Bangkok Cleaning Day at Ratchaprasong

On Sunday May 23, 2010, I had an opportunity to help clean Bangkok at the protest site. Red shirt incident is a very well-known news throughout the world as you can see news about it on many popular newspapers or websites.

The red shirts first came out, I mean for this incident, on March 12, 2010. At first they set up their stage at Phanfah Bridge which is not far from the well-known Khao Sarn Road. In the beginning of Arpil they moved to Ratchaprasong intersection, the business key area, and had been there till the end of the crackdown by the government.

After let them take the intersection for over a month, the government decided to start its crackdown on May 17 by declaring the whole week as holidays. I sat in front of the TV all day at home to watch the news to see what had been and would be happening. The CRES (Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations) often showed up on TV and had speech. They warned all the red shirt people to go home by 3pm of Tuesday May 18, and that was the deadline the CRES gave them before the crackdown started. Things turned out that many red shirts were still there but yet many of them decided to be sent home.

On May 19, some of the leaders decided to turn themselves in to the authority and that caused a serious anger to some members among them who later fought with the troops and burned down the city. A big shopping, Central World or CTW which was once called World Trade Center, was burned down. Some other buildings in that area were burned down as well.

That night the CRES declared a curfew in Bangkok, which later has extended till now.

Anyway, things seemed to be more quiet after that night. I wished so much to go to the site and see it with my own eyes. And lucky me, the BTS announced that its service would be opened on Sunday 23 May, and would stop at every stations except Ratdamri. And I also heard that BMA, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, invited everyone to join and help clean that area. I thought of it as a very good opportunity to go there and take pictures.

That day I arrived Chidlom BTS station around noon and saw many people were there already cleaning the area. I walked to the intersection and took many pictures along the way. Some malls near there got destroyed a little and some got a lot. The CTW got damaged a lot. I walked close to it and took many pictures.

A woman there gave me a broom so I helped clean the road for a bit and then walked to Siam Theater to see how much it got damaged. I could not believe my eyes. The whole theater got burned down and also some stores next to it. I still could smell the ash in the air and see some smoke coming out from the builings.

Well, its hard for me to explain but I have many pictures I took to share here.

I also posted a story at iReport on CNN site as you can see it here, Big Cleaning Day in Bangkok at Ex Protest Site

See more photos here, Bangkok Cleaning Day