We are late on this, but it has been stated at a usually accurate royal blog that King Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida have confirmed their attendance at King Charles’ coronation.
As far as we know, Vajiralongkorn hasn’t been anywhere since returning from Germany to see off the anti-royal youth rebellion.
This is kind of newsworthy given that no Thai royal attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. At the time that seemed a bit odd.
Where is Sineenart? That’s still odd.
A few days ago an Australian website posted “The mystery surrounding the hospitalisation of Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha.” It is a timely reminder that the palace has simply locked down on news about the presumed death of the king’s eldest daughter.
As the report states, “Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha has been mysteriously away from the spotlight after being hospitalised last December, with no word from the palace since.” Well, not after a couple of Royal Household bulletins.
The report reminds readers that she was probably “heir to the Thai throne,” and that she collapsed on 14 December 2022, “after which she was taken to a local hospital before being transferred to Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok, where she was said to be in stable condition on December 15th.” Stable means on a life support system but probably dead.
Nationwide prayers were organized for the 44 year-old, but “there was no word for a while,” when an odd statement was released “on January 11, 2023 … sharing that Bajrakitiyabha was still unconscious, being treated for severe heart arrhythmia, resulting from inflammation from a mycoplasma infection.” That seems remarkably unlikely.
As the report says, there “have been no updates on her condition since then…”.
So, mystery reigns. We might also ask where Koi is. Disappearing royals….
There has been a minor social media kerfuffle following a Facebook post by Pavin Chachavalpongpun that was interpreted as saying that the king’s first wife Princess Soamsawali passed away. Of course, she has been seriously ill and incapacitated for several years.
While the still unreported death of her daughter Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol did get some attention on social media and official announcements that have parked her in non-death, there’s been no reporting on Soamsawali.
Likewise, there’s been no reporting on the fate of Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi/Sineenat Bilaskalayani who disappeared from public view months ago. We note that her Wikipedia page stopped adding to her profile following her restoration in 2020. 
PPT knows no more than what is reported in the media. The problem is that nothing is now reported on these three women. Even the Royal Household Bureau, which usually has announcements on royal health is tellingly silent.
Update: We changed expression and added a couple of points to the last paragraph.
In a Facebook post, Andrew MacGregor Marshall confirms that Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi has returned to Thailand. He states that a Royal Thai Air Force Airbus collected her from Munich, delivering her to Don Muang.
Presumably she shows up at some royal event and everything is “normal” again. The next question is where was she and does she have a new royal kid with her.
Some social media are saying that Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, the missing royal consort, has re-appeared.
At present we do not know if this is fake news or real, but the source of the stories seems to be a page devoted to Sineenart. More as we hear of it.
If she is, the question remains: how can someone near the top of the royal family – essentially King Vajiralongkorn’s second wife – simply disappear since December, and with no explanation?
The answer, of course, is that in royalist Thailand no one can ask questions about the monarchy without risking jail or violence.
Update: Nothing more seen since the initial social media post. A reader reckons there’s photos of a baby circulating…. We remain doubtful of these stories and await more official news on the disappeared woman.
AFP – Agence France Presse – reported on the “visit by Thailand’s king to see survivors of a nursery massacre,” noting that it was “a rare recent public outing” by Vajiralongkorn.
AFP then goes through some squirms and calisthenics to suggest that the current monarch is “officially regarded as semi-divine but who came in for unprecedented criticism during street protests in 2020.” Presumably, the “official” bit is to imply that this position is demonstrably buffalo manure.
King Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida visited hospitals treating the victims of the tragic Nong Bua Lamphu massacre. As far as we can tell from reporting, the royals steered clear of the site of the massacre. This is probably for fear of bad karma rubbing off.
As usual, a handful of “royalist supporters, some wearing the king’s official colour yellow, waited outside the hospital ahead of the monarch’s visit.”
And, as always, those viewed by the royals were placed in subordinate positions.
The report is right to observe that the king no longer goes out much: “The palace stepped up public appearances in late 2020 and early 2021, including one occasion on which the king visited prisons, sweeping floors alongside his [then] official consort.” Since the regime arrested and charged hundreds with lese majeste, “he has been seen less in public since the protests ebbed away in 2021.” Presumably he feels his position has been fortified.
Perhaps the AFP might have asked why he’s stopped spending most of his time in Germany. Tax issues? An incapacity under German law to take government decisions?
Helpfully, though, AFP does mention Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi. But she has completely disappeared, without a trace. What has happened to her?
On 26 September 2022, Absorn (pseudonym), 23, employed at a private company, was sentenced by the Criminal Court to 4 years in prison on lese majeste, computer crimes.
The court decided that as she had never been previously been sentenced to prison, her sentence was reduced to 2 years and suspended for 3 years. She will be on probation for 2 years.
Absorn, a trans woman, was charged on a complaint made by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society after she shared a Facebook post by academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun. The exiled Pavin argued that the campaign was “outdated” and:
claimed that the … royal family launched a public relations campaign in order to compete with pro-democracy protesters, such as by having Princess Sirivannavari, King Vajiralongkorn’s youngest daughter, join a dance event, or reporting that Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, the [then] King’s royal consort, supported a Royal Project by buying products from the Sai Jai Thai Foundation.
Absorn shared the post and without adding anything to it.
She was charged in November 2020. The public prosecutor prosecuted her “on the grounds that the post contain false information and may mislead the public into thinking that the King is an enemy of the people and tries to interfere with politics. The prosecutor also said that the post was rude and intended to cause hatred against the King.”
Of course, facts about the royal family are disputed, but never by the royalist courts. At the time, it was clear that the royal family mobilized to push back against reform calls.
Absorn said the “post was shared onto her old Facebook account which she no longer used. She also immediately took the post down after a coworker warned her it might be illegal.”
Andrew MacGregor Marshall has a new Secret Siam post “Koi gone.” Marshall doesn’t answer the burning question: What has happened to Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, known as Koi, the king’s official concubine?
She’s been gone from 
public view since 5 December 2021. No one is saying what has happened to her. She was there one day and then she disappeared. Her unexplained disappearance is not something usually associated with “celebrities” in the modern world. It is strange. But so is the Thai royal family.
If he can’t say what has happened to her, Marshall puts together the story of Koi as it is currently known. It will be of interest for many who follow the erratic Vajiralongkorn. Here’s some of the conclusion to Marshall’s account:
The royals finally returned to Europe in November 2021, taking over much of the airport hotel in Munich for their mandatory two weeks of coronavirus quarantine. They made day trips to Thailand on November 20 for the changing of the clothes of the Emerald Buddha, and on December 5 for the birthday of the late King Bhumibol.
The December 5 visit was the last time Koi has been seen in public. She has been missing for eight months. Here is the last image we have of her.
It remains unknown what happened during December last year between Vajiralongkorn and Koi….
The king flew back to Bangkok via Zurich on December 28 for Taksin Day, bringing [Queen] Suthida but — very unusually — not Koi, who stayed in Bavaria. He planned to stay in Thailand less than two weeks.
We are PPT don’t think it is certain that Koi remained in Bavaria.
But the plans were repeatedly changed…. Clearly there was some turbulence in the palace, with plans being changed so frequently.
Eventually, Vajiralongkorn decided he was not going to return to his pleasure palace in Bavaria for now. He has not been back to Germany since December and has not seen Koi since then.
The real reason [for Koi’s disappearance], royal sources say, is that Koi’s ambitions were causing so much conflict that Vajiralongkorn became increasingly angry and bored of the drama. Surprisingly, Suthida seems to have won the power struggle for now, with the help of Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari….
On July 28 [2022], the royals gathered to mark Vajiralongkorn’s 70th birthday. It was exactly three years since he had anointed Koi his royal noble consort, but she was nowhere to be seen.
For the moment, Koi is gone.
There’s been plenty of attention to the Forbes rich list. That list has not put the king at the top of the list despite the fact that the king took personal control of it all a few years ago. While corporates like the Siam Commercial Bank now list the king as being its largest shareholder under his personal name, Forbes doesn’t do this.
Even so, at about the same time that Forbes came out with its list, another appeared at The Artistree, listing the top ten wealthiest royals. In this list, the Thai royal family comes in at no. 6: “The Royal Family of Thailand is estimated to be between $30 – $50 billion. There is not much information about the earnings and income of this royal family.” We think it is worth more like $60-70 billion.
Then, the Daily Star decided to recycle a range of interesting and bizarre stories regarding the king and his family, under the headline: “Crazy life of Thailand’s king with leaked vids, abducting daughter and 20 mistresses.” That story has his wealth at about $34 billion.
We are sure that all readers will be aware of the controversial items mentioned in the story and then some.
Which reminds us, where is official consort Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi? As far as we can recall, not a peep has been heard about her since at least December last year.
Of course, plenty wonder what’s going on. There are rumors. She’s jailed again, she’s dead, she’s pregnant, or she’s stuck in Germany. She is certainly banished from royal public life.
King and Sineenat in happier times
Back in mid-February, we were asked about the whereabouts of official consort Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi.
We asked because the previous time she disappeared from public view she was jailed by the king.
After a few months, she was released, declared clean and unimpeachable and taken back to the king’s bosom.
When the king’s household returned to Bangkok to see off the student uprising, Koi was involved in every event. Indeed, she was reasonably high-profile in this palace pushback which saw the king and immediate royal family doing public appearances to boost royalists and royalism.
Campaigning for royalism
If her initial rise, demise and resurrection was very strange stuff, her current situation is even odder. There have been no announcements. She’s just disappeared from public view. By our calculation, her disappearance is now about 6 months.
Of course, plenty are wondering what’s going on. There are rumors. She’s jailed again, she’s dead, she’s pregnant, or she’s stuck in Germany.
We have no idea.
So where is Sineenat?
Political Prisoners in Thailand 