Bangkok Dangerous??

Hi all.  It's been a while since I've posted but this topic is too good to pass up.....

I don't know what the international media has been reporting but there has been a bit of a massive protest going on in Bangkok for over a month now.  I'll try and give a bit of background first before I go on to my experience of it all:

Firstly, there are two sides: the yelloow shirts and the red shirts.  To make the most sweeping of generalisations, the yellow shirts are the middle and upper classes who support the current goverment and hate the old Prime Minister, Taksin Sinawatra.  The red shirts are naturally the opposite, they are generally the rural poor who support Taksin due to his populist policies.  Anyway, if you want to read more into the background just google it or something :-)

A few weeks ago the reds decided to hold a massive rally in Bangkok one weekend to try and get the current Prime Minister to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections.  Rumours doing the rounds said that were going to be about 1000000 red shirt supporters shipped in from the countryside to basically take over Bangkok.  Naturally I was a tad concerned, especially since one of the biggest rally sites was just down the road from me!!  I stocked up on food, water and beer and decided I would stay home all weekend (under the advice of one of my Thai friends) just to be safe.

So what happened?  Well, not a lot really from my point of view.  The traffic chaos that everyone had anticipated failed to materialise.  If anything there was less because loads of people decided to stay indoors.  7-11 was still open and still selling beer so I might have overreacted a tad!  And there was nowhere near 1000000 people as the red shirt leaders had claimed, closer to 200000.  The weekend passed, I didn't hear anything (which was surprising considering I live less than a kilometre away from the rally site and my balcony faces that direction) and no violence was reported.  I had braced myself for a military coup or something hahahaha!!!

I thought that was the end of it.  Was it? No no no no!!  The government didn't back down and neither did the protesters.  Fast forward a few weeks and a few more rallies and a bit of a strange blood protest later (loads of protesters donated a bit of blood that was then thrown at the Prime Ministers house) and the red shirts are still here and there's still been no violence.  I honestly hadn't noticed any change until this weekend (besides a larger police presence).  This weekend, however, the red shirts decided to take  over the main shopping district of Bangkok.  Cue all the best malls closing and a large amount of disappointment from me.

Again, I don't know what the international media has been reporting (if at all) but it's really not that bad here.  If anything, the closing down of the shopping district might save me a bit of cash.  If you are heading here soon I wouldn't be worried.  Like I've said, I've barely noticed anything (the 7-11s have removed all bins from outside their shops which is a bit annoying).

Saying that, the Prime Minister has just invoked a state of emergeny.  We'll see what happens, my guess is not a lot that will affect me.  Maybe I'll get a day off :-)

• Bangkok
• Thailand
• protests in Bangkok