Bangkok Airport: just ridiculous

In what country can a mob of anti-democracy protesters take two airports and keep them closed for almost a week now, with no solution in sight?

Only in THAILAND.

From Reuters:

Restarting Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport will take at least a week from the end of the current sit-in by protesters because of security and IT system checks, airport general manager Serirat Prasutanond said on Monday.

"Normally, checking the IT systems takes one week. We have to check, recheck, check, recheck," Serirat told Reuters, adding that the delay would be even longer if any of the airport's massive computer systems needed repair.

"I think some systems are damaged," he said, but he declined to provide further details.

Some international flights are now departing via U-Tapao, a Vietnam War-era military airfield 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

The other options for travelers trying to get flights out of the country are via Chiang Mai, 700 km (435 miles) to the north, or Phuket, 900 km (560 miles) to the south.

Some are also driving overland to Cambodia to get flights out of Siem Reap or Phnom Penh.

Well, at least some good news there, at the end of this article. Maybe stranded travellers will get a glimpse of how different Cambodia and the Khmers are from Thailand and the Thai. And possibly they'll think: "You know what, next year we are going to ........."