Protest weekend has arrived, along with some hot weather.

Friday is possibly the heaviest traffic day in Bangkok, and that speaks volumes as traffic is always one accident away from being an absolute mess.

That makes the Yellow Shirts protest scheduled for Friday even more fun and sure to endear them to….very few that aren’t currently in their camp. The Yellow Shirts are scheduled to protest Friday morning the 11th at 10:00, heading to the Rama 5 statue, no word on how large the protest will be. Today the Yellow Shirts were asked to open up two lanes of traffic (stop blocking all traffic) at their current protest site, it was reported they refused and asked the PM to leave the country.

The Internal Security Act is in place at the Yellow Shirts protest site, the police have been practicing how to remove protesters and defend key buildings. One tip for the government and police- if you prevent protesters from illegally blocking traffic and occupying a public space, you can avoid using force to remove them. I guess that “ounce of prevention” doesn’t translate well.

And, on to the Red Shirts. A protest is scheduled for Sunday the 13th at the Democracy monument. I would guess this could be a large protest as the Red Shirts want to make sure their agenda- and protests- are not eclipsed by the Yellow Shirts.

Here is the map of Bangkok with the protest sites on the map, this map created by Richard Barrow (outstanding and please read/follow him): http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=210550963008557722983.00049aa90890775bc7223&ll=13.76598,100.512972&spn=0.035847,0.084028&z=14

It’s hot, but not hot season. It’s protest season!