VISIT TO TEMPLE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29679, 24 November 1961, Page 13

VISIT TO TEMPLE

BANGKOK. November 23 I Princess Alexandra last night joined King Aduladej and Queen Slrikit of Thailand in celebrating the country's annual moonlight Loy Kratoong festival, tn which colourful offerings am made to the Goddess of 1 Water. A few hours after her arrival in Bangkok late yester- I day, she journeyed 10 miles I up the Cbaophya river by motor launch to a riverside 1 Buddist temple It was a memorable occa- 1 s.on for the Princess, for it is Thailand's most colourful : night with laughing, singing Thais and the river bank lit 1 up by myriads of green and yellow lights. Tiny banana-leaf basket- 1

(N-Z.P-A -Reuter— Copyright)

boats, carrying Loy Krathong offerings of lighted candles, incense sticks, flowers and coins floated by as people light-heartedly atoned for their year's sins. At the temple, known as Wat Chalerm Prakiat, Princess Alexandra accompanied the King and Queen and their entourage when they went inside to pray. She stopped with her lady-in-waiting. Lady Myra Hamilton. in one comer of the temple as the King and Queen knelt on the mattsd floor and bowed three times to the 12ft high gold-plated Buddha seated on a 15ft jewel-inlaid pedestal. Later the Royal party launched banana-leaf boats on the river while attendants fired multi-coloured rockets into the air around them.

New Obstacles. Border police of the Communist East German regime have built new obstacles around the autobahn checkpoint outside Berlin to make it more difficult for motorists to evade controls.—Berlin, November 23.