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As you probably have heard, a military coup in Thailand has seized power from Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. We are not going to pretend to have a solid grasp on Thai politics, so we will direct you to the thousands of stories about this over at Google News for the latest.
We all know that Thailand is a popular tourist destination for people living in Shanghai, especially during the upcoming October holiday -- in fact, we are (were?) supposed to get married there next Saturday. Western nations are warning against travel to Thailand. This is what the U.S. Embassy there said:
"At this point, we are not advising Americans to leave Thailand; however, Americans planning to travel to Thailand may wish to carefully consider their options before traveling until the situation becomes clearer."
We are hoping the situation becomes clearer very, very soon -- somehow we don't think a wedding at Dino Beach Park will compare to Koh Samui.
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i have almost the same itinerary as you but leave the day before...
i wouldn't sweat it going to Koh Samui.
Dan, I would not worry about it. These Thai coups always go quite smoothly. The press and governments will make it look worse than it really is (remember SARS?). And Koh Samui is not Bangkok anyway. But I can imagine some of your guests with less Asia-experience are frightened now... I hope you can convince them to come anyway.
I would not worry. Although I would expect a sharp reduction in ticket prices -- if no penalty is incurred for cancellation, you might consider re-booking hotels and airfares.
I'm sure that you can still go there. It isn't that big of a deal, since the main problem for them is a corrupted prime minister, not the tourists or whatever. You probably just won't have that much freedome if you're goign to Bangkok, but if its out of the capital, its all pretty much the same.
Go anyway! It's no big deal and it happens all the time in Thailand...very unlikley it would get violent. They also have a strong desire not to involve tourists since it's a fragile industry and vital to the economy...especially in the islands. You can probably get good travel deals and imagine the horror if you get stranded on your honeymoon on a beautiful beach in Koh Sumui.