MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
12 May 2010
A HOLIDAY couple stranded by volcanic ash moved into a luxury hotel only to find themselves under siege.
Jim Raeburn, 63, from Duddingston, escaped from his hotel just hours before anti-government protesters launched a grenade attack which left one person dead and injured more than 80 people.
He was left stranded in the Thai capital with his wife Rosemary when the Icelandic volcano grounded his flights home from a far east cruise.
They booked a room in the Dusit Thani Hotel in the centre of Bangkok until their flights could be rescheduled, but they arrived to find that anti-government "red shirt" protesters had camped out directly outside.
Although they were allowed to move about the city freely, every time they left their hotel they had to run the gauntlet between protesters and riot police.
Mr Raeburn, director of the Scottish Newspaper Society, said: "The red shirts were very loud. There were speeches blaring during the day, and then loud music into the evening.
"They eventually erected a barricade around their camp, and we had police parked up in the hotel car park in case the protests spread into the hotel.
"We were allowed to move around Bangkok, but eventually, after a week, our tour operator suggested that we move to a different hotel for our own safety."
Less than 24 hours later, on 22 April, one person was killed and 86 wounded when five grenades blasted holes through the roof of a Skytrain station and shattered windows at the Dusit Thani.
Mr Raeburn added: "We had been keeping up with events unfolding in Bangkok throughout our cruise but I wasn't unduly worried about it.
"There wasn't much trouble when we were there, but we knew that there was the potential for trouble from the 'multi-coloured shirts', who want the red shirts to stop their protests because of the damage they're doing to Bangkok's economy.
"It was a bit of an adventure but the decision to move us was the right one."
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