His Royal Majesty the King's Birthday

Today was the King's 87th Birthday, a national holiday and celebration of epic proportions.

I should explain. The Thai love their King - he's the longest-serving monarch on Earth, and most of the people in Thailand have never been alive without him being King. He's almost universally beloved and revered, and from the looks of the history books, has done almost everything. He's a Jazz composer, a writer, and a sailor. He holds patents on rain-cloud seeding. He's single-handedly calmed the country in turbulent times more than once.

If you live in America, let me put it to you this way. Imagine there was a person so beloved and revered by every American that they could take the leaders of the Republicans and the Democrats, sit them down on National TV, and tell them"stop fighting and go make the country better."

That's what Thailand's King can do. And, notably, he has done it.

So for his Birthday, I expected something truly epic. But it didn't really happen, at least not here, in the South. There were some celebrations out at the coast with the King's Yachting Regatta Race and a big ceremony in Bangkok, but here, actually, everything was just closed.

The King's birthday doubles as Father's day in Thailand, and on the whole, people were home with their families. In the tourist-filled scene that is sometimes Phuket, that's a beautiful thing.

There's also a small twist to this story. It's illegal in Thailand to say anything against the King. And, when I went to the Wikipedia article for His Royal Majesty for a bit more research, I got the page above. A good reminder - things are different in every culture, every country. Especially as a foreigner, it's wise to tread lightly.