Our last few days in Thailand

The pressure we felt from the political unrest in Thailand grew, imperceptibly at first, as we left Bangkok for Chiang Mai, but became stronger the nearer our departure date for Hong Kong less than a week later.
As we took the train from Bangkok on Friday, we knew that the Red Shirts (anti-government supporters of ousted premier Taksin Shinawatra) would be arriving that day and we were glad to be going to Chiang Mai. The target for the Red Shirts was the overthrow of the government and, somewhat naively, we hoped it would be over when we returned on Tuesday. Our initial two days at the Prince Khum Phaya Resort in Chiang Mai were blissful. There were hardly any other guests and so we received royal service from all of the staff. When we were not touring around northern Thailand, we took advantage of the resort’s excellent facilities. The arrival of the Korean film crew invaded our privacy a little, but they were a friendly crowd of people. When we returned from our trip to the far north, though, there was a distinct change of atmosphere. Senior military officials had arrived and senior ‘suits’ were in evidence, accompanied by their bodyguards. The next day, at breakfast, a hoard of people in ‘pink shirts’ (pro-government supporters) had arrived and the military and ‘suits’ were engaged in meetings, closely watched by their bodyguards. We were keenly scanning newspapers and television news bulletins for updated news on the political situation and what little we were seeing was unsettling, with the Red Shirts making ultimatums and vowing to spill their own blood in front of government offices in Bangkok.
Our return to Bangkok was not helped by the fact that having boarded the plane, it was then taken out of service and the flight was cancelled. This caused mayhem at the airport as passengers tried to change their flights. Because we had booked business class though after some uncertainty we were able to get on the next flight.
Back in Bangkok, we saw truck loads of army personnel accompanied with riot gear on the freeway back into town and there was a general feeling that the red shirts would not stand down, leaving the situation to escalate. The next morning, we took an early taxi to the airport. A previous demonstration had led to airports being closed. However, our flight left on time and we arrived safely in Hong Kong by mid afternoon.
There are no photographs to accompany this blog – none can adequately capture our mood. We left Bangkok in sadness. Sadness for a wonderful city and wonderful country that is in the midst of turmoil, which is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Sadness, too, in the fact that Thailand’s plight goes virtually unnoticed in the UK and in Western press generally. But grateful that we had left as the area of our hotel was closed to traffic that afternoon as the Red Shirts did indeed invade the main road by our hotel.