Bangkok: From Martial Law to Coup

Bangkok, Thailand

Events are overtaking my capacity to blog about them. Into the gap I've been posting status updates on Facebook. I spent the day reviewing the course itinerary with our redoubtable local organizer, Ms. Chadathip from the appropriately named Noble Truth Travels.

After a break for a nap and to struggle with a manditory transition to gmail at my University, and fiddling with a new song, I went downstairs to have dinner. It was 9:50. The receptionist stopped me and told me I couldn't go out after 10. He pantomimed soldiers with guns in the streets.

New York Times photo. To be clear, I have only seen the inside of
my hotel since this occurred. Out of an abundance of caution, I didn't even
get to grab dinner.

Well, there's one thing a professor in a foreign land likes to hear 2 hours before his students are due to  land, and that's that the city they're landing in has a new curfew and people pantomiming guns. I returned to my room to find Mike Miller had posted a link to a New York Times article on a coup in Thailand, which certainly clicked with the receptionists efforts. I turned on the television to find the The National Peace and Order Maintain Council has a new hit program. It must be popular because it's playing on all channels in Bangkok now. It consists of a flag and the sigils of 5 armed forces, backed by shrill patriotic songs. I’ve been listening for about and hour. A news caster occasionally interrupts to provide updates. I cannot fault him for providing those updates in Thai. It increases my zeal to study the language more while I am here.

I was interrupted there by a reporter from the New York Post. He’d been calling hotels at random for the past hour and half asking receptionists if they could put him through to an Americans staying at the hotel. Talk about your shots in the dark. Not too impressive on the receptionist's mores for confidentiality. Still, I gave the reporter the update -- all quiet in Bangkok. I hope that was the right thing to do.

Here are some headlines from the Bangkok Post website: “Deadlock forces Prayuth to go for coup." Another article is entitled, "Some may call it a coup d'etat. Some may say it’s about time. Some may realise that it’s the only realistic solution to the political impasse." Hm.

According to the Bangkok Post, this is the 12th military coup d'etat in Thailand since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, which is one per 7 years on average. Almost like an election cycle. Very sad.