Bangkok, Thailand
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
SUVARNABHUMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Bangkok - Serirat Prasutanond has perhaps the least enviable job in Thailand right now. "We are doing our best, really," he told me. "We want the tourists to start coming back to Thailand."
Prasutanond is the acting president of Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok's international airport, which was taken over and closed for a week by anti-government protesters, and today he was supervising the clean-up. He said the computer systems were fine and the inside of the vast terminal -- which resembled a refugee camps, strewn with bodies just a few hours earlier - was mostly cleared of rubbish.
He has told the Thai media that the airport could be fully open by Friday, but was cautious when I asked him if this was realistic. "It all depends on security. The security systems have to be approved," he warned.
As we spoke, teams of cleaners hauled away bags of rubbish, and hundreds of sheets of cardboard, which the protesters had used as mats to sleep on. Others dusted and washed the floors, while earnest-looking airline officials hovered with clipboards. At a Thai Airways check-in desk, a supervisor told me their systems were fine and they'd soon be testing the baggage belts, which a few hours earlier were being used as beds. "There was no damage," she told me, "they (the protesters) were educated people," betraying her sympathy for a group that has largely drawn its support from Bangkok's middle class.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
U-TAPAO, Thailand – It once was a forward operating base for the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. About 100 miles southeast of Bangkok and renamed as U-Tapao International Airport, it now has become the capital city's only air link to the outside world – and a way out for the tens of thousands of tourists stranded in Thailand.
Used mostly by occasional charter flights, the airport only has one runway, one small terminal, and one X-ray machine. It has only four check-in counters, and one crane to lift luggage onto planes.
Yet they were hoping to get 50 flights out today – an impressive total, but only a fraction of the 700 flights a day that routinely used Bangkok's main airport, Suvarnabumi, before it was seized by anti-government protesters. (Airlines are also stepping up departures out of Thailand's other main international gateways, Chiang Mai and Phuket.)
This morning U-Tapao was chaos. "Organized chaos," according to John Landon from Colorado, who was making his way back home from a vacation on the resort island of Koh Samui. "The Thais have done really well to get this up and running."
Hundreds of tourists lined in the hot sun outside the tiny terminal building. "Don't worry," said a woman through a handheld loudspeaker, "Everybody will get on the plane. We won't go without you."
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
Bangkok's massive multi-million dollar airport terminal tonight resembles a night market. It's teaming with yellow-clad protesters and lined with make-shift stalls selling badges, t-shirts, stickers and jewelry, as well as food and drink. Outside, the passenger drop-off zone is a sea of yellow protesters rattling their plastic "clappers" as they listen to fiery speeches from the top of truck.
The approach road to the terminal is lined with cars that reflect the largely middle-class character of the protesters – the SUV is the vehicle of choice. There are several security checks along the way, where guards wielding metal rods and golf clubs stop and search approaching cars. It feels like the anti-government protesters are settling in for the long-haul.
All flights remain suspended, and the estimated 3,000 passengers – most of them tourists – stranded last night when the airport closed have been moved to city-center hotels.
But who exactly are these protesters clad in yellow – the color associated with Thailand’s king – who risk crippling Thailand's lucrative tourist industry? And what do they want?
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
BANGKOK, Thailand – Late tonight, one of Asia's busiest airports remained under siege, sealed off by several thousand anti-government protesters. The protesters, clad in yellow – the color of the king – sat on mats and cardboard, in the road outside the main terminal building, where cars and buses usually drop off passengers.
They were listening to fiery anti-government speeches, interspersed with Thai folk songs blasting from the top of a truck, also draped in yellow. At one point, a protest leader, speaking in perfect English, apologized for any inconvenience to the thousands of stranded passengers. "Please understand that our purpose is to stop this corrupt government," he said. The crowd of protesters shook their plastic "clappers" in approval.
The pleas didn't garner much sympathy with the bewildered passengers inside the terminal.
"I just wanna go home. I like Thailand, but I don't like this," said one man, as he lay on the floor, waiting for news of his delayed flight to Sweden. Nearby a young couple nursed two sick infants.
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By NBC’s Warangkana Chomchuen
BANGKOK – One evening I asked my mother how much she would ask for a dowry if I were to get married. (A friend of mine is going to tie the knot this year and it made me curious about what my "bride price" would be.)
"Maybe a million Baht," she said after a pause. A million Baht, or roughly $32,000, should cover a down payment for a 500-square foot condominium in Bangkok or buy me a brand new Toyota Camry.
Unlike India, where the bride’s family pays a dowry to the groom to recognize that he will provide for his wife, in Thailand it’s the other way round. The Thai groom pays "Sin Sod" (or dowry) to prove to the bride’s family that he will be a good provider.
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| AFP - Getty Images file |
| A Thai woman looks at bride dresses during a Wedding Fair in Bangkok. |
The dowry usually comprises cash, jewelry, gold or property. The rate varies according to the social status of the two families. For lower-to-middle-class families the dowry can range from $2,000-$50,000, but in a marriage between two more affluent families, the dowry may reach as high as $100,000-$500,000.
When a famous Thai pop singer got engaged to a son of a millionaire late last year, her dowry – cash, diamond rings, and a posh Audi sport car – was worth $3 million.
In Thailand, a dowry is sometimes called a "breastfeeding fee" – a symbolic payment for raising a good daughter who hopefully will also become a good wife. A more accomplished bride – such as Miss Thailand – is likely, though not always, expected to be pricier.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
BANGKOK, Thailand – Let's hear it for freedom of speech! Tibet, Zimbabwe and now Myanmar are all refusing access to journalists who want to report on the hardships of their people.
In Tibet, the Chinese are clamping down in fear that unrest will spoil the summer Olympics in Beijing; Tibetans complain of beatings and killings. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe is hanging on grimly, trying to overthrow an apparent election loss by subterfuge and violence, after running his country into the ground for twenty years. And in Myanmar, after 46 years of iron rule by a military junta, the generals wants to stop outsiders from witnessing the devastation of Cyclone Nargis. They're afraid of a threat to their power.
As a journalist who has tried to enter each of these places in the last three months and failed – my heart goes out to the citizens under stress, whose stories I would dearly like to tell, in the hope some good would come of it. But my predominant emotion is thanks to the world into which I was fortunate enough to be born. My world has enough food and my vote is a force that cannot be changed, unlike Zimbabwe; I can say what I like, unlike in Tibet; and I know I can count on my government in case of a natural disaster, unlike in Myanmar.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
While American are being treated to a political thriller, here in Thailand we are being entertained by something closer to pantomime,
the latest act being the return this week of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister, deposed in a bloodless military coup 17 months ago.
I learned of his imminent return from a taxi driver who picked me up at the airport after I'd arrived back in Bangkok from North Korea, where local TV doesn't carry a great deal of news about the outside world, or anything else for that matter, and where I had been covering the visit of the New York Philharmonic.
It was a curious conversation. "Sorry, no meter. Meter not working," the taxi driver announced, soon after we'd set off. It was late, I was tired. I really didn't need this, so I replied rather curtly, "No meter, no money!"
The meter then miraculously sprung back to life. A moment or two later he turned to me, beaming, giving a thumbs up sign.
"Thaksin back tomorrow, back tomorrow!"
I'm sure there is no direct connection between the driver trying to rip me off and the return of a man whose government was accused of massive corruption, but it did give me pause for thought.
The last time Thai politics made headline news was when the military sent tanks onto the streets of Bangkok in September 2006 to remove Thaksin from power. It was the 18th coup since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.
It followed massive protests, largely engineered by the Bangkok elite, and accusations of abuse of power, as well as corruption.
I guess the generals thought Thaksin would just fade away as most deposed leaders have in the past. But the billionaire businessman had three things going for him: Massive support among Thailand's poor, a well-oiled political machine and pots of money.
He had reinvented Thai politics, which used to be essentially a competition of the Bangkok elite, with populist policies, including cheap health care and low-cost village loans. Men like my taxi driver, who suspect all politicians are corrupt, loved him for it.
Elections gave him the biggest majorities in Thai political history.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
BANGKOK, Thailand –
Here's a paradox: Myanmar's ruling generals are trying very hard to keep us, professional journalists, out of the country, yet news and images of the pro-democracy protests and the bloody crackdown are firmly in the global spotlight.
That's thanks largely to two factors: a large and active exile community on the outside, together with cyber dissidents inside the country with access to technology that wasn't available the last time they rose up against the generals.
In the YouTube era, it' has revolutionized the way the story is being covered.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
I always found it hard to imagine Thai policemen wearing Hello Kitty armbands as a mark of shame for wayward officers.
Evidently most policemen did too, because Thailand's top cops decided Friday to abandon the idea.
It seems there was a rebellion in the macho ranks, as well as outrage on Hello Kitty Web sites.
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| Yasushi Ukigaya / AP |
| A police officer in Bangkok showed off the Hello Kitty armband that was going to be a used as a disciplinary measure on Monday. The police have since abandoned the idea. |
"You have to understand that it's embarrassing for our 30- to 40-year-old policemen to be made to wear this girly, pink armband," conceded police Maj. Weeraprach Wongrat, of the Crime Suppression Division, whose idea it was in the first place.
"It also attracted so much attention – a lot of praise, but a lot of criticism," he said Friday. The Thai police found themselves blasted by Hello Kitty lovers for using their cute icon as a means of punishment.
"We are concerned about the image of police as much as that of Hello Kitty," Weeraprach said. "We decided to drop the plan."
He said they would be looking at other designs.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
At first sight, Bangkok’s new airport looks impressive enough. To the thousands of tourists who land here every day, the modern glass and steel terminal building, shimmering in the heat, appears every bit the symbol of modern Thailand it was intended to be.
Look closer, though, and you’ll see the workers racing to fill the numerous cracks that have appeared on the runways and taxiways just four months after it was opened and hailed as the Pride of Thailand. It’s now impossible to use 11 of 51 air bridges, and the Thai government said this week that at least some flights will be shifted back to the old airport, while the runways are patched up.
Last weekend Thai aviation authorities refused to extend an international safety certificate for problem-plagued facility. The airport’s general manager said it had yet to set up a safety committee because they were “too busy resolving other problems.”
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