has his picture that I ever see people actually hang in their HOMES, And not just in one or two , but you can see it every where, from the homes of middle class, well educated people to poor farmers in remote regions of chiang rai to nongkhai. I’ve yet to meet any thai that doesn’t have any good words to say about his king, and this is said with all honesty and not out of politeness or fear. Amazing…he must be doing all the right things…

what a far cry from all the rest of royalties in other parts of the world who are largely seen as useless buffoons and treated as decrepit relics of bygone age. Kings and queens who are intent on making fool of themselves or worse …

But a pity, I can only watch this historic event - of strange beautiful and ornate long barges slowly moving along the river with rowers in colorful attires performing orchestrated rowing movements like some form of ballet accompanied by a rather mournful chanting of some sort - on tv as I can’t make it to the riverside on time and join thousands of thais because of this little meeting that I had to attend .

a small aside. One book that I leafed through every now and then and which never fail to keep me green with envy is Irving wallace’s ‘the secret sex lives of famous people’…one of whom was the great thai king mongkut who kept 3000 concubines…a rather excessive number even for a highly tolerant and permissive thai society I guess… but when he had to become a monk (as every thai male has to undergo at some time in his life) he gave consent to any of these young girls to choose if they want to be free and perhaps not surprisingly none did. Goes to show that being a king’s kept woman is a lot better than becoming a poor farmer’s wife…..not very much different from what’s happening these days where everyday you can see big rich fat and ugly businessman with a beautiful young bimbo hanging on to his arm…