So basically a few years back there were protests done by people wearing yellow shirts that were backing a certain political leader. I believe that these people were from the middle class of Thailand. They eventually took over the airports and eventually the Prime Minister resigned and left the country and the guy they wanted in place was “elected”.

Now there are people from the lower class of Thailand that are wearing Red Shirts that are trying to get the same guy or a different one, I don’t remember, to be put into office as they feel that the last guy after the last coup was put in place under unfair elections.

I’ve put links at the bottom of the post for more information on both parties and the history of the coup(via Wikipedia)

Yestarday they(red shirts) stormed a parliament session, completely non-violent as that is the their stance. The Prime Minister here has raised the abilities of the military and police so that they can be a little more aggressive when dealing with protesters.

Here is the link for the latest of what happened so you can read it for yourself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8607267.stm

Mel and I are really not worried about the protesters at all at this point as they have been in the past and still are quite peaceful as their aim is to get the Prime MInister to resign without as little violence as possible. We talked to some tourists when we stayed at the hostel and they actually were in the camp where the protesters stay(something very unadvised to do, and we stay away from the protests as much as possible) and the protesters were actually very nice to them and gave them pamphlets written in English that told them what they were doing.

Anyways, this is more of an FYI on the situation over here with all of that.

Political History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008–2009_Thai_political_crisis

Red Shirts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_United_Front_of_Democracy_Against_Dictatorship

Yellow Shirts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People’s_Alliance_for_Democracy