Bangkok Dangerous

The city has been holding its breath for days and today the military crackdown has begun. Smoke from burning tires dot the skyline, a few buildings are on fire, soldiers with tanks are smashing through barricades and gunfire pierces the air.

I kept the kids home from school yesterday and nothing happened. Today I sent them out because peace talks were underway. I guess the talks collapsed overnight because the military moved in at dawn (I figured it out 10 minutes after the kids got on the bus). The kids are safe at the school in the northern suburbs, but now I have to worry about getting them home safely. The school will hold them there in "safe haven" as long as necessary...

Best viewed in large.

UPDATE: at 3 pm - The kids are stuck at school. Once the protest leaders surrendered, angry mobs have broken out. They've set fires to a couple of buildings and the main road near us is blocked with burning tires. We're safe except for the rapidly deteriorating air quality in the apartment. TG for air conditioners.

UPDATE at 5:30 PM - The kids made it home but arrived about a half hour after we lost electricity due to all the fires. We live on the 16th floor and they had to hoof it up in the 38 degree heat. We were preparing a plan for dealing with no electricity all night but luckily it came back on about 15 minutes ago. Wifi was restored as well and when I logged on, I found my pic on the spotlight page for the second time this week! There must be easier ways to make spotlight though... Too bad I already blipped today because there were so many more fires to shoot - there are an estimated 15 major fires happening in Bangkok this evening. We watched one 6 floor building completely burn through in the distance (to the left of the photo above) and a couple of the main shopping malls are on fire as well. Luckily, we live at the end of a quiet dead end street with a brand new gate. The kids are going down to the pool now that the elevator works again. And now that we have electricity, we can close the windows and turn the air conditioners back on.