Do not add water…

This was one of our rented vehicle that failed to escape from the flood, after talking to the person in charge, this car was under water for about a month. I think the iPhone photo speaks for itself (total loss), luckily no one was hurt.

This is just one small car, just imagine all of the homes that have been under the flood for an even longer time? We were one of the fortunate ones, the flood did come but the water was only knee high and did not reach the actual house (much to our relief).

A huge part of the problem were the politicians, their failures to release the water (slowly) from the dam when they had the chance; allegedly one old time (and very powerful) politician refuses to open up the water gate to his province until all the rice farmers finish their harvest (my feeling is still mixed here, on the one hand I am glad (his) farmers got their harvest, but at the expense of other farmers in other provinces); their failures to control the situation, their failures to organise help for the people who needed the most, their failures to control deforestation/overbuilding in catchment areas/damming in diversion of natural waterways/urban sprawl (NYtimes.com); their political ping-pong and incompetence had cost over 700 lives!

Now there is a talk that it could happen again next year! If it does, perish the thought…

Flood Relief Operations Command (FROC): Heartbreakingly incompetence?

Since the beginning of the flood, FROC that was set up by the Government have had more complaints and criticisms than praises, I can not confirm every criticisms but the latest act of blatant stupidity have made me so angry.

FROC’s headquarter was at Don Muang Airport, this was a large scale operation, with tv studios, press areas and other essentials that all centre of operation should have. Moreover it was also a large relief centre where the people suffering from flood in the surrounding areas were fed and put up, its other main function was a depot where a major part of the donations were stocked.

One of the main complaint / accusation (I truly hope this is false), (with several pictures posted on FB as well as on the news) was that some politicians were packing these donations and putting their names or names of their organisation on it! I mean HOW LOW CAN YOU GET! These donations came from the kindness of normal citizens as well as from overseas (such as Japan), most weren’t billionaires or millionaires like these despicable politicians, they just wanted to help, why is Thailand being govern by these #%^$.






Then there were the accusation of unfairness in dispersing these donations, in that only a certain politicians have the authority to release these much needed essentials. While there were requests left right and center, but these essentials still sit in the warehouse because these politicians had nothing to gain from releasing these donations to these group of suffering people, WTF!


Sod’s law, eventually the flood came to Don Muang, so what did the FROC do? They moved of course. But being with little brain and no common sense, they decided to just up and left, the people who were relying on the relief centre were still there, more importantly part of the donations were also left behind.









The news showed pictures of donations (that was left behind), whether they were clothes, make shift toilets and all other essentials (I mean really essentials) just floating in the water! What a waste! Did the flood come like a Tsunami? NO, NO, NO, it didn’t and besides they are the FROC, people go to them to find out where the flood was coming so they should know well in advance that the flood will hit Don Muang. Or didn’t they have enough resources to move all of the donations? NO, NO, NO, come on they are (again) the FROC, essentially and literally they have the whole Army, Air-force and Navy at their disposal, but no, they just decided to leave, were there any planning? Were there any preparation? I don’t know which part of their anatomy they used to make these decisions, clearly it wasn’t their brain (do they have any?).

So far, personally I have not been affected by the flood (knock on wood), but to see these people whom we trust to guide us out of danger, are acting so foolishly is just beyond belief and heartbreakingly disappointed. I am hoping all of these information I am consuming is wrong, and that there are some really good explanations behind it, please.

In readiness for the flooding of Bangkok 2011.

We have moved into the heart of Bangkok for almost a year now, so our house on the out skirt of the city has pretty much been empty (obviously) for the same amount of time, the house sits on the very edge of a sub district named Salathammasop, which is a part of the larger district called 'Taweewattana' and that sits on the top left hand corner of Bangkok, a sneeze away from Nonthaburi Province and Nakornpathom province.

To the North of our home lay two other districts, 'Bang Bua Thong' and 'Bang Yai' (both are part of Nonthaburi Province), both have been hit hard by the flood (so my area should be next). The first floor of a colleague's house is now 50 cms under water, however if you go out onto the main road of the housing estate then the water level is chest high. How can that be that in the year of 2011 any part of Bangkok can be chest high under water! This wasn’t some freak event like a hurricane or an earthquake, I believe there were warnings, several warnings, many are saying it was just poor management by the various authorities.

Yesterday, I had to go back to the out skirt home to pick up the cot, and decided to take a short trip to the local supermarket, talking about being totally prepared, there were make shift walls, sandbags and other water stopping measures everywhere, totally putting me to shame, all I did to prepare for this flood was literally 3 extra tins of tuna, several bottled water and two dozen eggs.

This market is at least 50 to 60 cms below the road, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see this pretty hefty wall (but it was). 

People were selling life jackets and boats on the street; all bridges, even the expressway have turned into car parks, so was the U-Turn bridge near our home.

I am sincerely hoping that these people, who had no choice but to stay, will be safe and that the best case happens for them, that is somehow the water manages to miss them all.

Feeling like a Grasshopper…

I must admit that I have been a bit of a ‘Grasshopper’ so far with the advent of this horrific flood, as time passes and seeing the advancement of the unrelenting flood, together with all of the everyday essentials disappearing from the shelves, is quickly turning me into an ‘Ant’.

My main concern is clean water, with a three year old and another love of my life coming in about two weeks means clean water will be absolutely essential, so I have now started stocking water. To put things into perspective, we went to a restaurant today, and they couldn’t give us any water because they didn’t have any! All they had left was fizzy water (no brand will be mentioned here, lol).
 

That really scared the %$#* out of me, whether it was through panic buying or whatever, the result is the same if the water becomes contaminated from the flood (a very strong possibility here) there is a strong possibility that I shall not be able to find clean water in the near future and this is a good enough reason for me to also start stocking the essentials, just in case...

I wish I have become an Ant sooner than this... Well better late than never... :) Family do come first :) Personally I can live on beer for the next six months, lol.

24 hours later… :)

Matt, all these syringes were a result of about 24 hours worth of your medicine, no wonder people (literally) feel better in hospital, lol.

You are now sitting in the living room, next to my feet, and having a fantastic time with Angry bird on the iPad.

You are still far from 100%, we had a bit of a fright when you came home this afternoon, your temp. climbed up to 39c with no sign of it coming down, and this was even after a dose of your med., instead of the 4 hours gap we decided to give you another dose (after two and half hours), and so far that looks like the right decision :)

Get well soon baby, love you.

Dad.

Oh what an interesting weekend this will be :)

Dear Matt,

It all started with such a great plan, Saturday we were going to take you to your first stage show, ‘Mickey Mouse Show’ at Siam Paragon and Sunday would be another trip with your grandparents, so what happened? Life threw you, your first curve ball :)

Friday morning, you woke up with a slight temperature (didn’t think too much of it at that time), to keep you busy we decided to drop you off at Brain school just for the morning. At the same time, our house keeper turned up looking like death on a stick, she was obviously very ill. So while you and your mother were out, your mother decided to call the house keeper and told her to go home.

By the time you came back your temperature was a little bit higher but nothing to cause any alarm (still in the mid 37), so after lunch you went for your afternoon nap… then everything started heading south, you woke up burning and complaining of feeling cold… It must have been faith, your aunty turned up just as you were getting ready to go to the hospital, your mother did need a helping hand to get you ready.

At the hospital your temperature reached 39.3 (not again), the Dr. decided to do another test on you, and soon after it was discovered that you were suffering from Influenza A Type and that required a special medicine (Tamiflu), you were then sent home.

I arrived at around 18:45 to see you sitting on the black sofa, all wrapped up in your blanket watching Super Why on the iPad, there were no spring in your steps, it was obvious that you were very ill, your temperature was still way above 38. After dinner and a boatful of medicine I decided to carry you for a while, your stomach felt very bloated against my chest, I knew sooner or later you would be sick so decided to hold on until you did.

Call me Bangkok Nostradamus, first came a throat full of water, and I thought that was it… of course I was wrong, about thirty minutes later the full orchestra of rice, pork and vegetables :) decided to follow suit, everything came out, even the medicine… after cleaning you up, we decided it was safe to put you to bed, we were wrong. During the next hour and a half you were sick three times and these were gut wrenching, Papa help me kind of a session.

Considering the Influenza, the vomiting and very high temp. it was decided to admit you to BNH, this time there were no sense of panic just a sense of urgency, and in no time you were again on a table all wrapped up in what I think is the largest Velcro pad in the universe, of course it was needed so that the nurse could put the IV line into the back of you palm.

All that happened last night, it is now almost noon on the Saturday, your Mickey Mouse show had already ran for about an hour, your mother is a sleep on the couch next to you, you are now sleeping on the mattress and I am writing this blog in a your darkened hospital room with a small cup of horrible coffee by my side, all contented that you are now in good hands (although your high temperature still bothers me).



This morning after your breakfast I took you out in one of those special push car just to have a quick walk around the hospital, not wanting to waste a photo opp. I took the NEX 5 with me and promptly dropped it, lens first. Luckily the clear filter took all of the blunt and everything seems ok, of course your mother think I had dropped it on purpose (a couple of weeks back I dropped the lens cap in the river (she thought that was on purpose too)), so that I could get a new camera… of course I denied it wholeheartedly, but after a bit of time, sitting in this darkened room drinking dire coffee I am beginning to think it was my subconscious who had dropped the camera this morning… perhaps I should take this opportunity to catch an appointment with the on duty psychologist :)


Love you,


Dad.

Thailand flood: Watching Google.org Crises Response.

I never knew this service even existed, and I must think everyone of us in Thailand are watching this right now, to see the flood coming in graphical detail is quite frightening… The ground floor of a colleagues’ home is now under water, so he is now having to move into a hotel for the time being.

Looking at the map it looks like our outskirt home will be hit as well, but I am hoping that the area where our house is, is high enough to avoid the worst of the flood, nothing is certain until it hits.

http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/thailand-flood-2011.html

Everyday we are seeing it creeping closer and closer to the City Centre, nothing is certain now, Bang Yai and Bang Bon have already been hit, it is just a matter of time and the skills of the authority now.

The flooding of Thailand 2011.

Dear Matt and Marcella,

For the past couple of months Thailand have been suffering from a terrible flood, we have seen its devastation slowly coming from the North affecting millions of people along the way, in Ayutthaya the flood have been reported at three to four metres deep!

As of today it is now knocking gently on Bangkok’s door. Bang Yai has just been hit and that isn’t that far from our home in the out skirt of the city, on the news we see homes literally being drown, the ground floor have totally disappeared under the water.

The next couple of days will be critical for Bangkok, there are whispers that the surround provinces are suffering more than it should because Bangkok is being protected. The major river of our country is Chao Phraya River and it runs right through Bangkok, but because Bangkok is the capital city ‘they’ have limited the flow of the water so that it goes around Bangkok rather than through it, meaning the surrounding provinces have to suffer from the flood longer than they should. Of course there is no way to validate this claim, just only that Bangkok is still dry while the other provinces are drowning.

The headlines are saying, “Nearly 270 dead, 8 million affected, and over 3 Billion USD worth of damages” and the ending is nowhere in sight. Several industrial estates have been totally wiped out, my thought was not only for the people who was suffering, but looking to the future, who will invest in Thailand now? Without jobs the future beyond this flood looks so much bleaker.

Here is a picture of the affected area, those blue patches are certainly not lakes just area that are being affected by this flood.

This map was updated on the 17th of October 2011, it is coming to Bangkok, the general feeling is that the authority may not be able to stop the water entering Bangkok, so people are preparing. Tesco, Big C and others superstores’ shelves are empty, cars are being moved up high, people are moving their ground floors belongings to the second floor.

This is a tough time for most, lets hope it subsides soon.

Surprisingly no anger this time (stolen spare tyre).

My 5 years old Fortuner have spent more time standing still than on the road since we’ve moved into the city, and with the new job with a position car meaning the Fortuner has even less of a chance to run wildly on the open roads.

Anyway, it is well known that Fortuner is a soft target for spare tyre theft, as it hangs (in plain sight) under the boot of the vehicle. This past Sunday we drove the Fortuner to our home at the out skirt of the city, Gio noticed there was a unsymmetrical trapezium shape hole in the rear bumper... WTF, was my first thought, how on earth did that happen, even upon closer inspection I was still baffled on how it could have happened and not for a second did I realised that the spare had gone!

Did I back the car into a horizontal ‘this is Spata’ spear? Or was it just a simple case of a vandalisation? Anyway, it quickly went to the back of my mind and didn’t think much of it, and at around lunch time we drove back to the condo in the city.

In the same afternoon I took a taxi to take Matt to his Little Gym class, and on the way back as the taxi was stopping at the condo there was another Fortuner right in front of us, naturally I was focusing on his rear bumper... Then it hits me literally like a bolt of lightening. “Oh %^#& someone stolen my spare tyre”!




There was no anger, just very annoyed that the thief actually drove through the security guards, and had the time to remove the spare tyre without being spotted by the security guards. How did I know that it happened in the parking lot? Gio went down to look more closely and found the missing part of the rear bumper, it was still there in my parking spot.
 



After Gio found the plastic part, she went to verbally complaint to the management, they sat down and watched the CCTV feed, however the CCTV proved little use as they can only go back one week.

The day after I had to go to the police to log the case (this is a normal procedure in Thailand), not hoping for any compensation but will submit a letter to the condo’s management, just to let them know how disappointed we are. I was later told that another Fortuner also had his spare tyre stolen exactly in the same manner and probably at the same time as mine.

Bringing back memories.

It is amazing how some senses like smell can bring back so many memories, we have moved to the condo for just about a year now, meaning our house on the outskirt of the city have also been vacant for the same amount of time. Some time during this past week the ‘safety cut’ was tripped (perhaps due to the storm), so the house was without electricity for a week (at most), the consequences was a real pain in the behind.

Of course we do go back to the house now and then, so we still have some food frozen in the fridge-freezer, with such hot weather and without electricity the fridge-freezer had behaved like an oven. So when we turned up on this past Sunday, the smell was out of this world, the frozen stuff were no longer frozen but as black as night, the pork was swimming in its own juices and the mince meat was simple indescribable.

Although the stench (and the cleaning up) was a pain and very inconvenient, but I was more bothered  by the memories that it was bringing back. Back at the end of 2004 the earthquake in Sumatra had caused one of the most devastating natural disaster (Tsunami) in the South East Asia region. To cut a long story short, a group of us ended up flying down to help out with the relief effort, through osmosis all of us found different jobs to do; I ended up with the Dr. who had to individually examine the bodies that was coming in by the tens and hundreds each day.

Each team consisted mainly of a Doctor, 1 or 2 body examiners (me), 1 or 2 photographers, 1 evidence collector and 1 note taker. My job was to unwrap the body, then if they were clothed we would then re-arrange it so that it looked as normal as possible, then a photo would be taken.

After that the only objective was to find anything that could reveal the identity of the victims, going through the pockets, looking in the mouth, looking for tattoo(s), did they dye their hair, did they have false teeth, did the wedding rings have names in them, body piercing, estimate his/her age and so much more. Everything was photographed, all removable belongings were examined and collected then carefully logged.

The main message of every morning’s briefing was to ‘take them home’, meaning, find out who they were and bring them back to their family. Our group were there over the New Year period, as I remembered we didn’t celebrate much (obviously), had some beer then went to bed that was about it, in actually fact I don’t remember us talking to each other that much. I got up early, washed, walked to the temple (centre of operation) alone, drank 2 small tins of instant coffee, got dressed up then waited for the morning round to start.

Anyway this Sunday cleaning up was already a pain in itself, but all the while my mind was on old memories of an awful event that I truly wished it hadn’t happened at all, for the immense sadness did not come from the job I was doing but from seeing the families who were waiting anxiously all around.

No pictures, leaving it to your imagination :)

Dear Matt,

This event took place on the Saturday August 13th, 2011. I shall never forget what happened on that early evening…

It was your shower time, and you were being your usual difficult self, the negotiation was finalised with a bath instead of a shower, ‘the big one’ was your code for the big bath (appropriately called on your part as the bath was actually big enough to fit three grown ups).

The water temperature in the bath was perfect, and it was ran to a reasonable height (you actually wanted to fill it right up to the edge, luckily I was still sober, so you lost that one). The routine ran without a hitch, so I’d left you alone in the bath so that you can enjoy your water time…

After a while, you went quiet… never was a good sign :) With my Spiderman like senses, I rushed to the bathroom to see you standing up, smiling from ear to ear! (another never was a good sign), in your right hand you were gently grasping something and slowly you raised it up and showed it to me every so proudly…

My face was one of absolute HORROR, my heart stopped pumping blood to my brain, the room began to spin, but I didn’t have time to pass out, the task in hand was too great…

For in your right hand was a small lump of ‘poo’ (there I said it), very, very unfortunately you have been eating your vegetable so you can imagine the state of the lump in your hand, no wonder why you were ever so gentle with it. I would like to apologise for my reaction, with hind sight it wasn’t the end of the world, I was only cross with you because I didn’t want you to be swimming in your own faeces, I can still see bits of floating carrots in my mind like it had just happened… (sigh…), when will the image fade I have no idea, but soon I hope :)

You of course are fine and dandy now, and will probably do it again if were given the chance… I shall never let you play alone in the bath again, never… ever… perhaps when you turn 23 or something :)

Love you,

Mum and Dad.

Has the fat lady sung?

Dear Matt,

Hopefully, It comes in threes, well you had the high temperature (39.7C), then as soon as that was over you developed a terrible allergic reaction to something (still recovering), and then last last Monday you had to be admitted into the hospital, because from one am to five am (Monday), you were vomiting on the hour every hour, and by seven you were definitely not yourself, probably tired from all the strain.

Enough was enough, your mother wasn’t getting any rest and nor were you, and to have three things running one after another was just too much, so the idea to admit you really helped us on so many level.

The worst thing was when the nurses had to put in the intravenous line, luckily I was not there :)

You came out yesterday, and today we decided to let you go to Noddy for the 3 hours (in the morning), perhaps it was too soon, but after your afternoon rest you were as right as rain… like I said, I hope the fat lady had already sung her final tune with you :)

Cheers.

I am officially exasperated…

Hi Matt,

I am officially exasperated with the past 2 weeks or so, it all started with small rashes which were very itchy, after a hospital visit, a course of medicines were prescribed to take care of that, and it worked wonderfully as only after 3 days all the red patches went away, only to be replaced by a mind blowing 39.7 C temperature which even Tylenol couldn’t keep down. It took a couple more visits to the hospital to get this one under control.

Then the vicious red rash returned with a vengeance (another hospital visit), in about forty eight hours it became  a huge red rash taking over you entire back, then slowly it reached around to the front and suddenly it decided to do a two prongs attack, the main part decided to head south towards your thighs and then your calf, while the lesser part decided to head north, towards your head, swelling follows the red rash like a shadow… not a pretty sight :)

Last night we felt ever so sorry for you, scratching like mad in your sleep, so the next morning as soon as you had finished your breakfast, you made a well rehearsed trip to the hospital, this time there were no gentle inspection… The Dr. decided to take your blood sample, your mother said it was so heart breaking to hear you cry, sorry baby.

And at this very moment, your high fever have now return too… I truly hope you’ll be fine tomorrow…

“What an interesting week :)” just got a lot more interesting :)

After all the hospital visits, the worrying 39+ temperature, the coughing, the sneezing not to mention all of those medicines and when we thought all of it was behind us, it all turned out to be just an ‘Hor d’oeuvre’.

 

Here is the main course, as soon as everything was returning to normal we discovered yesterday afternoon that Matt had developed these red blotches, and it was growing. Not giving it much thought, because he had this prior to the very recent high temp. spell, the Dr. just prescribed some anti-allergy meds. and after a few days the red patches were gone.

 

But by the afternoon the red patches just got angrier, and it was now spreading all over the neck and face, so we decided to once again visit the hospital… oh what joy.

 

Visiting yet another Dr., this one was a lot more methodical, and after a length discussion, we (actually probably me more than the wife) believed it was the darn ‘Strawberries’ he ate yesterday. The summer school starts this Monday, we are hoping all this will be cleared up by then, fingers crossed :)

What an interesting week :)

Dear Matt,

What an interesting few days, your mother noticed that you were slightly hot on the Friday which was your final day at school, then on the Saturday the slightly hot turned out to be hot, and very quickly turned out to be your first visit to the hospital, after all the meds. your temperature was still raising, we gave it the night to see if it would get better. Imagine your mother who was also suffering from a flu (but due to her pregnancy, no medications were allowed) having to get up every hour or so just to check you temperature praying that it won’t go above 40C.

 

As it turned out, it almost did, on the following day (Sunday) it reached a close 39.7C that had prompted us to take another visit to the hospital, after receiving more medicine all we could do was to return home.

 

On the Monday, nothing was working fast enough for us, decided to change your Tylenol to Ibuprofen, it immediately worked, trust me you couldn’t have heard a louder sigh anywhere in the universe at that moment :)

 

All throughout Monday’s night I was up every hour or so measuring your temp. just so that we know exactly when the effect of the medicine had worn off, and it certainly did at around 3 am (Tuesday), signaling another dose of Tylenol.

 

By Wednesday you were pretty much down to normal temp. without any help from the medicines, however, that was when it was my turn to get ill. As soon as I woke up on the Wednesday I knew something was going to be very wrong in deed, haa haa haa. Ended up going to work as usual (too many important meetings to take the day off), then coming home that night was like reaching land after being lost at sea for 10 years (on a small dingy boat too).

 

On the Thursday, first thing I did after breakfast was to visit the hospital, after which I ended up sleeping for the next nineteen hours or so. And so here we are on the Friday (again), everyone is recovering, evn your mother and at this moment in time there is no one I worry more about than your mother :) hope things will also get better for her too (and soon).

39.5 C

Dear Matt,

It didn’t get better, your antibiotic was administered last night as soon as we returned from the hospital, and then again this morning. All through out the day through phone calls, Whatapps, SMS, BB Chat and so on, I was getting an almost minute by minute graph of your temperature, was it a bit over the top, perhaps but you have no idea how worried we were, and in fact still are.

I came home this evening and found that you temperature was above 39.5 C, the Dr. wasn’t too worried, just told us to give the antibiotic a chance to work and to give you plenty of water. Like what I have said before, usually Tylenol would work like a charm, but not this time, luckily earlier in the afternoon, I remembered there was an Ibuprofen syrup bottle in the fridge, and it said on the bottle for very high temperature. After your mother had checked with the Dr., it was fine to give it to you.

Ibuprofen was administered about an hour ago, together with the antibiotic, right now you are down to around 37.5 which is somewhat giving me a peace of mind, we are hoping it holds through out the night :)

39 C

Dear Matt,

We have never seen you this bad, the temp. medicine doesn’t seem to be working so we went back to the hospital again this evening, this time we were prescribed an antibiotic, that and the temp. med was administered around 20:00, and at 24:00 another dose of the temp. med was administered (also just gave you another rub down at around mid night), hope things will be better at 04:00.

38.5 C

Dear Matt,

Here we go again, didn’t want to take any chances. The weather have been terrible lately and it wasn’t a surprise to have you come down with a flu, especially when you mother have been suffering from one for the past couple of weeks.

 

But as soon as your temperature went over 38 it was time to get you to the hospital, in the past we would fear coming to the hospital because we had to somehow get you to take the medicines that were prescribed, but of course those worries are long gone, giving you medicine is now as easy as getting you to eat an ice-cream :)

We were also armed with 2 iPhones, so keeping you quiet during the rub down was also taken cared of (we know all the routines off by heart, anything above 38C gets a rub down), with 3G running like it should Pocoyo was more than willing to keep you occupied :)



Anyway, you are still poorly, but hopefully soon you’ll be as right as rain :)

Is that a cat in your pocket, or are you just please to see me?

Well it is actually a cat (so we believe)…

 

After a heavy downpour, our neighbour found this little guy/gal in his garden, some people have noticed that lately some of the stray cats have gone missing, and here was our number one suspect :) Everyone was asking where these guys were going to take the snake, they said if they dropped it off at a zoo someone will have to pay 3,000 THB/month for the up keep, so they said they were going to find a quiet spot and drop it off.

I have my doubt, I think they will sell it to one of the dealer, probably at Chat-tu-chak market, whatever happens we all hope he/she finds a good home and that no one harms it.

Perhaps there is such a thing as a ‘Free Lunch’, not!

Your mother contact lens had run out again, so I had to make my ritual trip to MBK to get them. The final BTS station happens to be at MBK, which made it very convenient in deed, on the way back instead of going straight back to the office (it was still during the lunch break), I decided to go and see the ‘Red Shirts’ camp, there is no point writing another five pages explaining who they are and what they want, I am sure by the time you can read and understand this blog, Google would have been able to directly send the answer via an Apple’s iPhone 9G straight to your brain’s Occipital Lobe (who needs a friggin touch screen).

 

As of today, Red Shirts have been occupying the most prime retail area (Ratchaprasong Intersection) for approximately a month now, forcing the most well known department stores to close, these including Central World, Central Chidlom, Siam Paragon, Siam Square and so on. So, on my return journey back to the office I decided to hop off at Siam BTS Station, just to take a look at Red Shirts’ camp.

 
 
 
 
 

All I could see was the edge of the camp, it looked peaceful enough (this was before the bombing on Silom road), so with time spare I went down to have a closer gander, as I walked down from the BTS station it became clear that this camp was better organised than I had first thought.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
There were shower areas (consists of nothing more than four wooden poles wrapped with a sheet of plastic), portable loos, feeding stations, many people have set up open air shops selling all things red, from t-shirts, hats to even Mr. Thaksin’s mask (WTF). Some of the living quarters were labelled clearly from which province they came.

As I walked passed one of the station, they were handing out free food and drinks (many believe the ex PM (Thaksin) have been bankrolling this from the very beginning). Instead of just wandering around I decided to pay a visit to our Coffee Master construction (this was supposed to be Thailand’s latest reality show), it was one day away from finishing… The shop looked fine, not even a single graffiti :)

 
 
 
 
  
 
 

At the centre there was a big stage, by the time I arrived, there was a lady singing, so I stood and listened, haven’t got a clue on what she was singing about though. The heat was over bearing, and soon it dawned on me that I was sticking out like a sore thumb, probably the only person standing in the sun and also taking pictures with the little iPhone :)

Just as I was about to walk on, the singing had wind down and turned into a speech, actually it was more like an instruction, to be more precise it was on how to handle the soldiers if they ever came to disband the camp, ‘if they ever come close to you ladies, all you have to do is to reach out and squeeze their balls’… (WTF again), I quickly realised I was out my league and quickly moved on :)

 

No wonder these people have stayed for so long, there were plenty of free supplies and food, even a rumour that pocket money were being paid to most of the Red Shirts on a daily basis. Well, they are certainly having and perhaps loving their free lunch, but the real person who is paying for this is in fact ‘all of us’… ‘Thailand’ is paying for this in more way than one.