Friday, April 10, 2009

Red Shirt, Yellow Shirt

Fri.- up at 5am to catch the bus to Koh Chang, an island off the coast of Thailand. The red shirts and yellow shirts, two rival political factions had been fueding the night before. They each want their own Prime Minister in office and argue about it in the streets. They were involved in the airport being shut down a few months ago. They prefer taking their disagreements to the streets where they halt traffic with cinder blocks and rails and their own bodies. They use what they call a constitutional freedom to limit everyone else's. The red shirts stayed up all night chanting and when our bus left the station, it was soon forced to turn around and find a more indirect route down one lane streets. Other than that and the child behind us losing her breakfast in the walkway, we had a peaceful journey to a town called Trat. There we bought seats on the back of a truck to the dock where we caught the ferry to the island. Then, we bought seats on another truck which carried us to the other side of the island where we found a room. This weekend, Thailand celebrates their New Year's water festival, Songkran. Basically, everyone gets a water gun or a bucket and they soak each other. Refreshing, unless they also add mud or chalk to the water and hit foreigners as they come past. Just ask Frank! We spent a peaceful evening on the beach under the shade of a large evergreen and called it a night.
mandy

1 comment:

  1. It really looks like you have a great time there... ;-)

    ReplyDelete

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