Thousands of grieving Thai royalists lined the streets of Bangkok on Sunday, saluting a procession bringing former Queen Sirikit’s body. She will lie in state for a year-long funeral at the capital’s Grand Palace.
Queen Mother Sirikit was the mother of the current King Vajiralongkorn and the wife of the country’s longest-reigning monarch.
She was a beloved royal figure who supervised projects to help the rural poor, preserve traditional craft-making and protect the environment. She died on Friday at the age of 93.
Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semidivine figures. They are lavished with glowing media coverage, and you can find gold-adorned portraits of them hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide.
Sirikit’s body was carried in a slow-moving ambulance from Chulalongkorn Hospital late on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by motorbikes on a 10-kilometre (six-mile) procession to the Grand Palace.
Crowds of nurses clasped their hands and bowed as the convoy passed, while other spectators clutched portraits of the queen or wept as ranks of saluting police officers fell to one knee.
Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch beamed onto towering billboards and could be seen on supermarket and hotel lobby screens. Even Thai banking apps featured special pop-up notices dedicated to the former queen mother.
Television newsreaders wore black while media websites turned monochrome. Citizens have been asked to dress in muted colours and curtail celebratory public events for 90 days.
About half of the people in a supermarket and on a shopping street in central Bangkok were wearing the traditional Thai mourning colours of black or white.
K-pop supergroup Blackpink went ahead with sold-out weekend shows at Bangkok’s 50,000-seat Rajamangala National Stadium, but attendees were asked “to wear black attire as a mark of mourning.”
Throughout her 66-year marriage to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Sirikit became known as a sophisticated, fashion-forward woman who was also the nation’s caring mother figure. The lengthy reign of Sirikit’s husband, from 1946 until 2016, began with the end of the second world war and ended with US President Donald Trump’s first election win.
The present King Vajiralongkorn inherited the throne about nine years ago, but many still revere Bhumibol as the nation’s most steadfast figurehead – and Sirikit as his constant companion.
Sirikit had retired from the public eye in recent years, her privacy sealed by strict laws that limit what can be reported about the royal family. She had “suffered several illnesses” while hospitalised since 2019, including a blood infection this month, the palace said in a statement.
Sirikit might be best remembered around the world for her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, when she mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley. At home, she was referred to as the “Mother of the Nation”, with her birthday designated the country’s Mother’s Day.
