Thai boys wake up in home for first time in weeks

The teammates and coach were discharged from hospital Wednesday after recuperating for a week from their 18-day ordeal inside Tham Luang cave with no food and only rainwater to drink. After spending a night at home many of the boys attended a ceremony the next morning at Wat Pha That Doi Wao in Mae Sai near the Myanmar border where they prayed for longevity and a good life.

They also paid tribute to a former Thai Navy SEAL diver Saman Kunan, who ran out of oxygen and died while helping resupply air tanks along the cave’s narrow passageways. Wearing threads of white string tied around their wrists and holding hands together in prayer, the boys sat together in the temple while chants of Buddhist monks filled the room.

“They will live with their families first,” Punnawitch Thepsurin, the director of a school in the area, said, adding that they will not resume their studies immediately. They walked into the cave on June 23 after football practice, thinking they would only be there for an hour to explore, and then vanished for days until they were finally found.