Poor soldiers at the Grand Palace

Decided to visit the Grand Palace earlyish this morning to avoid the crowds. Big mistake!
The whole tourist population of Bangkok had the same idea and converged at the entrance at 10 am.
We shuffled around the main temples amongst huge tour groups. Everyone was taking hundreds of photos of anything that either moved or was stationary, and I was no exception.
I felt really sorry for the soldiers guarding the Throne Hall as they had to stand as still as statues while tourists clowned about in front of them.
Every few minutes they had to march up and down and the tourists stood directly in front of them taking close ups, then jumping out of the way at the last moment.
Everyone had to wear either a long skirt or trousers and you could hire a skirt if necessary. They were all brightly coloured so the whole crowd had a lovely rainbow look.