Tag Archives: King of Thailand

The King of Thailand’s visit to Ubon Ratchathani

Another eagerly anticipated email from Bob was received late last night. In it he wrote

“Here are four more pictures. Picture one is another picture I took in 1967 of the intersection at Chayangkun Road and Upparat Road.”

“I believe I took pictures two and three in 1968. In picture two, I was standing on base and facing check point Charley. This was the day the King was coming to Ubon and people lined up all the way from check point Charley to downtown to see him.”

“Picture three is of the car the King was riding in as he was being driven from base to downtown. You can barely see his form in the back seat. This was all that I saw of the King that day.”

“I took picture four in early 1969 of the Big Buddha that I believe is in Amnat Charoen Province.”

Ubon with a splash of colour

Outside Peppers and all the way along Uppalisan Road from the airforce base to the entrance to the passenger terminal used to be a big ugly grey wall. Thankfully it was partially obscured by some half decent trees. Then one day the council came around and pulled them all out. I was really disappointed as it gave the place a splash of much needed green.

It stayed like this for a few months until I was blinded upon my return from our short New Year holiday as the complete wall was painted a brilliant white. It was blinding but at least we saved on our power bill as we hardly need any lights on in the shop!

Almost immediately we noticed starting from the terminal entrance end people starting to paint murals on the walls. They are slowly working their way up our end and I must say that I am impressed by some of the works. A lot of school kids but also adults seem to be painting as well. It has a theme which seems to be about the King of Thailand and the projects he has done to help his people.

Here is a photo of just one mural and when I get time I will take some more of some completed works of art.

It is great to see this happening in Ubon as it really has lifted the mood of this road which I would estimate to carry the second most amount of traffic in any given day within the city. Lets hope they do some similar projects elsewhere also.