Bangkok in a "State of Emergency"

As has been well advertised on the news, Thailand has been experiencing rather a lot of political unrest recently. It's not actually that long since the last time this happened, with the government being overthrown in September 2006.

Now I'm probably the worst person in the world for keeping up to date with local affairs, but apperently what was being shown on CNN and BBC was pretty dramatic. People brandashing poles, bottles, slingshots and even machettes and swords, protesters being battered down to the ground 6 to 1 by police. Many of the protesters were old women and while the aim was to remain peaceful one person was eventually killed by the government supporters. Strangly enough, whenever there was violence it was blamed on everyone put the police, not what it looked like in the pictures.

It seemed quite strange to us to hear about all this from the news and worried friends and family, but where we are, although it's quite central, we were not affected by it at all. However, when a state of emergency was finally declared early Tuesday morning, the school was instantly full of worried parents pulling their kids out of classes. By 1pm the school directors had decided to close the school. Suppose that happens when the place is full of rich kids, probably many with relations working in the government.

Civil unrest anywhere should be no cause for celebration, but when you are only just managing to keep your head straight at the end of the school semester and you find out you have an impromptu 5 day weekend, you find it kind of hard to contain your excitement. Never ones to miss a holiday opportunity, and regardless of the fact that we had only been back from the beach a day, we decided to head of to our local island, Samed.

Koh Samed is popular with most expats in Bangkok as it is only about 2 hours drive in a car and then a short boat ride. With white sand beaches and turquoise water it is unlike the rest of the coastal area that is close to Bangkok, which tends to have dirty brown beaches and slightly muddy waters. The island is always nice (apart from bank holiday weekends where it's overrun with loads of vain Thais who do nothing other than have pictures taken of themselves in all sorts of daft poses), but it's quite amazing how much more you can enjoy the beach when you're getting paid for it. We kept stopping during our busy schedule of sunbathing and reading saying 'we should be shouting at kids right now'.

By the time we returned to Bangkok life had pretty much returned to normal. The protesters had been appeased by the Prime Minister stepping down (to do a cooking show apparently...just one more of those things it's best not to try and understand). Peace should last until next month when it's been said that it is being 'arranged' for him to be re-elected. Here's hoping they can hold off until mid November and we have returned from school holidays in case we get another bonus break.

No doubt I could get in trouble for it, but the pictures from Bangkok are off the net.