Memories along the royal path

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the US and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland, His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej was very much a child of the world. With French as fluent as his native tongue and excellent English, the King could have enjoyed travelling around the world with his family, attending luxurious receptions and other occasions befitting the presence of a monarch.
Instead, he chose to stay close to home for most of his reign, 
Crowned in 1946, he married Queen Sirikit on April 28, 1950 and the couple spent their honeymoon at Klai Kangwon Palace, the royal summer palace in Hua Hin.
For most of us, travel has many faces, varying from a short ride to the market to a grand tour to satisfy our wanderlust. For His Majesty the King, travel was always about his personal quest to improve the lives of his people. And despite only occasionally going overseas, the King covered the best part of 5,000 kilometres a year, much of it through uncharted villages across the kingdom.
Vietnam was the first country the King honoured with a State Visit in 1959. He also briefly visited Indonesia and Myanmar before taking a Grand Tour of America and Europe for six months accompanied by the Queen and his two elder children.
His Majesty was a little worried about leaving Thailand for the West. 
“Tomorrow I will leave Bangkok for America and 13 European countries,” the King was quoted as saying on June 13, 1960. “This is a state visit following their invitations. Every country – big or small – has to maintain a friendship with each other. 
“I will leave the country and people for six months, and I am concerned about not being here. I would suggest all of you to perform your duty well in order to maintain peace and order in the country.”
The Royal Couple together with Prince Vajiralongkorn and Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya visited Disneyland on June 22, 1960. Last Friday Disneyland published photos of the visit [disneyandmore.blogspot.com] as a tribute to His Majesty. The images, both in black and white and colour, include one of the Royal Family in a boat of Story Book Land with Captain Hook’s ship in the background. 
After a month in the US, the King and his family crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. He went to England and spent a short time there before travelling to 12 other countries. 
On return to Thailand, the King rarely travelled overseas. The last country he visited was Laos in 1994. 
For more than half a century the King moved extensively around Thailand, once telling a foreign correspondent that there was too much to do at home to go overseas. With maps in his hands and a camera around his neck, the King went to every corner of Thailand. The trips, however, were not for his personal pleasure but to improve the quality of life of his people. He initiated Royal Projects in the country’s far north, introducing cash crops as alternatives to the opium poppy so that people could stand on their feet. 
 “In my position, I am called the King. I am the King. But my duty if you’ve noticed is not the duty of the King. It is sometimes quite different or difficult to define,” the King told the BBC’s David Lomax in 1980 while describing his work.
He rode on horseback as he made his way to remote hilltribe villages. Dressed in military uniform, he visited Thailand’s most precarious outposts. And as with any travellers, he returned with plenty of travel tales. 
During one visit to a remote hilltribe village in Northern Thailand, the headman invited the King to his hamlet and served him a glass of moonshine made of his finest corn. The glass was dirty and his servant suggested the King pass the home-made drink to him so he could take care of it. “It’s alright. Nothing could survive the ferocity of moonshine – let alone disease,” the King replied. 
Another classic travel tale which has been repeatedly told is centred on a private trip from Klai Kangwon Palace to Phetchaburi province, sometime in 1955. The king was scheduled to visit Kang Krachan Reservoir, but decided to see it on his own the day before the official visit. On the way to the reservoir, he found the road blocked and the locals busy building the royal arch. A poor man approached and, unaware to whom he was talking, told the King to find another way around. No man could go through the royal arch – but the king. The following day, on his official visit, the King lowered his window and spoke to the man who had stopped him a day earlier: 
“Today I am the King. I can now go through the arch, can’t I?” One can only imagine how the man felt!
“The King and Queen of Thailand have always been in close contact with the people and they usually regard the King as the father of the nation. That’s why we don’t have much private time because we’re considered the father and mother of the nation,” Her Majesty Queen Sirikit explained to the BBC’s journalist.
The Royal Couple made another trip to Kaeng Krachan Reservoir in 1961. It was a trip to remember and our thanks must go to Wut Boonlert for sharing these rare photos on Facebook. 
King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit travelled together to a Karen village beyond the reservoir. In a scene worthy of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, the Queen looking young and beautiful in a blue-and-red Karen costume can be seen leaning over the railing of a bamboo pavilion on the reservoir bank as King Bhumibol, accompanied by his bandmates, happily plays trumpet to serenade her. Their obvious happiness could well have stemmed from the fact that the water from this same reservoir was used to prepare the blessing water for their royal wedding. 
“I remember my grandmother telling me she was preparing food for that Royal visit,” says Thanisorn Luckchai, who still lives in Phetchaburi. “Everyone dressed in their finest Karen clothes. While they were cooking, the Queen came into the kitchen and invited everyone to plunge in the reservoir.”
Almost 5,000 kilometres a year is a great distance for one man to travel and leave behind him hundreds of stories. In the case of King Bhumibol, those stories are everywhere and will last until the end of time.