This just in, Thaksin was eating lunch in a shopping center when all those people went apeshit and starting chanting at him. Apparently they included some "hi so" or high society Bangkokians, which may explain why it made it onto government controlled television.

I'm joining my friend Ma at the big mall rally tomorrow night, woo hoo! It'll be an evening of shoppin' and mobbin'. Well not really since I'm pretty much broke, but you know what I mean.

Uh oh, things are getting serious over here -- the protesters have brought it to the MALLS!!!

I guess it finally sunk in that most people in Bangkok (and the country, the world, the Universe) haven't really taken much notice of the almost daily "mobs" congregating at key political points around the city agitating for regime change ... since most people have nothing to do with key political points around the city. So on Sunday they took it to the shopping district, woo hoo! One high end shopping mall, the Emporium, EVEN HAD TO CLOSE FOR AN HOUR!! Tomorrow they're doing it again. Meanwhile, my former boss and friends have asked the King to weigh in on the matter and declare Thaksin unfit. And an undetonated bomb was found outside the opposition party's headquarters. Well at least it wasn't a poop bomb. Yech.

Interestingly enough, iTV, one of the television companies owned by Thaksin, was broadcasting a mini-mob congregating around Thaksin while he ate lunch at a cafeteria somewhere --- I have no idea where. It looked like a university perhaps. They showed it in real time with no commentary. It was bizarre. People were shrieking "Thaksin Get Out!" -- the slogan that has stuck -- while he ate ten feet from them and ignored them. A month and a half ago not a single television station was broadcasting any of this, or only in fits and starts during news hours.

Although come to think of it, I suppose if iTV was under shin Corp that means Singapore owns it now. Not sure about that ...

So on March 5, as my friend Dora lay recuperatin in the hospital, Nancy and I thought we would take her husband Jon out for a good time. So where better to take in the sights and sounds of Bangkok than at a mass political rally calling for the overthrow of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra?!! They have been having these rallies (or "mobs" as they all them in Thai, i.e. using the English word "mob") since January when my former boss tired of his illegal talk shows in the park and decided to up the ante with anti-Thaksin rallies calling for him to step down. They have been partly successful, at least on paper -- Thaksin has called for an April 2 election. Of course, he also pointed out that he was democratically elected by 19 million people and had no reason to suppose that they wouldn't re-elect him, a fact that his detractors are painfully aware of and so have called for a general boycott of the election by all opposing political parties. They have plenty of reason to be enraged with their PM -- much of this public outrage was sparked by the recent sale of Thaksin's family's company Shin Corp to a Singaporean company. Shin Corp is a massive telecommunications company that owns all of Thailand's satellites and was built on state concessions made to Thaksin in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He has become a billionaire since then. And, thanks to loopholes in Thai tax law, his family made the 1.8 billion dollar sale (that's in USD) without having to pay a dollar in taxes. Oops. The protests were for naught, however -- the sale has gone through without a hitch and interested parties can now buy a share of the Singapore company in question on the Thai stock exchange. Anyway, what makes this rally interesting is the immense gulf between Thaksin's supporters and detractors -- most of the country, meaning the poor and the rural who have greatly benefitted from Thaksin's socialized healthcare scheme and village loan program, love the guy. The middle and upper educated classes loathe him. Guess who there is more of in this country. Oh yeah the muslims in the south hate him too but that's just because he has them arrested and tortured on a regular basis. Anyway, fun was had by all, including Jon!

Viva La Revolucion!

I like this photo. That is either Wat Po or the Grand Palace in the back, I forget which. Either way, it's gold and shiny and matches the gold hats and shirts everyone at the rally was sporting ...

Can we say "palpable rage?"

Everyone is looking towards a stage where a succession of monks, movement leaders and my former boss get up to give fiery impassioned speeches about how much Thaksin sucks. Everyone at the rallies (there is a HUGE one going on today, a march through the city) waves the Thai flag, the King's flag and these little orange flags calling for peaceful demonstrations. No one wants to start anything violent since that's all the excuse Thaksin needs to announce an emergency decree and trot out martial law and the army. I note that there was no such thing as an "emergency decree" until last summer when the Parliament voted in favor of such a decree in order to "deal" with the Islamic insurgency in the south. No one had a fit then but now people are realizing that if Thaksin can use it against people in the south, he can use it against people in the north, or people in Bangkok, or anyone who he doesn't like. Funny how those emergency decrees work. In the lower left you will see a "Stop FTA" sign ... the U.S. has been negotiating a free trade agreement with Thailand -- well actually with Thaksin and a handful of his cronies, since no one else in government or the country has been allowed to see a draft of what exactly is being negotiated. Someone in the US finally got hold of a draft and leaked it recently. From a health perspective, it would be disastrous for Thailand, yet again making HIV/AIDS drugs too expensive to treat its general population. People only stopped dying here from AIDS about four years ago when Thailand finally started manufacturing generic versions of "first line" HIV medication but after about five or six years people start to develop a resistance to those drugs, so they have to start depending on second line drugs. Those second line drugs are, however, still relatively new and so under patent by the US and European pharmaceutical companies that produce them and guess what -- they ain't giving anything away for free. The US FTA, among other things, seeks to actually extend patent times from 20 to 25 years. So Thailand would have to wait another 15 years or so to start producing generic versions of second line drugs. By that time all the little HIV kids will start dying again. It's sick stuff, and it's real. The US has already negotiated such deals with Central American countries (CAFTA).

This cow was tied up at the rally and is meant to symbolize something. One lady guessed that it mean Thai people are not stupid cows so Thaksin shouldn't treat them as such. But she wasn't sure. I like the colorful horns and have decided that all political rallies everywhere should include cuddly cows, whatever their symbolism.

This is Ms. Chandrarat, 56, who was sitting with her friends at the rally ... they were mostly chatting but she was waving a selection of incendiary signs ... this one shows a photo of Thaksin's wife Pojamon (I always wants to call her "Pokamon") leaning over to flash him her compact mirror. Ms. Chandrarat -- who is a government official and happy to announce that fact, a sure sign of the turning tide -- also had a sign that said "Devil! Devil! Devil! Get Out!" in Thai and English just in case she didn't get her point across. Like everyone protester I have asked, she has no idea who should take Thaksin's place should he actually step down or be voted out of office. Just not the Democrats, everyone says, which is the main opposition party to Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai ("Thai Love Thai") party. Uh ... okay. I'm like, be careful what you wish for. Power vacuums don't stay unfilled for long and are usually filled by the most unsuitable people you can imagine. For example, the army.

This guy came to the rally with a bunch of his friends from a university in the countryside (the "countryside" meaning anywhere outside of Bangkok). Note the little Hitler mustachios painted onto Thaksin's face, a common m.o. these days. Corrupt he is, Hitler he is not. Although he is responsible for at least 3,000 extra-judicial government killings of drug users and dealers in the north several years ago. And he did order an emergency decree in the "restive south" which has led to the arrest, torture and disappearance of a number of Thai Muslim citizens without court orders yadda yadda ... so I don't know what he is. I guess he's like Bush, or Bush uncensored. Blech.

Trouble has a name. And it ain't Sophie.

Me n' my new baby. Just kidding, that's Lauren, Nancy's brand spankin' new niece who I met for the first time while visitin' in February. She was at the sleeping and occasional squeaking stage of life when I met her (six weeks I think?). I assume this stage will have passed by the time we meet again. She is a beautiful little girl.

Meghna and Stephen sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g ... don't they look precious? This is at a Thai-Japanese restaurant while I was home in NYC. I thought I'd mix it up. They offered special "Thai drinks" on the menu that, unfortunately, you cannot actually find in Thailand.

So this mentally ill guy attacked a holy shrine early Tuesday morning and the worshippers beat him to death. Right smack in the middle of downtown Bangkok, on the street, in the midst of all the big shiny malls. The best part is the Thai media isn't reporting the fact that they killed him -- only that the shrine was vandalized --including my former paper Thai Day. Whatever. One English language Thai paper has reported this fact. Of course, the IHT, which comes with the Thai Day, did its own story reporting this key fact. That the crowd beat him to death. Religion is such a beautiful thing.

I don't know what else I expected from a paper that regularly prints fake letters to the editor bearing made up names -- all written by staff. But it's okay because the other Thai papers all do it. What-evah. It's a whole different ballgame here and I ain't playin', that's for sure!

Celebrating Jon's 30th birthday in Bumrungrad Hospital's Japanese restaurant! It was party time woo hoo! This was near the end of my friend Dora's broken neck ordeal -- well at least the Bangkok chapter. 10 days in the hospital, an airlift, and a halo screwed into her head, and she was ready to go back to the US for surgery! Her cousin David the super neurologist is to the left! Guess who Dora is.

Happy birthday Jon! Nancy baked him a cake from scratch over the course of two days. She had just finished icing it and writing "Happy 30th Jon" in perfect, iced lettering (it took her two tries to get the perfect color and consistency) and then we had a fight while she was moving the cake onto a pan and it fell and was destroyed. Pictured is the cake I bought at the last minute in a fit of panic and guilt. Fun was had by all! That waitress in the back is smirking at my store-bought cake right after saying "That's what you get you terrible girlfriend you." Thanks waitress lady, thanks.

One more Grand Palace photo! This is Tamara, a very nice Canadian puppeteer who Nancy and I met during a puppet festival in Bangkok that I wrote about here. Nancy says I am not allowed to refer to puppeteering as "puppeting" nor Nancy and her colleagues as "puppeters."

I finally made it to the National Palace when Nancy and I decided to accompany a couple of new friends who were visting. I went there once years ago in 1999 and only remembered lots of shiny stuff. The shiny stuff is still there, only shinier. I am posing next to some of the shiny stuff, looking insignificant and yet strangely cute. The skirt I was forced to borrow from the Grand Palace Clothing Rental Quik Stop (which is not quick at all) because my pants were quite scandalous -- they only reach mid-shin. I'm such a whore. The guy behind me in line had to rent a skirt as well because his pants were too short too! At least there's no gender bias going on. As for the Grand Palace itself - well it is one of Thailand's holiest spots. It hosts the Emerald Buddha, this little man sitting cross legged WAY on top of a giant shrine. He is topped off with a glass dome and three times a year the King must change his little outfit -- he has his summer outfit, his winter outfit and his rainy season outfit. I note that just because this temple complex is one of Thailand's most revered spots, do not be fooled into thinking it looks at all old and decrepit or ancient. Thais like to make their holy spots and temples as flashy as possible and no expense has been spared on this place. None. Out of respect for national piety I will leave my analysis of the Grand Palace at that.

My golden girl ...

A photo of me looking relatively thin as a bronzed goddess with my hair whipping seductively in the wind. On my arm is my old friend Steve -- old as in from a long time ago during my days in Beijing, not old as in elderly. Steve came for a visit to Bangkok early February during Chinese New Year. He lives in Hong Kong and decided to take the rest of Hong Kong's population with him for company. Thanks Steve!

Well, no photos today, partly because I don't have any new ones to post (well I do from our Khao Yai National Forest excursion, but having technical difficulties with those babies). Anyway, we were supposed to be in Cambodia, specifically Angkor Wat, right about ... now. But there's been a slight glitch. My friend Dora, her husband and cousin came to Thailand last Saturday to hang, see the sights and go to Cambodia with us ... unfortunately on their way to a ferry down south to take them to a beautiful island excursion they got in a car accident and Dora is now laid up in Bangkok's fanciest private hospital with a ... we'll call it a "bone broken in her neck" since that sounds much less alarming than "a broken neck." Semantics are key. She will be here until probably Wednesday or Thursday of this coming week it looks like stretching out her SE Asia adventure by a few days and then will be jetting back to the US to lay around in another hospital. Luckily for everyone her cousin David just HAPPENS to be a neurologist; we also all discovered at the same time that Dora's cousin's fiancee (a different cousin) is Thai-Chinese and his doctor parents went to school here with Thailand's foremost spine injury neurosurgeon or whatever. They are also all somehow related to other doctors and people who can pull key strings, so she's getting lots of attention and help. But still.

This was a trip that was as ill-omened as it gets I have to admit. Their fateful itinerary:

Saturday Febuary 25 -- during lay over in Hong Kong Dora is inexplicably separated from her husband and wanders through immigration into Hong Kong. Airport personnel cry when they cannot find her (according to Jon, her hubby)! I wonder if I could make airport personnel cry. On the bright side she has now been to China.

Sunday Febuary 26 -- I take them to the Weekend Market in Bangkok and get my wallet stolen, which happens to be carrying a wad of cash that I just took out and didn't have time to spend (if it would have been just a few hours later no prob). Okay technically this isn't their ill-fated omen, but I think some of their ill-fated omens rubbed off onto me. It's as contagious as bird flu (which isn't actually that contagious, so maybe more like ring worm).

Monday Febuary 27 -- Dora falls off a raised platform during a bike ride through the Bangkok suburbs (see previous entries for photos) and crashes into the surrounding jungle. Shreds the skin on her knee but, luckily, had insisted on wearing a helmet even though Nancy's former Dutch employer who runs the bike tour outfit tried to talk her out of wearing a helmet because it's sweaty and looks silly. People with brain injuries look much sillier. Plus he has Nazi eyes so who wants to listen to him anyway.

Tuesday Febuary 28 -- While sitting in the back seat of a taxi that the crew took from Bangkok to the seaside town of Trat, the careening taxi driver misses a curve and hits a tree. The rest is history, although she did get to enjoy a very dramatic (and pricey) airlift from Trat to Bangkok Aiport.

And so ends Dora the Explorer's big SE Asian adventure. Next time we're all going to Canada! Although I have to say, if you're going to end up in the hospital in Asia, Bangkok's the place to do it -- nice, modern hospitals for a FRACTION of the price in the U.S. A FRACTION. Your own room -- for 200 bucks a night. Yeah, you heard right. Of course, there is a downside -- Thailand has a booming medical tourism industry, Westerners and Asians from all over the world come here for operations and cancer treatments and dental surgeries and sex changes and boob lifts and take advantage of low wait times, excellently trained doctors, fabulous service and low prices -- but meanwhile the public health care system is suffering from a debilitating shortage of doctors because they are all flocking to the higher paid private sector. Ah, healthcare. It all comes down to how much mulah you have.