Red Shirts and Black Smoke



I had a great day yesterday hanging out with Gavin Gough and Marco Ryan in Bangkok. We are working on the details of a new foundation that will soon be announced. More to come on that in the days ahead. But while here, Gavin invited Marco and me along as he continued his series on the Red Shirt protest here in Bangkok. You can find his wonderful images here for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

I must confess I expected more out of the protest. Gavin assures me that they didn’t run off once they heard I was coming. But I am not sure. The numbers were way down compared to the days before. The closest thing to any excitement around us was someone tried to set fire to the bridge we were on. It ended up being more smoke than fire. As Gavin pointed out on his blog, the atmosphere has been more like a carnival than a protest. It feels like Thai people are too polite to do any real protesting like other countries.

Note:  The photos below show excitement after a fire broke out under the Phan Fa bridge in Bangkok. They show several bystanders pointing towards people running away after the smoke erupted, thinking they had set the fire. However, after posting these images the Bangkok Post stated the fire under the bridge was a result of an electrical short in the wiring that runs under the bridge and not the work of a miscreant.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 11:14 am and is filed under Blog, News, Photography and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • kirt4982

    Could you email news of your foundation?

    I am an American living in Thailand for a few years. I stayed on to teach cultural anthroplogy and English after finishing my graduate degree from Penn in Thai cultural anthropology and linguistics.

    I am looking for ways to dovetail my interest in photography and travel writing with my Thai language skills and cultural knowledge. I would like to learn more about your foundation. Perhaps there will be opportunities to become directly involved in the future.

    Best regards,
    Kirt

  • gregvaughn

    Hi Matt,

    I am visiting your fair city for a Society of American Travel Writers (SATW.org) meeting. Our handlers, who by their comments are none too sympathetic with the Red Shirts, keep apologizing for the traffic delays and inconvenience, but so far we've only seen a few smiling, flag-waving groups as we travel about.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Fahil-Xaraex/1586177219 Fahil Xaraex

    you are a master, and genius

  • http://www.thaiteepak.com/bangkok.html ที่พักกรุงเทพ

    Excellently written article, if only all bloggers offered the same content as you, the internet would be a much better place. Please keep it up! Cheers.

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