Originally Posted by billp
Why all the drama? The airport is continuing to operate normally. The coup was entirely peaceful and did not affect travellers at all (aside from one report I saw of tourists getting detained at a check-point for not having their passports). Last night thousands of people were gathered peacefully at Government House watching the coup going down. Women were pictured on TV, standing in their street pyjamas, photographing tanks with their cellphones.
You write (very articulately I might add) as though you got out by the skin of your teeth (from your luxury hotel in your limo), just ahead of a foreign invasion or Prague August 1968 or something.
I have actually been in a situation of political unrest and while it is typically "business as usual" for the most part it absolutely IS unnerving. There is always a possibility that travel to and from will be restricted and that is not a place you want to be. If you have ever been through a similar situation you would know what the "sigh of relief" was all about, waranted or not.