More Protests! And the Day off Work to Boot

I've been in Laos for 4 days, but more about that later. What's more interesting is that when I got BACK from Laos into Bangkok last night the anti-government protests had escalated and Sukhumwit Road was blocked by "red-shirts"* right in front of my apartment. They were friendly - I walked right through - and it didn't feel dangerous or uncomfortable, but it did help me understand why it had taken the van I was in twice the normal time coming from the airport. Sukhumwit (Sukhumvit) Road is the major thoroughfare of Bangkok, so blocking it is a big deal, although given the traffic conditions in Bangkok (especially on Sukhumwit) on a normal day, one might be tempted to say it wouldn't make much of a difference. Here's a pretty boring video.

They're just hanging around, cheering, being spoken to through a bullhorn, and generally being peacefully disobedient to the public order. I could hear them from up on my 9th-floor balcony too. I'm not sure if they're still out there this morning, but my boss called at 9am and said not to bother coming into work, so I guess wherever they are, they're still doing a pretty good job of disrupting things. Apparently the prime minister has actually called an official holiday today, too, to ease the situation. On the one hand, even more protests are bad for the economy (particularly tourism) but on the other hand, I do kind of feel like it's the red shirts' turn, to be fair. They oppose the "yellow shirts", who shut down the airports for a long time in November and December. Now the party supported by (though not directly affiliated with) the yellow shirts is in power, and naturally the red shirts want to make their own disapproval known. Shutting down the city is an unfortunate way to do that, but it's true that the yellow shirts set the precedent. To sum up: I have the day off work. Yay!

*The red shirts are more properly known as members of the U.D.D.: "United front for Democracy against Dictatorship". The yellow shirts are members of the P.A.D.