My Thailand Blog by Richard Barrow

One of the tragedies of the Bangkok riots was the burning down of the Siam Theatre in Siam Square.

The building hasn’t collapsed, but they reckon that the structure has been compromised and the building will have to be pulled down. Very say as it has been part of Siam Square history since the 1970′s.

- Posted from my iPhone

After the news about the curfew in Samut Prakan I thought I should go out and stock up on food and petrol. I wasn’t really expecting any crowds, but there was a massive traffic jam outside Tesco Lotus. Also, many petrol stations were closed.

We drove onto Foodland Srinakarin which has a reputation of being more expensive. This usually means that there is only one or two people at each of the checkouts. This is the view that we had when we arrived.

People were panic buying. Items like water, rice and meat seemed popular. We had only been there 5 minutes when they announced that the supermarket would close at 7 p.m. in only 20 minutes.

This is the view of the checkouts when we got there.  I don’t think Foodland has been so popular. I have never also seen the shutters down on Foodland as it is normally open 24 hours.

- Posted from my iPhone

On the evening of Wednesday 19th May I went to visit the Ratchaprasong Rally Site again. I was there the other day before the 3 p.m. deadline to leave and I wanted to see how many people had stayed. And also to see what the mood was like. I stayed until about 1 a.m.

I parked my car near the train tracks just before the expressway entrance. Last time I had parked under BTS Phloenchit in “no-mans-land”. When I came out that night at 3 a.m. the soldiers said that they thought it was a car bomb!

This time there was more soldiers milling around underneath the station. It looked like they were preparing to move in soon.

I saw them taking sandbags up to the sky train station above as well as something that looked like they would put on the skytrain tracks. I got the feeling that they would advance on the rally site via the tracks. I went up to the ticket level to take pictures but they wouldn’t let me go up to the platform level.

Beyond BTS Phloenchit it was pitch dark. At Phloenchit Intersection there was a little street lighting by Home Pro. The outer barricade is here. It was dead quiet. As I went in I nearly stepped on a crouching red guard that made me jump.  This picture shows another stretch of light in front of Central Chidlom. Beyond in the darkness is the inner barricade.

The actually rally site is always very brightly lit. I was surprised to see nearly the same number of protesters in front of the stage. Their spirits were high as they cheered the speeches and took part in sing-alongs.

Near the stage I also found these young children sleeping. Most of the older women and children had moved to Wat Pathum so I was surprised to see these children.

The government were supposed to have a blockade of the rally site but they had plenty of free food and water for everyone. There were also street vendors there selling a variety of food. There were also a few vendors selling other items.

At about 1 a.m. I got a message from someone that the army might come in at 4 a.m. I didn’t want to risk things as I don’t have a flak jacket or a helmet. I got home by 2 a.m. just in time for a live interview on the national television in Canada.

- Posted from my iPhone

I have been to the main red shirt rally site at Ratchaprasong quite a few times. But, up to now I have never been at night time. The red zone was supposed to be completely surrounded by the army and so I was interested to see if supplies were still getting in. So, yesterday evening I drove into Bangkok.

I parked my car at BTS Phloenchit and then walked in. The outer barricade is at the Phloenchit Intersection. It was very dark here and I had to climb over the tyres and bamboo poles. Inside there was more lighting but there were stretches of darkness.

This is the crowd at Ratchaprasong Intersection. I would estimate about 1,500 people in front of the stage. But the roads in this area also had a lot of people sleeping under the marquee tents.

At the media tent, I met the editor for the Samut Prakan newspaper that I work for. I didn’t realize that he was coming. This picture is taken under BTS Siam.

This is a clinic at the rally site. They call it FARED which stands for “First Aid Red Shirts”.

Despite the blockade, people still had electricity and everywhere there were lights and also fans. Some people were even watching TV.

People were sleeping all over the place. These were on the sidewalk near BTS Siam.

These people are sleeping in front of Siam Paragon. The picture below is of some women and children who are sleeping in Pathum Temple.

I originally planned to walk back out at about 10 p.m. However, there was a sniper scare towards Phloenchit and so they had turned off all the lights that direction. They told us it was too risky to get out. We finally walked out at about 2 a.m. It was pretty scary walking in pitch darkness under the threat of sniper fire.

- Posted from my iPhone

Today was “back to school” for me in my part-time teaching job.

The two month long summer holiday went by way too fast. I hardly got anything achieved that was up on the whiteboard. I guess I got too distracted by the Red Shirt Rally. This last week has also been very hot. Maybe the hottest of the year. Everyone today at school was complaining about it as it is normally not so hot at this time of year. It is usually hot, but not scorching hot!

During assembly this morning, at least two students fainted from the heat after only five minutes. Others were quickly rushed to the shade. I guess we were lucky that the school opening times had been changed this year and so assembly was at an earlier time of 7.30 a.m.

This is a picture of @NongGrace in her new school uniform. It looks like ten sizes too big for her. But it was the smallest size that they had for primary one students. I took this picture this afternoon at my house. She waits here a couple of hours each day for her grandfather to come and pick her up. She has been doing this since Kindergarten 1 and is now fluent in English. That includes both reading and speaking.

- Posted from my iPhone

This evening I went to Ancient Siam in Samut Prakan for their night tour. I have been to this outdoor museum literally hundreds of times but this is the first time I have been on a tour during the night.

The night tour is only scheduled for this weekend and the next. It was really good value for money as it included a buffet meal, several shows and a night tour of Ancient Siam.

It is not easy taking night pictures with an iPhone so I am just showing you some pictures that I took earlier in the evening. I will post a full album at www.paknamphotos.com and the story at www.thai-blogs.com later.

- Posted from my iPhone

I have written about walking tours of the Red Encampment before. I am not trying to advocate “Demonstration Tourism”, but the fact of the matter is that it exists already.

This is the road in front of Central World the way you probably have never seen it before. I took the picture this afternoon and as you can see it has now started to change into a Walking Street. At the far end is the stage at Ratchaprasong Intersection and there were several thousand people sitting there listening to the speakers.

In the early days of the protests, most stalls that were being set up only sold Red Shirt souvenirs or some food and snacks. Then, over the weeks more vendors started to come selling some practical items that people might need like umbrellas and sunglasses.

All of the Red Shirt protesters were given free food for every meal so there wasn’t much reason to have that many food vendors. But, that has changed a lot with a wide choice of food now on sale like this grilled chicken. This is obviously for the Demonstration Tourists.

Now the road has many stalls where normal people come out in the late afternoon to sell just about anything. It is the kind of things that you can see at temple fairs up and down the country. But, I bet these people don’t pay rent!

This afternoon there was a steady stream of people entering the Night Bazaar from the Pratunam checkpoint. These days no-one wears red shirts so it was difficult to tell who were protesters and who were tourists. But, I can tell you that I saw a couple dozen foreign tourists buying things and taking pictures.

- Posted from my iPhone

This morning I headed over to the Red Fort at the Sala Daeng Intersection. Yesterday they had opened one side of Ratchadamri Road in front of  Chulalongkorn Hospital. But, the government were demanding that they moved all the way back to the Sarasin Road intersection. I was expecting a tense situation as there were warning that the police would move in and that there was a high possibility of bloodshed. I can assure you, I wasn’t planning on hanging around for long if that was going to happen.

When I arrived my first indication of something about to happen was when I noticed two MRT staff standing by the exit gates to the underground train with keys in their hand. They were expecting trouble. On the other side, I could see riot police all lined up near the hospital entrance.

Although tense, people there were relaxed. To my surprise, the police were taking pictures of each other in front of the Red Shirt barricade. They were also chatting with the Reds on the other side who even passed over some cold water to the policemen. For some reason I also had about six policemen who wanted their picture taken with me.

About an hour later the Reds suddenly came out and started to dismantle the barricade. What they were doing was moving the barricade back to the other side of the road leaving both sides clear. This would then leave a kind of buffer zone between the Reds and Chulalongkorn Hospital.

It took them a while to shift everything but they were very efficient and soon they had a new barricade on the other side of the road. So, the entrance to Ratchadamri Road is now open and goes back about 150 meters to the new barricade. As you walk up this road the right-hand-side also has a barricade blocking access to Lumphini Park.

This is a picture of Ratchadamri Road once it was cleared. There was a lot of rubbish and dirt on the road but the Reds cleared it all up by hand before the city workers arrived to finish the job. You can see the Sky Train passing above here.

This is the new Red Fort barricade further up Ratchadamri Road. As I was about to leave, two big yellow trucks arrived and they started to offload these big concrete barriers. I couldn’t understand why the police would just let these trucks into the site like this.

- Posted from my iPhone