...but also on buses, in restaurants, in homes. Every town has it's own image of the king and queen outside on display, often 10 feet or more high with a thick gilded frame. There are rules surrounding how to treat the king's image, which extends as far as not licking a stamp that has his image on it - the proper way to attach one of those stamps is to use the damp sponge made available by the post office.
Thais seem to not only have a deep respect for the king, but also a real affection for him and it ends up rubbing off on me. I know that the information I read is propaganda, but my inch-deep-mile-wide tour of Thailand leaves me with the impression that the king was a hip cat in his day. By far, my favourite picture of the king is what I call "The king and The King" (assign the capitalization to each man as you please):
Oh, skinny Elvis, you were so fine.
I searched around but wasn't able to locate a copy of this photo for myself, so I took a photo of the photo as a consolation prize.
Photo credit: D
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