BANGKOK, 20 May 2013 (NNT) - Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, along with venerable monks recently gave a press conference at Government House to announce government activities to celebrate this years Visakha Bucha Day, which falls on 24 May.

According to Mr. Niwattumrong, this years Visakha Bucha Day celebrations will be held as a tribute to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, as well as other members of the Royal Family. The celebrations began on 18 May and will last until this Friday, 24 May. This years activities are also dedicated to His Holiness Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara, the Supreme Patriarch who will turn 100 on October 3, 2013. The celebrations are held with the concepts to introduce Thailand as a world Buddhist center and to inspire Thai Buddhists to bring religious teachings into practice in their everyday life.

Visakha Bucha Day is being celebrated at temples nationwide with provincial governors and ecclesiastical provincial governors supervising activities in their respective provinces. The activities include propagation of Buddhist teachings and practices. An international academic conference will also be organized by Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, a public Buddhist university. The conference will be held on 21-22 May at the United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok.

The event will be broadcast live from 8.00-17.00 hrs on TNN2 Channel (True Visions 08) and on MCU TV, C-Band 3880MHz.

enjoy .. dave2

Added link to source (Admin) - NNT

Edited May 21, 201313 yr by Tywais
Next time please add link to source you are quoting

We are in Chiang Mai, so dont care about Bkk!

On the 23rd, the night before Visakha Bucha day, there will be a religious ceremony at 7pm.It will start at the Kruba Srivichai Monument (100m past the zoo on Huay Kaew rd) and will be opened by the Governor, Thanin Supasaen. After the opening a glittering procession will make its way to Doi Suthep temple, followed by crowds of people.

Along the road there will be drinking water, food and medical services provided.

The crowds of people will get to the top of the road in the early hours of the 24th. The ceremony will start at 6.30am with 86 monks coming down the naga stairs to receive food. At 5pm the same day there will be a royal water ceremony and a walk with lighted candles in hands around the temple.

If you havent done the pilgrimage walk before, its sure to be a moving, heartfelt and religious ocassion. Despite over 50 regular climbs to the temple, this one is going to be memorable for sure. see you there thursday evening?

Edited May 21, 201313 yr by eyecatcher

re

We are in Chiang Mai, so dont care about Bkk!

which part of this bit didnt you understand ? coz as far as

i know .. nationwide .. should cover chiang mai as well

Visakha Bucha Day is being celebrated at temples nationwide

good info on the event ... thank you !

the starting point and doi suthep steps

dave2

re

Visakha Bucha Day is being celebrated at temples nationwide

tomorrow : )

and it can be called visakha puja day as well !

dave2

ps .. most banks will be shut tomorrow : (

Just pointing out 2dave2

The Thai signs in the photos all say "Wisarka Boochar", the English translations doesn't match the Thai script.

If you say "Visakha puja" to a Thai, the reply will invariably be "arai na"

Edited May 23, 201313 yr by AnotherOneAmerican

re

Just pointing out 2dave2

The Thai signs in the photos all say "Wisarka Boochar", the English translations doesn't match the Thai script.

how would i know as i dont speak or read thai but ill

go along with the way the ministers and the venerable monks

are happy to report it in a newspaper and posters that

i can read here

Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, along with venerable monks recently gave a press conference at Government House to announce government activities to celebrate this years Visakha Bucha Day, which falls on 24 May.

dave2

re

Just pointing out 2dave2

The Thai signs in the photos all say "Wisarka Boochar", the English translations doesn't match the Thai script.

how would i know as i dont speak or read thai but ill

go along with the way the ministers and the venerable monks

are happy to report it in a newspaper and posters that

i can read here

Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, along with venerable monks recently gave a press conference at Government House to announce government activities to celebrate this years Visakha Bucha Day, which falls on 24 May.

dave2

Thais can't pronounce V, any time you see a V think W.

It doesn't actually matter what the English letters say, cos the Thais aren't reading them, and they don't care if the foreigners read it wrong.

More importantly: No Booze.

re

It doesn't actually matter what the English letters say, cos the Thais aren't reading them, and they don't care if the foreigners read it wrong.

ahh got it ... thats why they didnt bother with any english

writing on this one .... clever : )

.........................................................

wtk ... your a heathen : )

just joshin .. dave2

re

Visakha Bucha Day is being celebrated at temples nationwide

tomorrow : )

and it can be called visakha puja day as well !

dave2

ps .. most banks will be shut tomorrow : (

I hate to interrupt the religious and semantical discussions with something so dreary and secular, but does anyone know if Bangkok Bank will be open 24 May? I was planning on taking care of a little business.

re

Visakha Bucha Day is being celebrated at temples nationwide

tomorrow : )

and it can be called visakha puja day as well !

dave2

ps .. most banks will be shut tomorrow : (

I hate to interrupt the religious and semantical discussions with something so dreary and secular, but does anyone know if Bangkok Bank will be open 24 May? I was planning on taking care of a little business.

As shown on their website it is a Bank holiday for them - http://www.bangkokbank.com/BangkokBank/AboutBangkokBank/AboutUs/CorporateProfile/BBLToday/Pages/BankHolidays.aspx

The small shopping mall ones will most likely be open though, just the main branches will not.

re

Visakha Bucha Day is being celebrated at temples nationwide

tomorrow : )

and it can be called visakha puja day as well !

dave2

ps .. most banks will be shut tomorrow : (

I hate to interrupt the religious and semantical discussions with something so dreary and secular, but does anyone know if Bangkok Bank will be open 24 May? I was planning on taking care of a little business.

As shown on their website it is a Bank holiday for them - http://www.bangkokbank.com/BangkokBank/AboutBangkokBank/AboutUs/CorporateProfile/BBLToday/Pages/BankHolidays.aspx

The small shopping mall ones will most likely be open though, just the main branches will not.

Thanks for the info and the link. I need a main branch, so I guess my banking will have to wait until Monday.

For anyone, who is thinking of doing the walk next year….read on.

If you have ever walked away from a football stadium of 50,000 fans at the end of the game, and then walked 14kms uphill you will get some degree of last nights experience.

It took us over 30 minutes to ride the short 2km up Huay Kaew Road towards the memorial just beyond the zoo. Traffic was horrendous to say the least, and that, combined with hundreds of people already walking from the city areas.

There was no thro traffic allowed beyond the University gates, which was the official car park . We spent about 45 minutes at the start point, and listened to a melodious chant-not and then an opening speech by some officials . The road at this point was already crammed with walkers leaving only a narrow lane down the right side for vehicles coming down.

We headed off, umbrella in hand, water and camera, and joined the thousands on the walk. Both of us at least were dressed suitably with strong shoes and socks but the majority…you would think they were out on a fashion show. High heels, flip flops, full make up, and the girls; the same. Mobile phones stuck to their ears, actually no, it was blessing that that there isnt a signal for a lot of the way..

But I was astonished by the number of families dragging their 5yr olds on a 4hr walk, or pushing a pram and some actually carrying their kids. Not too many people I guess were older than myself, the majority seemed to be 30s and under.

Along the route there were many food carts selling their sausage balls or squid; in fact that was your choice for most of the way up. A few places were giving away noodles; pat Thai and lots of free water, coke and fanta type drinks.

It was a struggle to walk in your own space, many a time I would walk up the back of someones legs, or jab my umbrella down and pin their sandal to the floor. The route was quite well lit in several areas as someone had rigged up electric fluorescent lights but a couple of times it seems the power was overloaded with the number of sausage food carts and their electric fans , and the route fell into darkness; quite eerie and people seemed to stop talking. Elsewhere along the route it wasn’t quiet, some groups army or navy boys were chanting their he-man songs and there were solitary drummers banging the rythym to war galley, and pre requisite crappy dancing troupe that think they are good.

The pace picked up towards the top with the anticipation of the end in sight, at this point there were also thousands walking down, those who had been earlier. As we approached stalls at the top, people were sitting in the road, looking to bed down for the night, and I have never seen as many foot massage chairs in my life with many takers as you can imagine.

Then the bottleneck; the steps leading to the temple and the Naga stairs were choked solid, only 12 hours earlier I had literally run down those steps at pace zig zagging and now you couldn’t even see your feet. I was one who legged it over the side of the steps and walked up the outside of the walls; it would have taken at least 30 minutes to go one step at a time in the crush.

At the top, we were exhausted. The outer area was littered with people sleeping on the floor for the night,ot sure how they could with the constant din of those bells being struck. The compulsory removal of shoes to go to the inner sanctum was a ticket to never finding your footwear again as there were single shoes strewn everywhere. I refrained from further stress and punishment and awaited my better half to do her thing.

After all the water and fluid intake she needed the toilets only to come straight back to advise the water had run dry in the toilets…what would they be like in the morning.?

It had taken us about 4hrs to get all the way to the temple and then about an hour stepping over people and trying to get back.

We arrived back at the top of the main steps and looked down, wow, half were trying to get up, half were trying to get down. We were crushed like sardines, after going down about 15 steps I thought, this is what happened at Hillsborough; . It was too dangerous, couldn’t breathe and it was going to take us an hour to get down the steps.

Fortunately I know the back way out of the temple and we could be 400m down the road in ten minutes, so we turned around and went out through the meditation areas. The girly took some convincing about it as it was pitch black and she didn’t want to go hiking with me.at 2am

On the road we jumped onto a songthaew. I was hanging off the back; and besides us there were 27 other people in our songthaew, 7 on each bench, 6 on the floor in the middle, 2 with the driver, 2 on the roof rack and 5 of us hanging off the back. It was a slow return, one hour and the drivers were charging 50bt a head. Quite lucrative at 1300bt a trip. I guess every red taxi in the city was flying up and down last night as I roughly estimated their were 75-100 thousand people doing that walk.

A couple of ambulances were trying to get down, but in vain really, sirens blurting but in fairness it was not easy to negotiate thousands of walkers and hundreds of taxis.

Got back to the zoo area around 3am…many people were just setting off at that time… the street cleaners were already out collecting the thousands and thousands of plastic paper cups, bags, plates, straws, half eaten sausages, plates of food,…

Well in conclusion, I would say its another new experience, but one I will never repeat. There were about 4 first aid stations we saw but you needed to have your heart attack at that point, anywhere else it’s a forelorn hope. Police; didn’t see any other than one or two sat eating and socialising. Security and control; well what I saw on the Naga steps was potentially frightening, no barriers no streamlining, just a free for all.

Having said that; credit to everyone who completed the walk and many who walked back. From my own experience 14-16km is never easy but I hope they manage to get their wishes and fulfilment out the trip

Oh well roll on Monday when I can do it at my own pace…..up and down in 2hrs

More importantly: No Booze.

oh the humanity. I see BIB's riding around checking the mom and pop shops for alcohol sales.

Hopefully they are just check during the day....

Good write up eye-catcher.

I would add that the amount of rubbish strewn the whole way up the mountain was staggering. I am used to dirty streets by now, but this was just disgusting. It was hard to take a step without kicking a bottle or crunching some styrofoam at some points. I did leave about 1 to 2 hours after the official start time, so maybe that's just my own fault for being at the back...

It would take a lot of convincing to get me to walk up again next year as all the things you mentioned + trash really detracted from the whole experience.