A very wonderful old friend of mine met the King many years ago, when he visited Thailand at the King's request, to discuss assistance programs. However a condition was that the visitor had to approach the King on his knees, and he politely declined to do that. So Bhumibol arranged a private meeting. These two men, one who grew up as a Buddhist prince, the other who grew up as a devout Christian in a New Zealand orphanage, met and became very close personal friends. So close that when the King married (he had two ceremonies, a Buddhist wedding of course and a Western ceremony for diplomats to attend) the King asked this man to be his "best man" at the Western ceremony, and so it happened, and they remained friends right up to Bhumibol's death decades later.
The Telegraph obituary is comprehensive:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2 ... -obituary/
13 Oct 2016, 7:14 am
