Year-long funeral starts for ex-queen

THE yearlong funeral ceremony of Thailand's former queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok's Grand Palace.

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Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide.

Former queen Sirikit, the mother of the current King Vajiralongkorn and wife of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late Friday at the age of 93.

Black and white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertising billboards, on TVs in supermarkets and hotel lobbies, and as popup notices on Thai banking apps.

Tanaburdee Srimuang has kept a vigil outside the Grand Palace since confirmation of Sirikit’s death broke in the early hours of Saturday.