Escape from Bangkok -- a sad day in many ways

[Update:  clarifications]

That headline is a little over dramatic. But I was glad to leave Thailand on Songkran, the Thai water festival that helps people cool off in the hot season and look over the horizon to the rainy season.

I went to Soi Cowboy for the annual water fight this afternoon. What a great time. It was a good thing to do because it made me forget this was my last day in Thailand and forget there was fighting in the streets and people dying.*

But the reality hit me when I returned to the hotel soaking wet and happy and then caught sight of the TV reports. Soldiers were sending volleys of bullets somewhere in the city. Vehicles and buildings were on fire. Then  on the way to the airport military APCs, tanks and trucks greeted me. There were no blockades or checkpoints. Even the airport didn't seem to have any heavy security.  

Not much else to say about the Thai civil war, or maybe I should call it Bangkok civil war, since it's all about two elites securing their grounds.

I will add, I do think most people in Thailand are very, very unhappy about what this is doing to the perceptions of the kingdom around the rest of the globe. Look at the debacle of the ASEAN summit. A   few thousand protesters invaded the conference hotel seemingly without much resistance and made  prime ministers and foreign ministers flee for their lives.

I'll write about the water festival later. I'm writing this from Hong Kong airport (free wi-fi everywhere!!!) but am exhausted from the night life, water festival activities and depressing story taking place still in the city.

*More accurate information from news agencies and Thaivisa.com says one person  died but not from military actions, which apparently were fairly restrained. Local residents tried to complain to the "red shirts" who are said to have killed one person. No details on a second unverified death. So no direct deaths are attributable to soldiers.

**A YouTube video shows former PM Thaksin exhorting his "troops", i.e., red shirts to take action. He lets slip that they are being paid  500 baht a day to "protest."  A popular revolt it is not.