"I love the king more than anything in the world," said Sawat, 70, who traveled about 470 km (292 miles) from his home in Chumphon province to Bangkok's Sirirat Hospital.
But as the world's longest-serving monarch marks a year in hospital on Sunday, Thailand faces hard questions over the future of its most powerful institution and whether it can sustain its traditional role as pillar of stability in times of upheaval.
Many Thais fear a return to violence after 91 people were killed and nearly 2,000 wounded over April and May in clashes between the military and thousands of "red shirt" anti-government protests backed by the rural and urban poor.
Several thousand "red shirts" gathered outside a Bangkok prison on Friday in a show of support for detained leaders.
King Bhumibol's health is sensitive not just to Thais but to investors concerned his eventual succession could be complicated if political tensions persist into the future.
Strict laws on perceived criticism of the royal family have limited public discussion on this issue but concerns over his health in October sparked losses in Thailand's stock market.
He was hospitalized on Sept. 19 last year for fever, loss of appetite and lung inflammation, and has remained at the public hospital on the banks of the Chao Phraya river since.
His son and presumed heir, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, does not yet command his same support.
The royal family say the king's health has improved and he remains in hospital only for physical therapy. In rare appearances, he is usually on a motorized wheelchair, looking frail but speaking clearly.
COUNTRY DIVIDED
While a constitutional monarch, a symbolic head of state without formal powers, his style of monarchy has influenced Thai politics for much of his six decades on the throne.
He famously defused Thailand's previous major crisis — a 1992 middle-class uprising against a military ruler. After a deadly crackdown, the king brought the rival leaders prostrating before him and reprimanded them.
With a few words, the crisis was over.
Not so this time. When appearing in public, he has not addressed the political crisis. That has not changed Thailand's reverence for their jazz-loving, American-born king, whose image hangs from shops, homes and office towers across the nation.
But as the country struggles with a five-year political crisis marked by deadly protests, takeover of airports, urban grenade assaults and arson attacks, it also faces a perception among some Thais that the monarchy has been drawn into the political struggle that is polarising the country.
The red shirts say they are fighting the "ammart," a broad term for aristocrats and the royalist elite who back Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and are accused of orchestrating a 2006 coup that ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Many of Abhisit's backers wear the king's color of yellow at protests and accuse the reds of disloyalty to the monarchy. The yellow shirts mounted major protests of their own in 2008, blockading Bangkok's international airport for eight days.
Whether the political bickering is changing how largely Buddhist Thailand views the monarchy is unclear. Many still regard the king as having unassailable moral authority.
Dressed in pink shirts, deemed an auspicious color for the king's health, elderly men and women queue at the hospital each day, signing get-well books, kneeling before his portrait and hanging messages from small trees.
"I promise to be a good person for all my life, I will do it for my king," one well-wisher wrote in a note. Another said: "I wish good health to my king, whom I love the most in the world."