Red shirts and Revolutionairies.

My original plan was to travel to Thailand and then on to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and China. However protests in Thailand that seemed to get more violent by the day made me change my mind at the last minute and fly to Nepal instead. Funnily enough that meant I still had to fly to Bangkok and stay there for the night before flying to Kathmandu.
As it turned out apart from a few extra soldiers at the airport lazing about with their guns and riot shields stacked in a corner there were no signs of impending doom and my hotel fifteen minutes down the road was undefended. Never mind I just dropped my luggage, swallowed a sleeping tab and slept till the next Morning.
Then it was on to Kathmandu where things are rather more askew. I was greeted at the airport by nothing really. There is currently a general strike enforced by the communists and nothing is moving. After sizing up the situation I started a conversation with a driver from an official looking vehicle and indeed it turned out he had just dropped of some UN personnel and was willing, for a small fee, to take take as far as the royal palace which is only a five minute walk from my hotel. So there I went happily being waved on by the protesters.