Chiang Mai, back again and protests

Thoord gave Bee and I a lift to CM on Sunday afternoon, as they were going to visit his dad in hospital. I have a feeling the frogs in the plastic bag were a present for him, but didn't like to enquire.

At CM I checked into the TopNorth Hotel, right in Farangcentral. Bit strange at first to be back in the world of bars and written English. However, Touristworld is fine for 24 hours - had a swim, a gin and tonic, bought a load of presents in the night market, and went to a bar where two Thais sang country and western songs in accents that missed out all of the consonants. I thought they were great and gave them a big tip. It absolutely threw it down most of the night and the next morning.

In the morning sat in my room and wrote most of my AIT presentation, then back late afternoon train. Managed to get hold of a copy of the The Bangkok Post which is full of stories about the escalating anti-govt protests in the city.

Tuesday eve - Sue due to arrive Weds so was running errands. Was going up to the little supermarket when one of the big marches came down Phaya Thai road. Found out later that this was one of the five demos that Tuesday. These people had been occupying one of the Ministries up the road, and having made their point they had left in the evening and were marching to rejoin the main big protest outside Govt House. There were thousands of them, all dressed in yellow, looking very happy and unthreatening, taking up three lanes of the road in a procession which stretched for over half a mile. They were singing, had a few drums and loads of 'We love the King' banners. Interestingly, there was hardly a policeman to be seen. If this was in England, there would be a policemen every 20'. The only policemen I saw was a traffic cop stopping the motorbikes driving into the demo from a side road.