Panda license plate

Announced yesterday were two new car license plate backgrounds, one for Chiang Mai province and one for Nakhon Ratchasima. Both provinces had a picture license plate before.

The most interesting is the one for Chiang Mai. Sadly the 2004 announcement of the original design does not contain the graphic, but on Wikipedia it has a photo of one. The new graphic now features three instead of two Pandas, of course referring to the birth of the Panda baby in May which created a real Panda hype in Thailand, now even a TV channel completely devoted to that Panda. Also added to the plate design was the city wall, not present in the previous version, whereas the painted umbrellas were already present in 2004.

A funny note showing the quality of journalism in Thailand - via ThaiPhotoBlogs I found a photo from the tabloid newspaper DailyXpress, which allegedly shows an official showing the new license plate. But comparing it with the one show above it is obvious that the official shows the old version with only two Pandas.

For Nakhon Ratchasima previously the graphic only showed Phimai temple, which in the now announced version was made smaller and supplemented with some hills (probably those of Khao Yai national park) and the Chumphon gate (ประตูชุมพล) in Nakhon Ratchasima city.

These colorful license plates are only available for plates sold at a public auction, featuring auspicious numbers or letter combinations. For a report on such an auction, Phuket Gazette wrote on the one held in September.