A coup
We went out for a bite to eat last night and then found that there has been a military coup. The local TV stations went off for a bit and then started playing short 2-3 minute "karaoke" movies with backing tunes saying how great the King is.
We have been totally unaffected so far (except for the loss of the odd TV channel) and it's amazing how little it seems to have affected anyone here. We've been on the monorail here and the underground (both spacious and with air conditioning) and we haven't noticed anything looking abnormal.
Above are a few pics from what was on TV and also Michelle reading the headlines in the morning paper. I took a movie of the video being played to the Thai people last night but as it's 750MB I can't really put it on the blog. It was like a karaoke in that as each word was sung the word changed colour at the bottom of the screen! The tune said "He's the sun, the moon, the stars so his people ner and far, millions of others can not compose, our greatest King Bhoumiphol." It went on "The greatest king of kings in all our times, heavenly gifts to all mankind" etc etc. What came across was that this coup was for the people with lots of shots of holding hands etc.
Apparently the 3 military sections and the police have koined forces for the coup and have times it well as the PM and deputy are both out of the country. The coup leaders reckon that the PM was guilty of "corruption and chronyism".
This morning there was something a little surreal about sitting by a pool in our lovely hotel reading about a coup that apparently happened in the same town we were in - they seem to be getting used to coup's here as there have been so many of them!
posted by Ed at 9:26 am
2 Comments:
Glad the coup hasn't bothered you at all, the UK Foreign Office advice seems to be making rather more of it than necessary: hope this continues to be so. You should probably just stay away from the government office area and possibly the King's palace area, where I suppose there might eventually be demonstrations for and/or against the coup: just use your common sense, really! As you say, the Thais seem to regard coups as pretty well routine. Have you thought yet where you might stay after your days at the hotel?
All the best.
Mum & Dad
Honestly, you'd never even know there was a coup apart from the odd soldier on some street corners. It was interesting but in no way dangerous for us!
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