DirectRooms.com – Experience the Royal Ploughing Ceremony in Bangkok

DirectRooms.com annually reports on one of the most festive local ceremonies to take place in Bangkok: the Royal Ploughing Ceremony. Traditionally held in May, the exact date is determined by the lunar calendar and marks the beginning of the rice-growing season, as well as many other harvests.

2010 sees the Royal Ploughing Ceremony held on May 14th, bringing in both local and foreign visitors, who fill Bangkok hotels for the duration of the ceremony.

The overall goal of the ceremony is to determine how plentiful the harvest for the coming year will be, as well as which types of harvests are going to be the most fruitful. The streets are filled with revellers, who watch as two sacred oxen are hitched to a wooden plough and marched through the streets of Bangkok until they reach the ceremonial grounds, where they then plough a furrow in the earth. The oxen are then offered plates of food such as rice, corn, beans, grass, water and whisky. The plates chosen by the oxen will represent the best harvest for the coming year.

Along with seeing priests and other religious figures who are otherwise unavailable to the general public, this is one of the rare occasions that visitors can witness the King and his Royal entourage appointing the Ploughing Lord as his representative for the rites. This is the perfect opportunity for travellers to witness the spectacle of one of Thailand's most important ceremonies, sure to be one that they will talk about for years to come.