In Thailand, Mother’s Day is celebrated on 12 August. The date is set to coincide with the Queen’s birthday.

This spirit house has been vacant for some time. (Normally there are little statues in Thai spirit houses, but this one and its neighbors are empty.) This blog has been without spirit for over a year. But I’m back now. Not that I’ve gone anywhere. I just haven’t taken the time to blog.

April 13 is Songkran Day, which historically marked the start of the year on the Thai calendar. Though the new year now officially starts on January 1st, Songkran is still the most important holiday on the calendar. Government and financial institutions, and many businesses, are closed from April 13 to 15.

Late last year, Bangkok’s two airports were closed down for about a week by a yellow-shirted mob. While about 300,000 tourists were stuck in Bangkok, yours truly was stuck in Belgium. Yellow is the color of Thailand’s king. Last year’s mob was mainly backed by the Bangkok elite who have controlled the country for a long time. They wanted to oust the government which they criticized for its populist and authoritarian policies. Bangkok and its surrounding provinces have seen strong economic growth and development over the past decades. The upcountry provinces much less.

Last year’s protests ended when the main government party was disbanded after some of its executives were found guilty of electoral fraud. The main opposition party, which is called the Democrat party in English, has formed a new government in coalition with some of the smaller parties from the previous government.

As was to be expected, the supporters of the previous government are now taking their turn to protest. These are mostly people from the poorer provinces that benefited from the populist policies after being long neglected by the Bangkok elite. They wear red shirts. As far as I know, red doesn’t stand for anything in particular, other than definitely not being yellow. (The red shirt folks love their king too, but not the yellow-shirted protesters.) Another siege of government house has come and gone, just with a different color.

My advice from last year still stands. Don’t let the unrest in Bangkok deter you from holidaying in Phuket. If it wasn’t for the newspaper, I wouldn’t even know about it. Only Bangkok is to be avoided. Fortunately, there are many direct flights to Phuket. Many of the larger European travel agents have their own charter flights. If you take a scheduled flight, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are good options. By air, Kuala Lumpur is about the same distance and Singapore only a little bit farther from Phuket than Bangkok. There are many flights a day between these airports.

It may be a photographic cliche, but I never get tired of watching the sunrise over Chalong bay.