Living under a curfew in Thailand

As you may be aware, Thailand is experiencing some troubles at the moment. (Sorry no photos as we are still only on dial up internet …urrggghhhh)

In many provinces in Thailand a curfew has been declared, including in our province, and we are not allowed to go out of our homes between 8pm and 6am (another report says 9pm to 5am - hard to know what's really going on as we can't check on the internet and we don't understand the T.V reporters as they use too difficult words). We heard that the big shopping centre in Lampang, started to close at 7pm last night, when normally it closes after 10pm. I made sure I got an extra carton of milk this afternoon when I went shopping just in case.

Our househelper told us that there were military soldiers on the main highway, guarding a gas depot just outside of town. Apart from this though, not much is happening in our province. In Chiang Mai though only an hour north, building have been burnt and mass protestors have gathered at some key locations.

It’s hard to believe what’s happening in Thailand. One of the biggest shopping centres in Bangkok, in Asia for that matter set alight. The trains have stopped running and we’ve been advised to carry our passports and travel documents so that we can get through the check points.

By God’s grace we arrived early last week, rather than this week. Otherwise there would have been a whole lot more difficulties to deal with. Government offices including the immigration department have been closed all week, if we came this week (instead of last week) we would not have been able to renew our visas before they expired.

However, our boxes from Australia are sitting at the airport as customs have been closed and my work permit papers needed to clear our boxes has been held up as the immigration department has been closed.

Trying to imagine all that is happening here, happening in Australia. Can’t imagine it.