First of all, Thais are more than pleased to see that the gathering immensely delighted our beloved His Majesty the King.

And of course, they are pleased to know the royal guests enjoyed themselves during their stay in the Kingdom.

There were reports that a group of young princes boarded a long-tail boat to tour Bangkok's canals. A day before the royal ceremony at the Grand Palace, Great Britain's Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, was also spotted at the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi in Chiang Mai, dubbed the most extravagant hotel in Thailand.

On Wednesday, Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko wandered through the old Wat Mahathat in Ayutthaya, despite the heat and bright sunlight.

On the same day, Prince Alois of Liechtenstein was spotted at Wat Chaiwattanaram, another of the province's great temples of yesteryear.

The provincial city has been of notable importance to Thais, serving as the capital for some 400 years during the Ayutthaya era. And as it celebrates its sixth decade of existence as a modern-day province, Ayutthaya's large number of historical sites holds a certain allure as a tourist destination, with some of the old structures that survived the disastrous fire of more than 200 years ago still standing.

While the Japanese emperor and empress might be pleased the Buddha images they viewed at Wat Mahathat were still perfectly intact, with their heads still firmly on their shoulders, Prince Alois must have been surprised that so many Buddha images at Wat Chaiwattanaram were headless.

This is so shameful: we have such precious stuff right at hand and don't realise its true value.

This has become an agonising issue for patriotic Thais, who are now learning more about the theft from ancient temples of the heads of Buddha images and their subsequent "export".

We can only hope that with the distribution of photos of the royal guests' visit, Thais will take greater pride in their historical sites and that people the world over will join us in denouncing those buyers. After all, if there are no buyers, there will be no theft.

Then these ancient sites will remain attractive for the next guests who come to Thailand.

achara_d@nationgroup.com