Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Devastating Day for Thailand

Bangkok is on fire. Outside, smoke from a few miles away hides the downtown high-rises. Inside, the smell of burning plastic has started to cling to our clothes.

Another way of measuring how nerve-wracking today was: the U.S. Embassy sends text messages to suggest avoiding certain areas. Since last Thursday I've received two or three per day. Today I got ten. The number of texts each day for the previous week:

May 13 – 2
May 14 – 3
May 15 – 2
May 16 – 0
May 17 – 3
May 18 – 2
May 19 – 10

Jip and I are safe.

2 comments:

Ann M said...

Hi John and Jip- Your friends at HMC are thinking of you. Thanks for keeping up the blog on the political unrest, and Jip's spiritedness! Ann

Anonymous said...

Hi John,

Wishing that you & Jip will come out of this safe and comfortable, as I wish that all Thais will be so. I'm sorry to see that King Bhumipol no longer has the commanding presence to end this conflict in a face-saving way.

ken berry @Van Asselt@AAA