My Thailand Blog by Richard Barrow

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