Crematorium — Thailand

Thai royal funeral chariot

To all of us at the GFG-Batesville Tower, Lyra Mollington is an elusive and mysterious figure. This is reinforced by her custom of delivering her weekly blog post by means of what she calls ‘drops’, a practice derived, we believe, from espionage. Rumour has it that she served with distinction in SOE (here) in the late war against Germany. Every Friday morning an intern is turfed out to retrieve her latest instalment, folded perhaps into a copy of the Daily Star discarded on a park bench, or, as on one occasion, in the form of microfiche hidden in the ferrule of an umbrella standing in a corner of the Tate Gallery tearoom. 

Were she to wish to extend her knowledge of crematoria, we would recommend, at the opulent end of the scale, the Royal Crematorium in Thailand. The picture below shows the pavilion from which the Royal Family observes a royal cremation. Behind it, clad in scaffolding, under construction, is the crematorium of Her Royal Highness Princess Bejaratana, who died on the 27 July 2011.

Here, below, is the crematorium of Her Royal Highness Princess Bejaratana. Her cremation ceremony will last from 8–11 July 2012. She will not be cremated in it, though. We believe that it will house her ashes (do put us right if that is wrong). A separate pyre will be prepared for her. 

Below is a photograph of King Bhumibol Adulayadej in November 2008 lighting the pyre of his sister, Princess Galyani Vadhana. It is only a symbolic pyre, though. She was, in fact, cremated in an electric incinerator.