"Welcome home. My hero" read the banners at Wat Thammachak in Phitsanulok as family and friends welcomed home Sirawich "Jo" Chantaburnan, who died while saving the life of his friend in the United States.
Students from Phitsanulok Witthayakhom School and members of the Buddhachinaraj Rotary Club carried the banners into the temple in Muang district of this northern province, as they followed the Ror Dor territorial defence students carrying the coffin of the young man.
The 18-year-old Thai exchange student drowned on June 6 after rescuing a friend who had got into trouble in the sea at Frisco beach in North Carolina, but Sirawich disappeared and his body was found a day later.
The parents of Sirawich Chantaburnan take his body into a pavilion at Wat Thammachak in Phitsanulok on Friday. (Photo by Chinnawat Singha)
Sirawich was studying at State College Area High School in Pennsylvania under a Rotary Youth Exchange programme. He was on a school break in North Carolina at the time of the accident.
The Thai student joined the exchange programme in July last year and had been planning to return to Thailand soon.
His body was returned from the US to Phitsanulok on Friday for a religious ceremony before a cremation on July 1.
His father Jessada and mother Woravijit could not hold back tears when they saw the tributes to their son from his friends entering the temple. They gathered their strength and walked ahead of the coffin as the solemn procession made its way to the pavilion.
They thanked everyone who rendered help to them in their time of sorrow.
His host family in the US flew in to attend the ceremony and brought with them his clothes and other items, including pictures, one of them showing Sirawich with the friend he had saved.