BBC: Protesters set fire to areas outside shopping malls in
central Bangkok as they left
Bangkok, May 19, 2010. Early afternoon.
As many know, there are two areas of gay bars in the main shopping and host-bar area of Bangkok, involving parts of Silom and Suriwong Roads, and the famous Soi Patpong. The fighting between the government forces and the Red Shirts is intense at the moment in Bangkok. It has not resulted in any violence in the gay bar areas.
On Thursday, May 13, around 8 pm, a grenade was launched that hit the Saladang Skytrain station on Silom road. Apparently it came from behind the Red Shirts Barricade that blocked the road leading north from the Rama IV / Silom intersection (where the well known Dusit Thank Hotel is located, as well as the main entrance to Lumpini Park).
Nearby is Silom Soi 4, the small side street that has some of the best known gay bars and restaurants – Telephone, Balcony, Sphinx. The gay venues were told by the military to close after the grenade attack on Saladang station and Silom Road was blocked off to prevent Red Shirts moving south into the Silom business area. The night markets on Silom Road and Patpoing Soi were deserted.
After Soi 4 was closed, I walked over to Suriwong Road, which runs parallel to Silom. The main gay bar area there is on a small soi (side street) often called Soi Twilight (though the pioneer Twilight bar is long gone). The bars and restaurants were functioning, though the numbers of tourists, both Asians and non-Asians were pretty limited.
The manager in Dick's Cafe was watching television coverage of events on his laptop. Yes, he knew that Silom Soi 4 was now closed. But this was Suriwong! It was only a 10 minute talk to the Red Shirt / Army standoff at Rama IV and Silom, but there were no soldiers on Soi Twilight.
Friday and Saturday night the larger gay host bars on Soi Twilight were closed. The owner of Dream Boys said it was too expensive to run the air conditioning when there were almost no customers. Police or military had not told the bars to close, and two or three were operating, though desperately short of clients.
The government gave the Red Shirts a deadline to leave the protest sites by Monday afternoon, May 17. Monday and Tuesday were declared holidays, with government offices and schools closed. Now Wednesday and Thursday are also holidays. Television today has shown army tanks (armoured personnel carriers with machine guns mounted on top) dismantling Red Shirt barricades. Black smoke from burning tires spirals up from four or give locations, as Red Shirts try to protect their remaining areas.
The Skytrain and the Subway have been closed for at least five days now. The army have sealed off a large area around the Red shirts encampment, and are blocking any supplies coming in. Red shirts can leave the area, but not re-enter. Ten days ago I had wandered through the Red controlled areas with no problems, from police, army or Red Shirts. The Red Shirts had been able to move in large generators, so they would have power even if electricity was cut off in the area. Now the area is sealed off.
The government is providing transportation for Red Shirts to return to their home areas, and many individuals have left the protest sites. The government is also providing transportation for non-Thais who may still be in the area, with announcements in English on television today by a lead government spokesperson. Embassies are asking their nationals to take no risks. Stay home they say.
Breaking news says that hundreds of armed police are forming lines on Sukhumvit road, which leads into the main protest site, backed up by some 20 police vans.
Maybe this will be over in a couple of days. But we have been expecting an end to the confrontation for many weeks now.
Douglas Sanders is a retired Canadian law professor living in Bangkok. He can be contacted at sanders_gwb @ yahoo.ca.
Printable Version
RSS Feed: 
Reader's Comments
"When will I see you again........???"
Thailand is a beautiful country with beautiful people and deserved better. I hope this sick sex trade will be put out of existence by the current events once and for all, but of course it has to be done in a lawful and civilized way.
If you can enjoy seeing poor boys made "available" at boy bars to every dirty John, Ian and Harry then you are irreversibly SICK.
My deep and sincere condolences to all Thai people who lost their loved ones. I hope peace will come to Thailand soon.
may this be the necessary circumstances for a better, glorious future, rather than the herald of impending disaster :(
RIP Khun Kitcharoen. I miss you every day x
You have given the world so much joy and love.
Let there be no bloodshed any more.
I will pray for you until peace comes back again.
Please call or write or pray for your Thai friends and the Land of Smiles more.
your country and people are going through now....
All of us in the world who love Thailand and Thai people
feel very very sad!
May Buddha, God, and the King
help you through this dark time.
your country and people are going through now....
All of us in the world who love Thailand and Thai people
feel very very sad!
May Buddha, God, and the King
help you through this dark time.
Exploited by sleazy sex tourists from all around the world, the kentang claims. What? Millions of horny Thai men in the country and not one EVER uses them and pays for Thai boys? Not one? Remarkable. Unbelievable. Such self control. In most Asian cities my friend, you'll find bars that cater exclusively for local clients, where foreigners are discouraged or not permitted to enter.
And of course he clings to the fantasy that these boys are exploited. As if they didnt choose to be there. No one holds a gun to their heads and drags them to a bar and forces them to have sex with farang. Imagine if you come from a poor family with many kids, you have little education and lack the skills to get a well paid job. But have a well muscled body from working on the farm. Or a slender body with a pretty face - the look or the type men want.
So they come to the big city and get into the sex trade to make money to send home - they support their families, they support themselves and probably can afford to buy things they wouldnt be able to afford otherwise. Its not an ideal life but better than they did have. And better than starving.
Now you want to bars closed. So what do the boys do to earn a living? Sell themselves on the street? Or do you imagine they will all go back home and plant the rice paddy or work in a factory, happy in the knowledge they are earning far less than they would selling themselves. Some of course, are students trying to get an education or make ends meet.
Exploited? Undoubtedly by the bar owners. And cheap tourists who wont give them a decent tip and make life a little easier for them. As for me, whenever I pay for a boy, I am generous, kind and treat him not as a client but someone who deserves respect. Both parties happy.
Politically in the long term, don't believe these protests will ever subside as long as the voting majority don't get some form of democracy from a new election. Truly unfortunate for a magical country like Thailand. Wish them well.
I love Thailand. I hope there comes forgiveness on each side. United it will stand again...divided it will fall.
Blessings to all.
Wish Bad people who made the bad things will gone from my beautiful country as soon as possible!!!
I miss Central World, Siam Paragon, Gaysorn Plaza, Siam square and i also miss DJ Station Silom Soi 2!!!
Blah, blah, blah, blah. As I said the first time around, you do not have a clue what you are talking about.
So I'm not even going to bother answering you. Even your slanderous assertion I chase teenage boys, which fridae should have been more careful in allowing. Actually, I prefer guys 35 and up because they have a modicum of intelligence.
boyzone comes from a group of pop singers which I happen to like. If you had twice as many brains, you still wouldn't be a halfwit.
The second issue is that one needs a university degree in Thailand for all but the most menial jobs. Boys from the country come to Bkk to support their families, but find many doors closed to them with their minimal education, and so end up on Soi Twilight (80% of them, by the way, are straight, or 'top', as they put it). They tell their families they are "working in bars", and no further questions are asked. (Thaksin is of course the ultimate example of a man who will do anything, absolutely anything, to make money!) Some of them are indeed students, and can change to better work in due course - but many of them feel that the system offers them no choices, further education is expensive. (SWING, in Silom, offers free English classes to these lads, but I don't know of any other organisations offering them a way out.) But for every boy who finds a 'Sugar Daddy', gets an education and a future, 10 more will hear of it and move into Bkk, and until the underlying injustices are confronted, so it continues.
But, I'm not sure this story that has created so strong factions among the population will end soon. People who have taken sides so definitely will not easily get back to a normal life and find harmony with their neighbors.
Finally about the sex trade, many of these guys come from the Deep SOuth or the North East, have little education, and have only a future in rice farming, a very tough job, that yields very little money. OF course, it is clearly understandable, some of them prefer an easier life, where they are admired by many, and make a lot more money, to sustain themselves, and are able to send money home to their family and get their esteem.
Marseil.
Please log in to use this feature.