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Some adjustments will be implemented from April 1 for people arriving at Sanam Luang to pay their respects before the royal urn of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej inside the Grand Palace’s Dusit Maha Prasart Throne Hall in Bangkok.
Following
a meeting of the Peace and Order Maintaining Command on Friday, Deputy
First Army Region commander Maj-General Pongsawat Pannachit said the
adjustment was needed because Sanam Luang would be prepared as the
ceremonial ground for the upcoming Royal Ploughing Ceremony.
The
Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s Department of Public Work is
currently preparing the southern area of Sanam Luang to support
mourners, with an administrative tent and medical team set up there.
From April 1, officials and volunteers will provide snacks to visitors each morning, Pongsawat said.
Later each day, people can receive
food from charity tents at two areas near the Mother Earth Squeezing Her
Hair Statue and the old Government Lottery Office.
Those
visiting the "Yen Sira Phro Phra Boriban" exhibition building at Sanam
Luang will have a tent especially for them at the area opposite the
Appeals Court.
A shuttle bus service from the Grand Palace's Thevapirom Gate to the exhibition building will be available.
The Royal Ploughing Ceremony will be held in May on the Phuetcha
Mongkhon holiday to mark the traditional beginning of the rice-growing
season.
The ceremony, rooted in Brahman belief, will involve two
sacred oxen ploughing a furrow in the ceremonial ground while rice seeds
are sown.
After the ploughing, the oxen will be offered food
such as rice, corn, green beans, sesame, fresh-cut grass, water and rice
whisky.
There will be a prediction on whether the coming growing season will be bountiful based on what the oxen eat.
