PUNAKHA: Bhutan's 31-year-old king married a student 10 years his junior on Thursday in a colourful ceremony showcasing the rich Buddhist culture of one of the world's most remote and insular countries.
Amid clouds of incense and chanting by monks, the hugely popular King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck crowned his queen at the end of series of rituals in the 17th-century fortified monastery chosen for the occasion.
After a brief purification ceremony to start, they walked hand-in-hand and smiling to the inner sanctum of the monastery where an hour of blessings, prostrations and prayers culminated with the queen taking the throne.
The king, an Oxford graduate who came to power in 2008 at the start of democracy in Bhutan, married Jetsun Pema, the daughter of an airline pilot widely admired for her beauty and her impact on the love-struck monarch.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.