As some of you know, my wife and I were recently in Thailand. We were, in fact, there while People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) closed down the airports in Bangkok. Once that happen, we (a long with 349,998 people) were pretty screwed getting back home. The following is a rough account of what we went through to get home. It is a bit long, but enjoy it anyway.
By way of an introduction, the following is a map of roughly where we were and where we went.
Tuesday, November 25th – The Fun Begins
PAD takes over the main airport in Bangkok, Suvarnabhumi, as well the older Don Meung airport. They have a bit of a throw-down with the cabbies at the airport. This involves golf clubs, sticks, and whatever else everyone get their hands on. They demand to know when the Prime Minister is returning to Thailand, which turns out to be Wednesday. I figure that the PM will come back to Thailand and work things out with PAD. Oh so wrong was I.
I cannot begin to imagine what it was like for the people at the airport waiting to fly out. Truly terrifying. But then again, PAD people were dressed rather festively and they did set up a bunch of food stalls. It might have been fun… for about 5 seconds.
Wednesday, November 26th – What, me worry?
So the Thai Prime Minister returns to Thailand, but instead of flying back to Bangkok where the welcome committee was stationed, he flew to an air force base near Chiang Mai. We had seen this base a week prior. The PM states he will not dissolve the government and he called on PAD to leave the airports. Stop or I’ll say stop again!
Hoping that this would resolve itself, we did nothing to prepare for what was coming.