-- Gentlemen, Thank you for yr. kind notices and words of approbation - greatly appreciated!
-- Today, (
21st.), a'noon.
tee rak & I went-out for a further look-see.
-- We walked-along R'damri. rd. noting that the KRVI. area is pretty clean now.
-- At Sarsin rd. we had
no other choice but to turn back or to turn
RIGHT,. We turned
RIGHT, keeping LUMPINI PK. on our
RHS.. A large amount of garbage, some of wch. had been gathered-up into piles for easier coll'n.;
- At Wireless rd. we turned
LEFT and walked towards Sukhumvit rd. by BTS. Ploen Chit, (E2.],.
- At S'vit. rd. we turned
LEFT and walked towards R'PRASONG. I'sect.. In gen'l. the whole area was shewing all the signs of occupation followed by an hurried evac'n.;
-- At the R'PRASONG. I'sect. we walked-across for a closer look at CENTRALWORLD, where the mil'y. forbad us to walk along the Ram I. rd. frontage but had
no objections to us standing right up close to the damage on the R'damri's. frontage. ZEN TWR. is standing; however a large chunk - say approx.
100ft. long,
four bays deep by the TWR. and in a jagged & semi-circular progress was only about
three bays deep at its CENTRALWORLD end - had fallen in; whisps of smoke were issuing still from
a couple of places.
A couple of fire-engines were there supplying water-pressure to some of the hoses, (I noted the amt. of water leaking-out of the various connections -
not so good, I fear. Made me wonder just how often the eqpt. is tested under active svce. conditions?),; various other
fire-vehs. were in attendance, too. Seeing that our feet were dirty we washed them with water coming-out of one of the hoses - LOW pressure. Walking along the R'damri's. frontage we saw that the glass of several doors had been stove-in;
one set of CW's. doors was
OPEN and a fire-hose had been led inside - but being kept back by a '
DANGER.' tape it was difficult to see inside. I'd suppose that for CW. and for ISETANN most of the damage
not caused by looting would be smoke-damage.
-- On the other side is the damaged BIG C - R'DAMRI., (sorry, men - but
no more cruising there for quite some time
),. The main doors had been pushed-in and ransackers had been hard at work: many front windows were broken and their contents pulled-out and spilled onto the frontage -
tee rak occupied himself in choosing a
pr. of undamaged sun-glasses, (
no cries about
'Bacteria!' at that time!
), until a soldier approached and advised us to be
OUT of the area before
18.oo.hrs.; STARBUCKS had its door covered-over by a plyboard sheet. A line of cord was used to keep the curious from approaching too close.
-- The ARNOMA HTL. appeared to have suffered but MINIMAL damage; several of its staff were gathered by the ent'ce, and were surveying the scene.
-- The mil'y. stopped us from walking-back along R'damri. rd., (thus it's
CLOSED to all tfc. between Sarsin rd. & R'prasong. I'sect.),.
- So we walked-back and turned
RIGHT along Soi Lang Suan, (1st. time that I've walked along it.),.
-- And so,
via Si Lom rd., back to my app't..
-- Afterwards we supped modestly in the small & Ch. eating-house on Si Lom 6., (
tee rak prefering there - although he doesn't really like Ch. food - as he thought that I have a 'friend.' in DERBY KING on P. Pong 1. - ha.), nothing special but adequate enough and
not expensive.
- We had about
20mins. within wch. to walk back before the curfew at
21.oo.hrs. - so it was along Si Lom rd. and through P. Pong 2.; FOODLAND was
OPEN, as was just
one garishly-lit girlie-bar with just one
farang customer. Even the
Police Box on S'wong. rd. was
CLOSED.
- Apart from the hotels e'thing. else was
CLOSED tighter than the proverbial fish's a***hole! In truth it was a weird experience walking-back in such circumstances and took me back some
50+yrs. to when I was engaged in Int'l. Sec. duties in CYPRUS, (during the EOKA 1. & '
Suez.' period.),.