What’s your daily routine like?

I help set up tents for people that are staying here in the mornings and then in the afternoons, I check for weapons or suspicious behavior around this area. I’m here by 8am and I stay till 4pm. Then another set of guards come in at 4pm and stays till midnight, before a third shift does from midnight to 8am. I’m assigned here, in Silom so I don’t move around to other protest sites. I sleep in one of the tents at Lumpini Park.

What sort of incidents have you witnessed in the past few weeks?

To be honest I haven’t witnessed anything crazy. Silom doesn’t have anything too out there going on. It’s more of a market than anything.

What do you do when people refuse to show you the bags?

From 2pm, we have the security wands out. We check everybody and everything: handbags, shopping bags, big bags for weapons or bombs. If someone refuses a bag check, then we have a nice little chat because I’m not doing this for personal gain. It’s for the safety of everyone here, they need to understand that. If they still don’t agree, we just don’t let them in, period. Some people put up a fight, some just walk away. But you’re not allowed in if your bags aren’t checked.

Has the security got tighter as we approach election day?

Yeah, it is definitely tighter. We now have 18-20 people here at this particular fence. There are now guards here round the clock.

What did you normally do for a living? 

I used to work at a rubber plantation in Nakon. I’ve been here for about a month already.

And you don’t need to working on extracting rubber right now?

It’s not the season for that. All the trees have dried out.

When you made the decision to come here, did you expect things to be like they are now?

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I’m only here because I didn’t like what Thaksin had to say about The King. That’s the reason why I’m here. The other stuff like cheating, corrupting Thailand, and stealing money doesn’t matter to me much. I applied and I was accepted to serve my country.