Filed under: Expat life, People, Relationships | Tags: alcohol, Bangkok, Bangkok Shutdown, Beer, boxing, cockroaches, coup, Dr Seuss, Elephant Tower, elephants, Expat life, expats, floods, Gameboy, gym, Health, infidelity, internet, London, Phahon Yothin, prostitutes, Ratchayothin, red Shirt protests, Red Shirts, swimming, terrorism, Thai girls, Thai politics, Thailand, video games, wrestling, Yellow Shirt protests, yellow shirts
People were incredulous when I told them I lived in an elephant’s leg, but I was neither lying nor quoting from a Dr Seuss book. No, for more than seven years I lived in a building called the Elephant Tower, so named because of its unmistakeable shape. See for yourself:
The Elephant Tower at Ratchayothin
I lived in the back legs of that building, about halfway up. Thus, I named my blog Elephant’s Leg because that had been my perspective point for most of the time I have lived in Thailand. Seven years and three months, in fact. My childhood home aside, it was the longest consecutive time I had stayed in one place.
Filed under: News, politics, Thai news | Tags: Abhisit Vejjajiva, anti-government protests, army, Bangkok, Bangkok Post, barbecue, BTS, Chit Lom, civil war, commuting, dancing, democracy, Dusit Thani Hotel, elections, hotels, Khattiya Sawasdipol, military, MRT, News, newspapers, Phahon Yothin, photos, politics, Rama IV Road, Ratchaprasong, Red Shirts, Sala Daeng, Seh Daeng, Silom, singing, skytrain, soldiers, subway, taxis, terrorism, terrorists, thai elections, Thai news, Thai politics, Thailand, trains, UDD, United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, war
Red Shirts on Silom Road
Front-page headlines from the past few days in the Bangkok Post which are in no way an exaggeration.
The anti-government protests by the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), or “Red Shirts”, have been going on for two months now, and friends and family back home who’ve seen dramatic news footage have enquired about my safety, to which I had always replied that “it looks much worse than it is”, and that I was completely safe so long as I stayed away from the demonstration zones.
Not anymore. Continue reading
