Maybe it began as a whisper, small-talk over dinner between friends.
Then you heard it spoken aloud while sipping beers on corner streets.
Inside the bar, you overheard it in passionate arguing.
While on the beach at dusk it was lulled about while you lay on the cooling sand watching the stars.
Then the voices grew. And grew.
It became louder and was heard by more. It became so loud, in fact, you could ignore it no longer.
People started making movements. The ground began to grumble. The movement started in their bones, deep in their gut, in the place below the heart under the ribcage. Then the feeling slid into their thighs, tightening the muscles there, sending a shock to their calves, and forcing them to their feet. They were moving, gathered together towards the city capital in clumps.
Hundreds at first. Then thousands followed.
United by the colour red on their shirts and the idea of democracy in their hearts, they moved.
It started peacefully as most change does.
Protesters huddled outside government buildings in sporadic clumps across Bangkok. Pictures were posted in newspapers around the world of smiling protesters clad in red tops against sunny backdrops.
The protesters collected their own blood in syringes until they had litres of it, enough to douse government buildings in crimson red.
Red in their shirts, red on their policial elites' doorsteps, and then red pouring out of gunshot wounds and into city streets. All so quickly, all too ironic.
Then the air filled with tear gas. Guns are heard in the distance and rubber bullets are fired.
Then car tires are piled on each other until a barricade is erected, a battlefield created.
Snipers take cover in nearby buildings and rooftops while protesters set their city's center ablaze.
An anti-government leader is shot and killed.
But it started peacefully, as most change does.
***
The political crisis in Thailand right now is absolutely riveting. I remember following this story the first day the Red Shirts headed to Bangkok, fed up with their country's political situation. And as each day passed, the story grew ever so slowly. More people came to the capital, demands went unheard, and then riots erupted and people got killed. It started so slowly from day one, but in the last week, shit just fucken hit the fan.
My friend, lets call him AC, is headed to Bangkok for the long weekend. He bought his ticket a month ago, before people started dying, plucked out of the crowds by snipers. When he bought his ticket, I was so jealous. The situation in Thailand at that time was just exciting, enticingly entertaining. Commoners, united in their belief for democracy, headed into the capital and demanding that their voices be heard. How fucken enthralling! I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to see how a country such as Thailand forces political change.
But knowing what I know now, would I buy a ticket and go tomorrow if I had the chance?
Abso-fucken-lutely!
I would still go. I would still want to be in the middle of the chaos, tied up in the thick of things.
But as I keep up to date with the news, I am fretting over AC going. I am urging him not to go, to steer clear of Bangkok, even though if the situation was reversed and I had the plane ticket to Thailand in my own hands, I wouldn't think twice about it.
I suddenly realize how difficult it is to be the one left behind.
I can fully forgive my parents now for the overbearing, overprotective, overparenting that they did when I was in Vietnam and Cambodia. But I stick by my words: Ill never inform them of my next travel arrangements because now I know, it sucks worrying over your friends and family when you are the one that is left behind.
Have a great trip AC.
"Train journeys are about possibilities. They denote a change in state. When you arrive, you are no longer the same person who departed. You can make new freinds en route, or find old enemies; you may get diarrhea from eating stale samosas or cholera from drinking contaminated water. And, dare I say it, you might even discover love."
