I wish him good health and that he stays as the soul of the Thai people for a long time," said well-wisher Nonglak Thongliam.
Helped by well publicised rural development projects -- and shielded by one of the world`s harshest royal defamation laws -- King Bhumibol is revered by many Thais as a semi-divine figure and a benevolent moral force in a kingdom with a long history of instability and episodes of political bloodshed.