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Andrew Drummond

Balloons On Bangkok's Sky Train – The Sequel

Flying Sporran’s Bangkok Diary June 7 2012.

A short update on an incident earlier this year when a young Irish teacher overreacted and suffered the consequences after taking his six-year-old daughter’s balloons onto the Bangkok Sky Train. Also a guide for readers on what not to take on to the city’s mass transit system.

Good heavens what is this I see before me? – balloons on the sky train bobbing along behind a group of Thais at Ekamai BTS station. Are they trying to sneak on to do battle with the train system’s notorious security guards.

No they are attached to a pretty Thai woman.

But could she then be one of the new 21st century gladiators come to challenge the authorities and do battle against insurmountable odds in Thailand’s new  mass transit amphitheatre?

No, thank god. She was blissfully aware of an incident earlier this year when an Irish teacher took a thorough beating  requiring hospital treatment, after becoming angry when he was told to hand over the balloons he was carrying for his six year old daughter.

In this recent case security guards leapt into action after they saw the photographer snapping away at the lady who incidentally was carrying gas filled balloons. The photographer says she would have got through had he not been so enthusiastic to record the scene.

She apparently did raise her voice and was certainly miffed. But thankfully she did not kick a rubbish bin.

A reader sent me this picture presumably to remind people what they can not do on Bangkok’s sky train.

I guess it can also serve as a guide as to what and who guards can attack.

So they can go for roller skates, hamburgers and drinks, Scottish terriers, unaccompanied bicycles and balloons, people throwing confetti, arsonists, smokers, men sitting down to masterbate, Chinese coolies and or judges, photographers (poster take note) and men carrying their wives’ shopping bags.

Well that’s not bad for starters. Anybody spotted anything else one cannot do on the sky train?

About the Author

Andrew Drummond

Andrew Drummond is a British independent journalist and occasional television documentary maker. He is a former Fleet Street, London, journalist having worked at the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, News of the World, Observer and The Times.

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