Now I've been to Thailand, on many occasions in fact, and it is a place that I and most other people go to for a holiday. A particular sort of holiday. I went sailing there a few times, took the family to Phuket to lie on the beach, spent the evenings eating very good and very cheap food (crayfish for $2 a cubic metre, that sort of thing) and, I have to admit, bought truck loads of knock off Lacoste polo shirts which I still wear in the garden nearly twenty years later. Some people go to Thailand on business and some go for reasons they prefer not to discuss in polite company. All of the above is attendant with no danger whatsoever as long as you discount the cheap shirts running in the wash. The Thais are a very pleasant people as long as you don't try and pat them on the head or badmouth the king - the latter is a very bad thing to do as an Aussie journalist is finding out to his cost - and will do anything to help you out.
However bits of Thailand are not downtown New York. The infrastructure despite the flash looking airport (which is where this going, obviously) is most part third world. If you want more power for your house you just stick a pair of jumper leads onto your neighbour's power pole. They have a mostly peaceful protest that shuts the airport for a week and what is the consequence? Well a lot of tourists are stuck. Are they in danger? No. They are inconvenienced - quite a bit in some instances. But the bottom line is that they would have to find somewhere to stay (cheap) and exist on crayfish at $2 a cubic metre for a few days whilst waiting for things to settle down.
Or if they really have to be back at work as a captain of industry in Palmerston North they could arrange to take a bus to Phuket or Haadyai or somewhere and get a plane home from there. Or they could take a train to or Kuala Lumpur or Singapore and fly from there. They could pay for this with money (theirs) and try and claim from travel insurance later. You take a holiday in a largely third world country and you take a few risks in the infrastructure department - them's the breaks.
What you don't do is bleat and expect the bloody government to fly you home. You are not in any danger and don't need protection from our rump of military might. It has nothing to do with the gummint. Tough bananas - you went overseas, you look after yourself. The fact that the best we could do was to send a Hercules is besides the point. The air force has two 757s which are apparently being serviced (at the same time - eh?) in Mobile, Alabama. Why? I thought Air New Zealand were 'world leaders' in servicing aircraft.
Suppose I am stuck in Dairy Flat and all my cars are broken down. Do I demand as a right an Iroquois be sent from Ohakea to take me to work?
Harden up you soft sods. You are stuck in Bangkok for a week and if you can't work out for yourself an alternative way of getting home other than that prescribed by the letter by House of Travel then you stay in Bangkok. Just buy a few more shirts as your current ones get smelly - they are very cheap.
I hear that this morning that the Bangkok airport has reopened and would you like a glass of orange juice or champagne before we take off?
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