It is a Thai tradition that young men at the age of twenty spend a period of time in the monkhood in order to forward the merits to their parents who have given them birth and brought them up. Boys under the age of twenty as well as older men who are not ready to obey the 227 precepts required for monkhood can also be ordained as novices, who need to obey only 10 precepts. In recent years, it is popular in Thailand for wats (monasteries) to arrange summer ordainment programs for men and boys. These new monks and novices would enter the Buddist rigorous and austere way of life. They need to learn how to dress themselves properly in saffron robes and how to collect alms from devotees in the communities surrounding the temple. Most importantly, they study the theory of Buddhism and practice Buddhist meditation. The monkhood or novicehood summer programs often last between 15 and 30 days. After this period the monks and novices are disrobed, hopefully to become better persons. Typically such a program involves a lot of effort from both the community and the monastery. This is an opportunity for the monastery to cultivate possible candidates for future monks as well as future patrons while the ordainees are prepared to be more matured members of the community.

On 2 May 2003, 81 men and boys (as well as about 30 additional ordainees) were ordained as monks and novices at Wat Pathumwanaram in the middle of Bangkok in honor of Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana's 80th birthday. Prior to the event, the Princess had granted an audience to the Abbot of Wat Pathumwanaram and representatives of the ordainees at her residence.

Shown below are 77 out of over 350 photos I took during the two-week Summer Ordainment Program, where my eldest son, Lertchon, was ordained as a novice. The photos were taken with a SONY Cyber Shot DSC-P2 digital camera. Post-processing in Photoshop 7 was needed to enhance a few images that had been shot under ambient lighting.