Saturday 6 December 2008

Bangkok protests

Bad, bad times for diving industry in Thailand. The opposing party supporters ("yellow shirts") have blocked Thailand's largest airport - the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok (read more) . This basically means that people have extremely hard time leaving Thailand, with plenty oftourists stuck on this airport. Those who are coming can choose alternative routes (e.g. through Kuala Lumpur), but still it has been made harder for them. This situation will also make lots of people reconsider their travel plans:/

Effects can be seen on Samui - empty streets, restaurants and hotels, not much movement in the diving industry. On top of that we have the economic crisis (lots of talk about that, but I'm still not sure if it affects tourism that much) and bad weather.

We were to begin our trainig with Easy Divers, but because of all this the boat was canceled all past week, so we cannot start this training (which is basically getting to know the dive sites), not to mention working:/.

Today was the King's birthday and everyone expected him to say something about these protests during his speech which he always gives on his birthday, but because of some illnes the event was cancelled.

Hopefully not all of those who booked their hotels for the Christmas period (a little high season here on Samui) will not cancel.