I wrote some time ago about the political situation here in Thailand—well, actually, I haven’t covered the actual politics of the political situation, because frankly, I don’t think I know enough about it to comment and often Westerners who live here and voice opinions about the government can often be frowned upon. I can understand why some would voice their opinions anyhow because they do live here, but in my own case, I’m content to shut my trap for the time being and accept that it is what it is.

I’m not here to inspire big social changes—sure, I try to have a direct influence on my Thai friends and influence their lives with my experiences as much as they influence mine. And they like that chance to see another perspective. But I’m not so sure they’d like me coming to their country and taking on the role of political activist.

Okay, so my point is that I didn’t comment so much about the situation and what’s going on behind the scenes as I did about concerns people might have about coming here, and I’d like to do the same again.

A few months back things got pretty hairy down in Bangkok, but for much of the upheaval I didn’t notice anything up here where I live in Chiang Mai. I had friends in Bangkok who said they barely even saw anything going on at all, but I personally would have ducked out when the big riots started and people were getting hurt.

At the very end, when it reached its peak, the rioting finally reached my home. For me, waking up and looking off my balcony to see at least three burning buildings across the city in different locations was enough to inspire me that it was time to go. Being the foolish man that I am, I decided to go out that night at my Thai friend’s insistence—he wanted to show me the city and of course go drink some beer—never mind that the whole city was subjected to an 8pm curfew and I didn’t even have my passport on me.

It was a bit unnerving. There were soldiers and police all over the place manning the streets. We passed a bus and two cars sitting in the middle of an intersection, completely burned out, and we saw a few buildings that were burnt pretty bad. Being the diplomatic gentleman that I am, I gave the soldiers with their machine guns a nice little wave and we skirted around the roadblock by driving our motorbike across a one-lane bridge they weren’t guarding.

At the bar, things continued to get interesting. We had to drive a little ways out of the city to get there, and according to my friend, it was the only place that was open—definite change of pace for all-night Chiang Mai. A fight broke out after a while, at which point two guys brought out pistols and someone got hit in the head with a bar stool.

At this point, I’m getting ready to run for the hills, and to top off the fun, a couple trucks pulled in full of soldiers with machine guns and they all jumped out to regulated the situation. I felt a little out of my element, but it died down, the soldiers let the bar stay open, and eventually we went home.

Okay, so before you start thinking Thailand has become a war zone, keep in mind this was quite a few months ago. After that night, even I was ready to pack my bags and head to the Philippines, but after about three more days the situation had gone back to normal and now you can’t even tell anything ever happened—at least here. Bangkok certainly suffered some more damage, and there is still a lot of talk in the news about troubles to come or the occasional bomb scare.

If you are interested in coming here and you can be realistic about the risk involved, I’d say no time is better than now. The reason is that most of the foreigners have left, and while some have returned, it’s definitely slow season all year round these days. That’s very sad for many Thais who depend on tourism for their income, but for those looking for an authentic experience, it may be easier to find.

Not to mention, they need people like you to come travel here in order for those tourist dollars to come back.

So just use your head when you’re here. In other words, do as I say, not as I do.  Even if things get rocky again, as long as you’re not in Bangkok, things will usually be pretty mellow, and most places on the coast never left beach mode as far as I know. Chiang Mai did get a little hairy there for about a week, but in the big scheme of things it was a blip.

Your own judgment will probably serve you better than mind, as you can tell, but as far as I can see there’s no reason not to travel here at the moment.