While the US Embassy thing might be interesting, not sure that you’ll actually get too much useful information. Look forward to your report if you do go.
Mrs Shibb was asking, a month or two back, if we should go to Thailand for a trip this summer. Her parents are there right now, as are a lot of her relatives. Not sure if her parents will try to come back; I know her Dad doesn’t much care for the place anymore, but Khun Yai rules the roost. They’re most likely in the south so I’m sure that they’re not in any sort of danger.
I would love to come for a visit, but unfortunately my ability to travel is pretty much limited now to gimp friendly areas … and I would prefer to avoid any areas with insurrections because stuck in a chair is not so good for being able to run for ones life …
My impression is that the biggest problem with the military governments here is their incompetence. The major decisions of the 2006 junta that I remember were foreign-investment restrictions that caused the stock market to crash, and were then rescinded, and some rules making it harder for tourists to drink beer. (The stock market crash and subsequent boom must have made some people rich so might have been clever rather than stupid. )
But the recent coups have been largely reactions against corruption, rather than themselves corrupt.
The 1991 coup itself was a relatively benevolent anti-corruption coup leading to an (unelected) government by Anand, one of the best P.M.'s in Thailand’s history. But then it got interesting. The junta, favoring democracy, ordered elections, Thais selected Narong to be P.M., the U.S. government responded that Thailand could pick whoever it wanted as P.M., but as a suspected drug dealer, Narong would not be allowed entrance to the U.S.A.! This led to a political impasse – it was Narong’s “turn” to be P.M., not anyone else’s, but it would be too embarassing to have a P.M. unable to attend U.N. meetings in New York – so Suchinda (coup leader) broke the impasse by becoming P.M. That was when things went down-hill, quite some time after the 1991 coup itself.
That’s Patong (beach), I was thinking Patpong which is a small set of roads with a market and lots of bars right off of Silom. As I said, I never much cared for Patpong, so I may be confusing Kangaroo Bar with Star of Light.
That happened long before the coup, under Thaksin’s interior minister, Purachai Piemsomboon. It was his “clean-up” campaign that halted the flow of alcohol on religious holidays for everyone and enforced bar-closing hours.
As a Brit who is due to fly in to Bangkok in December this year, I’ll be watching developments with interest. Would we be best advised (if we were flying tomorrow, say) to book a connecting flight out of Bangkok immediately, not leaving the airport at all on foot? FTR, the British government currently has this to say:
But it would be interesting (and quite possibly more useful) to get a local view on it.
You have to remember the situation is limited mainly to a very small area in central Bangkok, which is a huge city, and the airport is far, far outside of it. You would never want to leave the airport “on foot” even in normal times, as it’s way out in the middle of nowhere. There were two main protest sites, with the location of the April 10 clash almost literally just around the corner from Bangkok’s main backpacker enclave of Khao San Road, but that rally site has been abandoned.
If you were flying tomorrow, I would say try to avoid staying in Bangkok, because while you would probably not be affected very much at all at this moment if you avoided the small area where the protest is occurring now, the traffic is beginning to grow noticeably worse, having a knock-on effect throughout the rest of the city. There’s no telling now when the Skytrain and subway could be operating; they’ve shut down services a couple of times and ended it at 6pm last night (Friday night), again helping make traffic worse. And there’s no telling what could happen at any moment – martial law could be declared, a new rally site opened. Thailand remains largely safe, even Bangkok, as long as you steer clear of the main rally site – and the three deep-South provinces mentioned in your travel warning, due to the ongoing Muslim insurgency – but there remains an air of unpredictability. Of course, this is the sort of thing that could very well attract a certain sort of traveler. But many of the major shopping centers and hotels are closed, but that’s because they’re right there at or near the rally site. If you’re wantng to see those – including Siam Paragon, the largest shopping center in Southeast Asia, or many of the little shops in Siam Square – you’d be out of luck now. But the Old Bangkok area, and other draws like Chatuchak Park’s weekend market, are clear.
Despite all of the travel warnings, I would say come to Thailand and leave Bangkok for last, just so you can scope out the situation in-country.
As for this December, that’s eight months from now, and that can be a very long time in Thailand. The situation could be completely changed by then. That’s long enough for us to have even gone through a couple more governments, a la 2008!
As safe as I still feel Bangkok largely remains now, the situation is fluid. Earlier this month in Vietnam’s Halong Bay, the wife and I met a Korean-American who had just finished medical school in Philadelphia and was traveling around Southeast Asia before starting his residency. He was flying to Bangkok the next day and asked us about the situation. I told him it could blow up at any minute or stay the same for weeks or months, there was just no telling. He was due to fly out the next day and stay on Khao San Road. That would have been April 10, the day of the big clash between protesters and soldiers that left 25 dead right by Khao San. Welcome to Thailand! Bet he has a story to tell the folks back home now. I recall his plan was not to spend long in Bangkok anyway, but to head upcountry, travel the length of Laos and fly back home from Phnom Penh, the start of his journey.
I hate Songkran with all my heart and soul. The wife does too, and she’s Thai! Many Thais do. It was no coincidence that we left the country for Songkran.
The red shirts have softened their demands just a little. Now instead of demanding parliament be dissolved and elections held immediately, they want parliament dissolved a month from now. Prime Minister Abhisit today rejected that demand, unsurprisingly. My take on this: Whether he wants to dissolve parliament now and hold elections or not – and I believe he truly does not – I think there’s a high likelihood that the army has forbidden him from doing so anyway. That’s the consensus among the many reporters and editors of my acquaintance, Thai and farang (Western) alike, and I believe it’s probably true. I doubt there will be any parliamentary dissolution at all before October, because at the end of each September comes the annual military reshuffle, and the word is powerful elements in the military want this government making the assignments and not any caretaker or red-shirt government.
As for Monday’s Town Hall meeting for Americans with the ambassador, I’ve since learned the American ambassador’s wife is friends with Thaksin’s wife, Pojaman – or ex-wife now; they divorced a year or so ago, but everyone believes it’s just an attempt to hide some of his wealth – and they have lunch frequently. (Thaksin is in exile, but even though Pojaman has also been convicted of corruption and is facing a prison sentence, she’s out on bail for the appeal.) I have no idea how or even if this would color Ambassador Eric John’s view or what he has tro say, but it’s interesting to note.
There’s a short YouTube video here of the red shirts and the launching of one or two of the grenades on Thursday night.
The death toll from Thursday stands at only one after all. The figure of three came from the deputy prime minister who addressed the nation on TV later that night. Where he got that number from, no one knows, but being deputy PM, everyone thought he knew what he was talking about, even the international agencies, and so ran with that. But he turns out to have been screwed. It was a 50-year-old Thai lady who died, on route to hospital, from shrapnel in her chest. Her daughter reported the red shirts tried to wrestle the body away from the ambulance attendants. Many if not all of the injured transported by ambulance were sent to nearby Chulalongkorn Hospital, the entrance to which is right there by the red-shirt barricades!
BBC TV just reported the prime minister said the red-shirt site would be retaken soon, but the local press is not saying that. The reds themselves say they expect a crackdown within 48 hours, but they’re always expecting a crackdown within 48 hours.
In rejecting the reds’ 30-day deadline to dissove parliament, the PM appeared on air with the army chief, who is now in charge of the Bangkok operation and has also said a violent response is not the answer. You can see them in the photo with this story. However, the army chief is not necessarily the most powerful figure in the army, and the army spokesman has come out to say the use of force was very much still an option.
Interesting, too, that Anupong, the army chief, is considered a friend of Thaksin’s. In the coming military reshuffle, I believe the deputy army chief has been slated for the top job, and the reds want desperately to block that, because he’s very anti-Thaksin.
Well, the Thai-language news is reporting the 48-hour number now, but it’s not clear where they got that from. The red shirts have issued an appeal for more supporters to come into Bangkok now from upcountry – and NOT to wear red, sneaking in under the radar. They also seem to be asking the ones at the rally to change their shirts, making it more difficult to identify them, but it’s not clear if they really mean the ones already rallying or just the ones coming into Bangkok.
This is sort of like putting out an ad that the surprise attack will come at 6:15 am this Thursday. Does no one there understand the element of surprise?
A local Kiwi who goes by the name Stickman has included a section on the protests on his website, with photos he’s taken and some description. You can see that here. I’ve met Stick a number of times, and he’s a decent sort.
Hehe. Just so you’ll know it’s not all doom and gloom here, we’ve had this story of a Chinese man in Pattaya who tried to set fire to his hotel room and burn down the establishment when staff prevented him from taking three (3) bargirls upstairs with him.
Excerpt: “At the scene, police were confronted by Mr. Preeda Yuwanit, the hotel manager, who explained that the offender, Mr. Shen Wen Liang from China, had attempted to burn down the hotel after night staff refused him entry to the hotel in the company of 3 Pattaya bar girls. Mr. Liang was protesting his innocence in an extremely intoxicated state.”
I don’t blame Mr. Liang for being pissed off. This is Pattaya we’re talking about after all, even if he really was getting the girls for his tour clients. Alas, they should have stayed in the Penthouse Hotel, whose motto seems to be “The More, the Merrier,” as evidenced by a German of my acquaintance who not too long ago locked himself into one of their rooms with six girls for three nights. His birthday, I think. Or maybe he just pretended it was, dunno.
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