Red shirt protests: Barbed wire barricades and singing soldiers

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April 26 - April 30

It's most disconcerting to travel around a city and encounter armed military at every turn. This is the second time we have been in Bangkok during the red shirt protests and the mood is very different now to what it was over the Songkran festival when we were last in the city. Silom Road which was the scene of the great water fight to celebrate Thai new year is now under siege as the red shirts have barricaded themselves in their camp with piles of tyres and razor wire. Outside of the camp there are riot police along the road, military and swathes of barbed wire which you have to walk around to get along the pavement. But people are still going about their routines and we have had no problems getting to where we want to go. The red shirts are in certain parts of the city so we feel as long as we avoid those areas as much as possible we should be alright.

There is still the feeling that something could kick off at any time which is quite unnerving and I feel sorry for the people who live here and have had to deal with this for seven weeks now with no end in sight. Thankfully we weren't here during the bloodshed on Khao San Road on April 10 and we missed last Thursday's grenade attack on Sala Daeng station.

The situation is obvioulsly volatile and in an effort to try and bring a bit of calm to stressed residents and tourists the military burst in to karaoke at various times of the day. This is somewhat farcical and something I could see in a Monty Python sketch. While dodging razor wire and stepping over resting soldiers with guns in their hands we are serenaded by soldiers standing on the back of a truck with a loudspeaker. It is hilarious and my personal favourite was a very enthusiastic version, in English no less, of With Love From Me To You by the Beatles. Clearly you've gotta have a bit of karaoke in a time of crisis.

It is staggering that a group of protestors can bring parts of a major city to such a standstill. Many flashy mega-malls have been closed for weeks and some hotels have shut their doors too. It is costing the economy a fortune not to mention the people who work in those shut stores. I just can't imagine anything like this happening in London. The thought of a group of protestors shutting down Oxford Street for seven weeks is incomprehensible and I'm sure would never be allowed to happen. The dedication of the red shirts is quite astounding. They are sleeping on mats on the streets and washing in communal showers - we had a good view of this when we passed on the skytrain. The camps are quiet during the day but fill up at night. There are trucks with loud speakers blaring out what is presumably anti-government propaganda. We watched yesterday as the reds put more tyres and bamboo canes at the entrance to their camp while a group of police sat about nearby.

Yesterday Khao San Road, which is usually a thriving hub of excitement, was subduded and practically empty as tourists are staying away from Bangkok. MBK shopping centre which is near the Rajaprasong intersection where many reds are camped out was a lot quieter when we visited on Wednesday compared to our previous visits to the city. Locals are understandably getting fed up with the protestors and every lunchtime the yellow shirts, who are pro-government, take to the streets to mount their own demos.
Who knows when or how it is all going to end? I think it will be interesting to see what happens once the fast-approaching wet season begins. It was a monsoon rain that stopped Wednesday's clash between the army and protestors on a highway 25 miles out of the city in which a soldier was shot in the head. It won't be very comfortable to be camped out during tropical storms and the protestors who have come from the farming areas up north will have to head back for work and to sort out their crops. But then again I can't really see these die-hard fanatics just packing up and heading off. Only time will tell.

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