This is Thailand

Its very hard to describe what the Red Shirts have done in Bangkok. As a bit of background there are two main parties in Thailand, simply but not necessarily accurate the Yellow Shirts who support the Aristocracy and Red Shirts supporting the Workers.

 

The Red Shirts want new elections and their protest took the form of demonstrating in the centre of Bangkok. Not just for an hour or a day but for 7 weeks so far. Not just a suitable place to congregate but a huge area. We are talking at least a square mile including office blocks, hotels and shopping malls... And to defend their space they have built some defences.

Fortified like a little village in Gaul, straight out of Astrix and Obelix, sharpened 15ft bamboo stakes poked out of tyre walls hidden behind razor wire. Sorry but how do you get hold of razor wire, let alone get thousands of tyres into the city and then make road blocks with out anyone noticing?

A very physical and impressive defence but we had no problem getting through. Its just the police and army who aren’t allowed in. As we drove further down to the next junction this was just the outer ring. Here we left the van and walked through a similar barricade down to the main area. Passing people who were now occupying the area so it couldn’t be taken back, living there day and night.

Reaching the main stage which was positioned under the metro line in the shade. At the centre of one of the main junctions in downtown Bangkok. And though it was 9 am there were still hundreds of people watching and listening to the speeches. When we came the night before there must have been a good few thousand and a very much festival atmosphere.

A huge roof had been erected from above the stage stretching 100 yards down the road providing shelter from the sun. Sadly our lives had to be in done in the sun – where it was blindingly hot and humid. Within seconds all of us were drenched in sweat.

Zipping off my trousers to make shorts really didn’t help a great deal either. Being seriously uncomfortable, while Alex, Neville and Moy our translator went off, using every piece of cable I managed to get us under the shade. A lot more comfortable and visibly more interesting. During the first live from our new position a Thai guy with a cleanly shaved head and around 50 or so, started to walk through the back of shot, wearing a black skirt. Not a sarong or something traditional but a knee length skirt. Above this a black vest top. Not unusual in itself but the obviously old and now wonky large implants were. Unbelievable. Not sure if interesting is the right word actually.

Moving on. At some stage every one seemed to stop and listen, and read their texts.

Underneath market stalls frames along the central reservations in the shade, families had set up camp. Here they slept, ate and were starting to hang out their washing too.

Time came to leave and another trip through the defences. This time from the inside.

Even in the van it wasn’t any cooler. In fact my elbows seem to have swelled up.

Next on the agenda was a Yellow Shirt protest – which was really a one hour lunchtime sing-a-long, under another shaded bit of road a little way away. Mainly attended by office workers who all disappeared back into their air-conditioned buildings at at 2 o’clock on the dot – and some others too!!

On our daily journeys to see what was going on we came across more defences being constructed by the side of the road. Power for the welding torch coming from a nearby house, once finished, these barbed wire and steel barricades were then placed across the road and weighed down with sand bags.

I can think of no where else in the world where any government would allow this complete defiance of the rule of law. Its not really anarchy, its quite gentle, but with obvious seriously dangerous and explosive undertones, so it is anarchy but …

This is Thailand!!