Coup…? What Coup?!?
What does one do in the middle of a coup?After spending a whole morning writing emails, chatting with friends and reading the latest developments on the internet, I ventured out to the local high street (of my neighbourhood) to look for lunch. In the evening, I went out again, although I ventured further afield, to the main commercial areas of the city - Siam and Silom.In general, life is pretty much “normal” in the city. Of course the volume of activity is much lower than usual and traffic is not as congested as it normally would be, but most shops were open, public transportation was running and people, both Thais and foreigners alike, were going about their business. Most people appeared to me either to be oblivious of, or are ignoring the coup. The shops and restaurants were closing earlier than usual - although in Bangkok that still meant between 1800H to 2000H - but the night market in Silom, catering mainly to tourists, was open.
I saw a few light armoured vehicles, not tanks, in the Siam area and there were armed military officers stationed at a major intersection but they all looked rather relaxed. None were standing at attention, a few had their weapons resting against the hand-rails, and some were even sitting down around a table of drinks. I was told that the army were patrolling my neighbourhood in the afternoon but I didn’t see them.
Although the banks were closed, the ATM machines were working so presumably I’ll have access to cash when I need it. Some currency exchange offices were open - I guess God forbid that the tourists would be stopped from spending their hard earned foreign currency.
The “authorities” had stopped transmission of CNN last night but it was resumed at about 14H today although they seem to be erractically censoring some, but not all, reports about Thailand - from what I can tell they are only censoring the bits where Thaksin features prominently in the report. This suggests to me that “they” have better control and are feeling rather more secure, of the situation.
So far I don’t feel unsafe here. Having been in this city for two and a half weeks now, I’m quite comfortable in Bangkok even under current circumstances. Of course, I haven’t yet been to the Western side of the city where the government ministries are primarily located and where the military has reportedly taken up position. At some point, I’m going to have to venture in that direction since Thammasat University, where I have an office, is located on the far side of the Western part of the city.
Banks, government offices and big organisations were closed today and public transporation did not seem to be running as frequently as they normally would be. I was told that Thammasat University was closed today. News reports suggest that business will return to “normal” tomorrow, however, I think I will stay home another day - I have enough work that I can do at home - but I will most probably head out to Thammasat on Friday, barring further “undesirable” developments.
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Posted on September 20th, 2006 by jl
Filed under: Life!, VivaVoce
clearly the most important thing is to assess the availability of latte. only when this changes is there a true crisis. How western in outlook are we when the thing about a coup that concerns us most is the exchange rate dropping so we can shop and gain even more bargains?
saying that, i really do need a new bag or five.