As some of you know I spent the last day and a half out and about in Bangkok taking pics of the Redshirt protests here. This post will give a rundown of where I was when and will be a very short summary. I will post seperate posts with pics for each location after this one.
Yesterday I started by going to Redshirt central yesterday near gov. house around 12:30. It was quiet there so I got into a cab and headed towards Uruphong. There were a group of protestors there with some burning tires. While I was there a Redshirt told me that the gov had just killed people at Victory Monument. I immediately got into a cab and headed that way. I arrived at Victory Monument around 1:30 and saw a lot of soldiers but no redshirts.
I then started to walk down Ratchawithi road and eventually turned and headed down Ratchaprarop road where I could see a large group of Redshirts. There were a LARGE group of Redshirts here at first with the road blocked. This was also the only place during the day that I saw soldiers firing. Eventually the Redshirts dispirsed and I headed back towards Uruphong around 4pm.
This group at Uruphong is the group that I followed for most of the rest of the day. Most of them eventually withdrew to Yommarat. At Yommarat I watched the locals get REALLY pissed and there was a running battle between the local people and the Redshirts that involved stone throwing, molotov cocktails, and some gunfire. While this was happening the Thai soldiers and police were still down the road near Uruphong. Eventually the locals chased the Redshirts down the road and there was a running battle along Phitsanulok road between the locals and the Redshirts. While this battle was going on Thai soldiers took control of Yommarat. Eventually the battle calmed down with the locals and Thai government forces at Yommarat and the Redshirts around 2-3o0 meters away down Phitsanulok road. I left this location around 7:30 because I was damn hungry and wanted to get another memory card for my camera as I was almost out of pics.
After getting some food I headed back to Redshirt HQ where I hung out to around 1am. I spent most of the time talking with the people there and while I didn't see any conflict I could hear some sporadic gunfire and explosions in the area.
When I woke up today (April 14th) I saw that the BKK post was reporting the the Thai Army was gearing up to take back Phitsanaluk road. I am assuming that they would be taking it back from the group I left last night so I headed that way. I found that the situation had changed, however, and the Thai army had all roads leading into the area blocked off. I spent some time trying to figure a way in but eventually stopped at an army checkpoint on Phitsanulok road. There was a small group of Redshirt sympathizers here that I spent some time talking to and observing before I set out again to see if I could find a way into the restricted area. I eventually got in (I thought) on Kaset Wittaya road or some such. I made it to Makhawan but was stopped there by soldiers before I could get closer to Government House and Redshirt central. At this point, however, I could see a large group of Thai soldiers walking around where the Redshirts were based and reports from Twitter were saying that it was all over so I headed home.
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