Left out in the cold

"I miss my friends from the Bangkok protests so much," says Nam (not her real name), a 56-year-old government official from Nakhon Ratchasima province and veteran of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) demonstrations. "At the moment I'm monitoring the political situation round the clock via the anti-government ASTV."

Missing camaraderie

Nam is just one of many PAD supporters who miss the camaraderie of protests that lasted a record-breaking 193 days, from the second-largest PAD rally on May 25 to the end of the Suvarnabhumi Airport siege on December 3.

"I'm probably addicted to the mob," she says, adding that she follows ASTV news on the Internet when she works, on the car radio while driving, on TV at home and even via mobile-phone alerts when she's in a meeting.

Nam and her friends returned to their Government House protest site last Saturday to take photos as souvenirs.

Govt House nostalgia

Another veteran of the protests, 55-year-old businesswoman "Koi", says she also tunes in regularly to get her "fix" from ASTV.

"I used to leave my office every evening and go straight to the demonstration at Government House," she says. "Now I have no idea where to go in the evenings after work."

Reunion party

Koi is planning to hold a party for her demonstrator friends on December 20, and of course politics will be the hot topic of conversation.

Tui, a 40-year-old PAD-supporting housewife from Pattaya, says she feels lonely and bored now that she's back at home. "I miss my friends and the great atmosphere at the protest site. I hardly talk about politics now that the demonstrations have ended."

All three would like to see PAD leaders organise a big get-together for protest regulars. It would help fill the hole in their lives, they say, as well as keeping up morale for future action if the next government tries to amend the 2007 Constitution.