Real Anarchy in the BKK!

Well, our Thanksgiving plans fell through this year. We had planned to fly on Wednesday afternoon to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to visit some of our friends from Dhaka. We had planned out the whole Thanksgiving day menu, bought tickets to see a Cambodian rock opera about the Khmer Rouge, and were even ready to play some ultimate Frisbee. What we hadn’t counted on was the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement taking over the airport.

The political situation in Thailand (see "Politics, Thai-Style" earlier) has not been very stable over the last couple of years. Since August, a group calling itself the PAD has staged a sit-in at Government House to protest what they feel is a power-hungry and corrupt government. Here's a summary from BBC News. So far the protests haven't caused much disruption of daily life in Bangkok.

Maybe that's why they decided to take over the airport. The Prime Minister was at the APEC summit in Peru, so thousands of protesters decided to go to the airport on Tuesday night to meet him. They almost met Patrick, who was flying home after a week-and-a-half in Nepal. Patrick arrived as the protesters were on their way to the airport, but before they took over. The immigration official who stamped his passport told Patrick, "Outside crazy. Taxi difficult."

Patrick's bag was the first off the carousel, so he made a dash for the taxi stand. The lines there were very long, so he went to another part of the airport where he knew taxis sometimes lingered. He managed to find a taxi who would take him for 400 baht -- about twice the normal fare, but much less than the 800 baht that the first two taxis tried to charge him. (It turns out that the driver who took Patrick was an amateur guitarist. Patrick had his mandolin with him, so he thinks the taxi driver was just interested in talking music with him. The taxi driver told Patrick, "I think you look like professional [musician]!") As they drove away from the airport, they saw big trucks filled with protesters driving towards the terminal. He got home just as the airport was being overrun.

We'd hoped that the situation would be resolved by Thanksgiving day, but as of the time of writing this post, the protesters are still in control of both of the major airports in Bangkok. So, we've cancelled our trip and will be having dinner with a bunch of our co-workers, many of whom have spouses stranded in airports across the region. It's disappointing, but considering that Patrick could have been stuck in Kathmandu or even at the airport here in Bangkok, it's not that bad. We definitely have something to be thankful for this year!

No one really knows how this situation will resolve itself. So far there's been no serious violence, and while thousands of tourists have been inconvenienced, it doesn’t feel scary or unstable here. There is absolutely no threat to foreigners -- this is just part of Thai politics these days. We firmly believe that we're safe here and are hopeful that the Thais will find a peaceful solution to this crisis.

Just as long as they don't try to take our sweet potatoes. Then there'll be real trouble.