TROOPS ON THE STREETS, AND HERE'S PROOF
There ARE troops on the streets of Bangkok, and here's the proof thanks to a very courteous taxi driver on this morning's trip to the office. Seeing my camera poised for action he took a slightly different route that involved passing this line of troops that were guarding one of Bangkok's horse racing stadiums. I believe the compound in front of the stadium is being used as some kind of staging post for the Royal Thai Police, given its proximity to the location of the anti-Government demonstrations.
Another location close by had similar ranks of Navy personnel standing watch and looking very bored. Sadly the taxi was going a little too fast for me to get a decent image of them, however these were the only two places on trip to the office where you'd notice anything out of the ordinary. Bangkok remains a largely safe city and it's very much business as usual for the vast majority of people.
2 comments:
The troops standing on the right look like women.
Thanks for the picture. I didn't see any troops in Bangkok yet, as I haven't been near the demonstration sites.
In spite of these events, I feel safer in Bangkok today than if I was in London or New York.
Note: This proof could be made solid.
Sunny.
I'm catching up on your blog a couple weeks late, so I didn't see this post before sharing my own troop sighting on your earlier post.
Anyway, the point remains. Even with "troops on the streets" (sounds scarier than it is), life goes on.
In other news on how PAD is affecting real life for Bangkokians, went with my wife to the doctor today and experienced firsthand the traffic jam resulting from PAD's rally at Central World.
We went to Bamrungrad. The back way into the hospital is Sukhumvit Soi 1, and the other main access/exit is from Soi 3 (Nana). Nana was jammed, so cars could only leave the hospital at a snail's pace. This meant that the entire traffic flow within the hospital area itself, and backed up all the way through Soi 1. We sat on Soi 1 for at least fifteen minutes just waiting to get into the parking garage.
It was a very small area of traffic affected, but boy was it slow, even for Sukhumvit. When we came out an hour later it had totally cleared and we were able to exit on Nana, turn onto Sukhumvit, and abscond up the expressway with nary a red light to stop us.
All too typical for Bangkok, of course, but PAD was directly to blame in this case.
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