Thai king leaves self-isolation in Germany to travel nearly 9,000 miles to attend a dinner party, report says
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The Thai king, who had been self-isolating in a luxury German hotel with an entourage of 20 concubines and servants, reportedly flew back to his home country recently to attend an upscale dinner party on a national holiday.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn made the nearly 9,000-mile trip to Bangkok last Monday with a pit stop in Switzerland along the way to pick up one of his four wives, who had been holed up there during the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Metro newspaper.
“This pandemic is not the fault of anybody,” he was quoted as saying during a lavish banquet in celebration of Chakri Memorial Day, which marks the beginning of the current Thai royal dynasty in 1782. “The government must solve the problem by understanding its causes.”
Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida, one of his wives, pay their respects at the King Rama I monument on April 6 to honor the start of the Chakri dynasty’s reign in Bangkok, Thailand. (Reuters)
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Vajiralongkorn flew on a Thai Airways jet and was greeted at the airport by the country’s prime minister and military chief, Metro reported. He later was photographed paying his respects at a monument before hopping back on the plane and returning to Germany, by way of Switzerland.
The 67-year-old king – who was vacationing in Germany during the start of the coronavirus outbreak – is said to have booked the entire Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
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A local official told the German tabloid Bild that the king’s entourage was approved for their stay at the four-star property because “the guests are a single, homogenous group of people with no fluctuation.
Thailand, as of Wednesday, has 2,643 coronavirus cases, with 43 deaths, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University.
