TALES FROM THE TOP

While on holiday in Bangkok for Songkran or New Year earlier this week, I found myself caught in the crossfire, not from bullets being fired by the army to disperse rowdy protesters, but from the thousands of revelers and their waterguns squirting each other with ice cold agua.

I landed late Saturday night just after the Prime Minister cancelled the ASEAN plus Three summit in Pattaya. I didn’t think much of it.

I thought to myself, Abhisit Vejjajiva is a rookie afterall and probably downplayed the seriousness posed by  Thaksin Shinawatra’s red shirt supporters. He was caught off guard by it and had to cancel the summit to avoid further embarrassing himself in front of Asian leaders.

I was at Chatuchak market when a friend called and reported that he’s inside Siam Paragon and security wont let people out. This was when I found out tanks were rolling in. So I thought, just another coup d’etat or State of Emergency — no big deal, it happens all the time in Thailand. The shopping continued.

Thai media reported the events unfolding, but what we saw on tv, wasn’t the same scenario I saw in my immediate vicinity.

It is important to remember  that most of the Thai media lean towards Abhisit and against Thaksin. So the media showed images of chaos and burning buses. Some refering to the protests as riots, the protesters as mobs, and the situation as a “Black Songkran.”

The international media sees things slightly different. Well aware that Thaksin and his party in all it’s reincarnations, were democratically elected many times, while Abhisit’s Democrat Party fell short in National elections. CNN’s Monita Rajpal challenged Abhisit in an interview on Monday asking him if he has what it takes to bring Thais together, when Thaksin has the majority of supporters and won landslide elections.

On the eve on Songkran on Sunday, tourists started splashing water along Silom and Sukhumvit. On the first full day of Songkran everyone was out on the streets getting wet.

While on TV we saw soldiers firing shots in the air dispersing crowds. We saw burning buses. We saw red shirted protesters causing havoc.

My boss called and asked if I can co-anchor Prime Time News in Bangkok.

Since I was there and since I know for a fact most of Bangkok was calm – I agreed if only to be given a chance to tell a different story. Sure, violence was happening somewhere in Bangkok, but it was 10 kilometers away and contained in a different area of this sprawling metropolis.

After the broadcast, I quickly went back to my hotel, changed into my dri-fit outfit, filled my gun with cold water and off to the street I went armed with my gun, my camera and confidence that the situation will get better when everyone gets into the holiday mood.

And I was right — Newspapers and TV flashed violent pictures from Bangkok, I have pictures of a different kind.