It seems life wanted our adventure to be complete. As you've already gathered, we've had the experience of living through a coup d'état (and in all honesty, possibly out of ignorance of Thai politics, in recent months it had seemed far more likely to happen in our own country).

Let me tell you what happened: on the day of the events, we were having a feast of Arab food in the Nana neighborhood (which, besides being the Arab quarter, is also the neighborhood of ladies of the night) in the company of Marcel, Jenny, and an Australian friend of theirs. Somewhere around the middle of dinner, that friend's girlfriend called to tell him that on her way back to her hotel (a guesthouse that, incidentally, is very close to where we're staying) after coming out of a cinema where she'd spent the last few hours, she'd run into a few tanks and soldiers in the streets. We all took it somewhat as a joke, tossing around various possibilities: maybe they were setting up for some official ceremony or military parade, or simply stationed there because this area (the same one from which I'm writing now) is home to several royal palaces, the main government building, the local UN offices, and other important institutions. While we were still debating this, some Cuban friends who also live in the city called to ask whether we'd heard the rumors about a possible coup.

Obviously we hadn't (if we had, we wouldn't have been so far from home) and the truth is it was hard to take seriously what they were saying, despite the two calls being so strikingly consistent, because throughout the area in general and specifically inside the restaurant, everyone was going about their business without a care in the world. Even so, those two calls were enough to make us uneasy, and we decided it was time to ask for the check (the absence of coffee and dessert on the menu also helped) and head over to Marcel's apartment to drink the coffee that Doug (the Australian) had just brought back from Laos.

We were in the middle of all that when a third call came from the Cubans, this time insisting that yes, a coup was in fact underway and urging us to get home immediately.

When we stepped outside, things started looking decidedly less normal. The city (like so many others) is usually packed with street vendors who stay out well into the night, especially in the semi-touristy or fully touristy neighborhoods like the one we were in. The first real sign was watching those same vendors packing up their goods in a hurry. We got lucky, and the second taxi we flagged down agreed to take us (despite there being five passengers when the usual maximum is four). The ride home was fairly uneventful (I'll admit that by that point we were already a bit nervous and on edge), except that the traffic was moving at an unusually free clip. In any case, we arrived without incident (and without having spotted a single tank or soldier along the way).

When we got into our apartment complex, we frankly expected to find some sort of commotion or unusual activity among the neighbors, most of whom are foreigners like us, working either for the UN or for multinational companies, usually European ones. That wasn't the case at all. The place was so quiet and still that, given the paranoia we'd already worked up, we interpreted the silence as meaning everyone had already been evacuated. That wasn't it either. What had happened was that, by some twist of fate, we had been among the first people in the building to find out what was going on. The neighbors didn't know a thing. We asked a Spanish neighbor who worked for the UN, and she looked completely unrattled, telling us that her office had notified her that the following day would be a holiday.

In the end, the coup obviously did happen. We spent the night half-awake answering calls from worried friends and family (some reaching us through MSN on the computer). Doug, the Australian, chose to sleep over at Marcel and Jenny's apartment, since our linguistic limitations made it impossible for us to find out whether there was a curfew and, if so, what the terms were.

The next day we decided to take our chances and go out to see what was happening. We stopped first at the hotel where we'd arrived a month ago, where we found some Spanish tourists from the Canary Islands who were quite frightened and refusing to leave, as the embassies had advised everyone to stay indoors. After that we decided to head straight to the government house. The area was relatively sealed off (completely closed to vehicle traffic), but the military checkpoints, manned by cheerful, pleasant-looking soldiers, let us through on foot to the esplanade in front of the building, where there were some troops and a few tanks. Not many people around. Tourists, I'd say none. Most of the people there were journalists and a couple of foreigners who said they worked for human rights NGOs.

We took some photos around there, a few of which I'll send along as soon as Marcel transfers them to me, since he was the one with a camera (unbelievably, I had forgotten mine).

The following morning we went out and the streets looked normal. A few soldiers were still making their rounds, but they looked more like they were posing for pictures than anything else. In the days since, from our vantage point (which I imagine is quite different from that of public officials, government employees, and probably people living outside the major cities), life in Bangkok has continued more or less as usual. There's maybe a little less traffic than we'd gotten used to; last Sunday evening at Paragon the crowds felt thinner than normal, but aside from that, and a few extra soldiers dozing on street corners out of sheer boredom, nothing much.

Judging by my limited, or frankly nonexistent, knowledge of Thai politics, and keeping in mind that I'm no expert analyst in these matters, my impression is that this was a pre-arranged, prefabricated coup, one that everyone had agreed to in advance, from the outgoing prime minister to the army and the police, all the way up to the king. The population of Bangkok seems, if anything, relieved, as if someone had finally lifted a certain López off their shoulders.

I'm also using this note to let you know that we'll be out of Bangkok from October 3rd to the 14th, when we head to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo. The city belongs to Malaysia and is the capital of the state of Sabah (formerly North Borneo). Plenty of material for future posts. I'll stop rambling now, because really what this was all about was saying that we're all doing very well and in good spirits. There's no sign of any serious trouble. Thank you to everyone who was worried about us.