Diary: Bangkok

The taxi driver is philosophic when I ask how people are coping now.

“Mai pen rai”, he shrugs.

A ubiquitous Thai phrase that means anything from "It’s OK, no problem," or "Let it go," or, as now, "We’re hanging in there".

The city is struggling back to its feet, trying to regain the momentum, desperate to woo back the tourists that underpinned so much of Bangkok’s economy but it’s struggling against the ever-present danger of Red Shirt flare-ups, demonstrations which the city now accepts with sullen resignation.

No one talks about the devastation that occurred during the Red/Yellow civil war, when the military was called out and much prime CBD real estate went up in flames. Bangkok was once a fortified city.

And now, coming back to Bangkok, after that time, I realise how old this city is, how little known, really, away from the shopping malls and the Sky Train suburbs.

You can still see the old city walls, at the corner of Rajadamnern and Maha Chai roads and the 18th century guard…