BANGKOK: Thailand's royal family collected the ashes of the King's sister yesterday, ending the main phase of a six-day funeral that has briefly calmed the country's turbulent political waters.
Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn presided over a ceremony to collect the remains of Princess Galyani Vadhana, who died of cancer in January at the age of 84.
He sprinkled consecrated water over the royal relics and ashes before placing them in a lacquered and gilded royal urn.
A procession of more than 800 soldiers and dignitaries then accompanied the urn from a specially built crematorium to the Royal Palace in old Bangkok.
Thousands of mourners turned out to watch the ceremony, which came a day after more than 100,000 Thais attended the lavish US$8.9 million (S$13.5 million) cremation of the princess, the elder sister of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
With the world's longest reigning monarch and his family treated by Thais as semi-divine but also non-political, the funeral has been a temporary unifying influence amid the three-month-old political crisis.
Anti-government protesters occupied the main official buildings in Bangkok in August in a bid to force out the government, which they say is a proxy for ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Allies of the billionaire tycoon, who was toppled in a bloodless military coup in 2006, and his enemies sat together last Saturday as the King lit the gilded pyre for the princess.
The truce may hold until the King's 81st birthday on Dec 5, but the hostilities between the government and the opposition People's Alliance for Democracy are likely to re-ignite, analysts said.
