A City on Fire

It's been a whirlwind couple of days here in Bangkok. After reaching my emotional breaking point on Saturday night, I decided to re-locate to yet another part of the city, continuing my attempt to outrun the violence that has paralyzed daily life for countless Bangkok inhabitants. I called my friend Kevin, who is renting an apartment in Ladprao, a northern district of the city that has been relatively unaffected by the protests. After Kevin graciously agreed to take this refugee in for a while, I made a quick phone call to ask my boss if I could transfer temporarily to our language center's Ladprao branch. My request for a transfer was met with an enthusiastic "YES YES YES, GET THE F**K OUT OF THERE." So I once again packed up everything I own and hauled my butt uptown. On the drive up I saw the true scope of destruction throughout the city, passing blockaded expressways and black clouds of smoke billowing up from piles of burning tires. Watching a city burn is a truly horrible sight.

With every meter we drove away from the city center, I began to breathe a bit easier. By the time we exited the expressway and drove onto the soi's of Ladprao, I began to realize that it was all true: life in parts of this city was still continuing as normal. People were out on the streets, shopping and eating, acting as though they weren't living on the edge of a war zone. It was only then that I felt the effect of the last few days I had spent downtown, barricaded in my apartment against the sounds of gunfire and explosions. The sounds of a city on fire.

Sensing my overwhelming desire for a "normal" afternoon, Kevin and our friend Pete took me to a nearby park. We rented bikes for the afternoon, riding leisurely among lily-padded ponds and jogging Bangkokians. The serenity of the park felt strange after being in such a period of scared isolation, and I joked with Kevin and Pete that I was being re-introduced to society. Kevin and I ate a huge dinner (that didn't consist of instant freeze-dried noodles!) and walked home (at night!) It was truly a glorious re-introduction.

But after two days of normalcy in Ladprao, I am once again reminded of the chaos that is happening just a few kilometers away. Today I woke up to the sounds of a helicopter overhead, something that I hadn't heard since my afternoon of societal re-introduction. I checked my phone, which was waiting with a "Ladprao center closed, don't come into work today" text sent by my boss. I looked out my window and saw a huge black cloud of smoke rising from the city center, my home for the last two and a half months.

I hopped on a motorbike and rushed to the nearest internet cafe. The headlines spell out what we have all been fearing/reluctantly wanting to happen for weeks now. The army is now aggressively moving in on the protestors. Armed soldiers have torn down the barricades of bamboo and rubber tires that protected the Red Shirt encampment for months, entering into the protest area that has been deemed a "live fire zone" by the government. There are still an estimated 5,000 protestors remaining in the rally zone. Interviews with the remaining die-hards show that they expected this crackdown to take place. If they are still standing there, they are willing to die for what they believe.

Among those protestors refusing to leave are many women, children, and elderly people. These people are now directly in the line of fire. Today will prove a historically tragic date for Thailand, as the country stands to have a huge loss in life and in morale. All that the rest of us can do is stand back and watch as the army attempts to end what has gone on for far too long. The situation is lose-lose from all ends: take no action, and allow the paralysis of the city to continue. Take action, and see even more death and destruction.

My heart is breaking for this country as I watch it burn.