Mind you, we can't expect Bangkok to be it's usual lovely self. I mean, just look at this:
Bangkok, post-riot!
Bangkok, pre-riot!
Those two photos are taken from about the same spot. Sad, la? Sad, sad, sad! Those vines and creepers were so incredibly beautiful it was horrible to kill them this way. Oh, and the building too!
Of course, we all know this Bangkok business is far from over and it got so nasty there at the end that there's now so much 'bad blood' between the red shirts and the government that next time will be truly horrendous!
In fact, there's widespread anticipation of it! Have even heard that the wonderful world-class Bangkok hospitals - like Bumrungrad - are sending essentials, like chemotherapy drugs, to the poverty-stricken surrounding nations' sadly bereft "you don't want to go there" hospitals to stockpile, anticipating that their regional on-going cancer patients, sometime in the very near future, aren't going to be able to come to Bangkok for treatment.
And I have to say that is true desperation since I would NOT trust those Indo-Chine former French Colonial Hospitals for a heartbeat!
You know, I hope Fiji is paying attention to all this. As you recall, Fiji and Thailand had army coups around the same time and thus connections must be made. Thailand is certainly making them! We were in Bangkok in December 2006 when Fiji's Bainimarama did his coup and I have to tell you we saw major coverage of it ... like MAJOR coverage ... suspicious amounts, to be honest ... and decided it was most likely because the Thai papers weren't allowed to print news about their own coup and so was making up for it with Fiji's and thus we kept watching and reading the news and wondering "Are these Fiji stories real or is this all deep Thai code for what is happening on their own home-front?"
Still have no idea about that one!
Anyway, two neck-and-neck coups! And although everything is relatively calm at home, this current Bangkok violence is all the result of the Thai people trying to set their country to rights and to bring back Democracy.
However, I do think Fiji would have done a far far better job at handling such a public-backlash uprising if we Fijians were doing the same sort of fightback!
This Thai business is just so sad the way it's all being so badly handled by the army/government! I mean, you are following it, right? And you do realise what the army/government did?
However, if you weren't eagerly agog at what-happens-next, the story so far is that the Thais were having peaceful yet adamant protests demanding a new election, but the number of folk out on the street grew and grew until they reached such alarming proportions the travel warnings went up and so the largely tourist-based economy tanked and thus the government asked for peace and the protesters (aka the red shirts), also affected by the sudden economic slump, agreed to come to the negotiation table ...
... then, right when the red-shirts guards were lowered, the government snuck out sharp-shooters to assassinate the red-T-shirt leaders. Killed them. The leaders of a peaceful, rather amusing and very clever protest! Shot dead! Of course, as you'd expect, there was widespread and consequent rioting, but meanwhile there's the government going "But you said you wanted peace?"
All is calm in Bangkok at the moment ... but this obviously - as even Blind Freddy can see - is the eye of the storm. It's definitely definitely definitely not over! I even know folk in Bangkok who are currently moving apartments, so I think it's all about getting far out of the way of the line of fire ... and there will be fires, you know!
Still, I haven't been to the dentist in over a year so, since it's only HK$999.00 for 5 nights, which means an enormous saving in dentist bills!, why NOT!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment