Bangkok Aflame 5/20

Now the situation has all gone to hell. Better in one way - the protest is over the leaders arrested, but as a final parting shot from the more crazy of the crazies, many big Bangkok buildings have been burned down, most distressing being Central World, the huge, spectacular, luxurious and quite beautiful mall. Here are some pictures. The office tower next door, which is where our offices are, was not touched, but everything all around it will have to be demolished. The best link for all the photos of yesterday's crackdown is

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/crackdown_in_bangkok.html

Attached pictures of Central World and Zen Dept Store, part of the same complex, is horrifying to those of us who went there every day. It was all so cool and stylish and fun to hang around in - like a huge private city of our own, full of pretty people and wonderful food. To the left of the green glass Zen building in the picture, our big office tower is behind all that yellow smoke.

Weird thing is that I didn't know about any of this until this morning. I don't have a TV, and my girlfriend Fon was over my house so we were just goofing off having a fun time, eating on the back terrace, drinking, laughing and carrying on to the music, and the smoke in the background just looked like the same smoldering tires of the morning. We had no idea.

For the next few days there will be a continuing curfew at sunset, which nobody is complaining about. I will NOT be going out. There's no need to stock up on stuff and the sidewalk cooking will never stop.

Those building pictures are more or less the main extent of the problem, and there are many saying that the mall owners themselves set the fires for the insurance, to try to recoup the billions they have lost since their malls were closed 2 weeks ago. Who knows? Big C, a huge dept store across the street from Central World is also gone. Hard to believe. These were monster size buildings. Like indoor towns. So the rest of Bangkok is untouched and pretty normal. However, there are fires and problems in other far-flung provinces and a big mall is now burning in Pattaya, a resort city about 2 hours away on the gulf. Insurance? Who knows.

No public transport. No skytrain, subway or buses. Nuffink. Only cabs and motorbike taxis.

We all still feel safe. It's all still contained in the same places. It's over, but there may be more torchings here and there. Residential areas like mine will always be safe. But, wow. What a day, huh?