Coup Day Two

Yesterday was a great day to do errands. Everything felt normal except the small number of people out and about. At a restaurant I popped into for lunch, the staff appeared so glad to have a customer that their attentiveness began to get a bit oppressive. I nearly had to swat them away. The only soldier I saw all day was looking lonely as he sat outside a building that houses the company founded by the former prime minister.

This morning I tried to go for a run at a park where I’ve seen soldiers playing soccer in the past. At the entrance gate I was turned away, even though cars were allowed to drive through. The government ministries are all open again, so I’ll be going back to work.

Far be it from me to speculate about the subtleties of Thai politics, and how this regime change will play out. It may even be harder to get good information here than it is elsewhere, because the local news sources are likely not as complete as those outside the country.

I don’t feel the sense of discouragement that we used to have twenty years ago, working in the refugee camps, when we were told by officials that the camps were closed but given no details about the reasons. Sometimes we could hear the booming of shells in the distance, but otherwise we had very little idea about was really going on.

In Bangkok today and yesterday it was the absence of noise that was unusual. My gut tells me that in the long run, any disruptions caused by the birth of a new government will be felt much more by a small handful of VIPs than by common folk.