She is my role modelAlmost every evening around dusk on Soi 11 in the heart of Bangkok's bar district a couple of technicolor VW Kombi vans would appear and within minutes transform themselves into pop-up bars. Just another slice of color in a noisy, vibrant city but for many locals an added nuisance as they navigated their way through another clump of plastic chairs and thirsty tourists crowding an already crumbling and pot-holed sidewalk.
They were both symbol and symptom of Bangkok's free-wheeling capitalist system — a system apparently unfettered by too many rules. The pop-up bars were illegal but police and regulators in many cases turned a blind eye. It wasn't just the capital either. In other tourist hotspots like Phuket pliant local officialdom allowed unrestricted commercial growth across public beaches and parks.
Not anymore. It's perhaps the most visible sign of the new leadership in Thailand — a public crackdown on illegal businesses, corruption and organized crime.
The local people are noticing and they approve. This is one of the ways the country's ruling military junta is attempting to win hearts and minds here.
It's been a little more than three months since a bloodless military coup ousted the government of Yingluck Shinawatra and in that time Thailand has slipped from the front pages and is returning to business as usual. Not the business that was constantly under the threat of disruption from endless and sometimes deadly street protests or political deadlock in the capital, but business operating in conditions of relative stability and certainty.
Talk to Thai people in Bangkok and there is an overwhelming view that the coup was a positive development to break nearly a decade of political paralysis. Admittedly Bangkok has always been an anti-Thaksin stronghold and public dissent has been closed down by the military but there is still a sense of calm, even of optimism that the suspension of democracy may reap longer term benefits.