BANGKOK, Thailand - I've spent the day flinching. Gunfire is a lot louder in real life than it is in the movies.

A bus burns in the streets of Bangkok.

Thai soldiers finally reacted to the taunts and provocations of the red-shirted anti-government protesters.

I was in the lobby of a hotel, when suddenly the air was shattered by the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire, right outside.

I ran through the lobby, as dozens of tourists ran inside ducking and taking cover.

It would have been comical, if it weren't so damn scary.

As I emerged into the suffocating heat outside, I saw perhaps 50 soldiers with their M-16s tilted toward the sky, emptying their magazines.

The noise was like a Chinese New Year firecracker fiesta.

But I was acutely aware that all those bullets that go up must come down somewhere.

The next few hours got crazier and crazier.

Buses careening down the road, with no driver heading towards the troops.

Soldiers responding with gunfire.

Me, trying to see what's happening, but also stay behind something solid.

Half the time I was actually live on air, the crackle of gunfire so loud I could barely hear myself talk.

Looking back on the day, it's been a watershed.

Finally the army has shown it is willing to back the beleaguered Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

But I was impressed by their discipline.

In years past, Thai soldiers have mown down protesters by the dozen.

This time though they were careful to aim high and only shot when they genuinely felt they were under threat - like when the bus sped towards them, out of control with no driver aboard.

CNN has had both the prime minister and his nemisis former premier Thaksin Shinawatra on air live.

The red-shirted protesters are calling for Thaksin to be allowed to come back and lead the country despite the fact he's been found guilty of corruption.

Abhisit has defended the actions of the army, essentially saying the protesters have contravened their right to protest peacefully, by engaging in violent attacks on the soldiers.

Thaksin says the soldiers have used excessive force and have been shooting live rounds directly at the crowds.

Neither side seems ready to compromise. I can't see peace breaking out any time soon. I remain ready to carry on flinching.

Another weekend ruined by the protesters of Bangkok. Particularly annoying as it's Easter. But I guess I should used to it now. I mean it's been political chaos here virtually since the day I arrived in April 2006. In fact, the very first story I did for CNN in Bangkok was the yellow shirt protests against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra. He was eventually ousted in a military coup in September that year.

Then his allies managed to win the election, amid allegations they'd rigged the result. So that resulted in yet more yellow shirt protests, including the occupation of the main airport in Bangkok.

Red-shirted protesters surround a car in a residential street in Bangkok.

Finally Thaksin's allies were booted out of office by a court ruling which agreed some had been involved in electoral fraud. I thought that was it...but no. More disturbed weekends followed. This time the yellow shirts had given way to red shirts, in favor of, not against Thaksin.

The reds had been slowly ramping up the rhetoric and action, culminating in this weekend's double-whammy. They managed to get the ASEAN regional summit suspended after they stormed the venue.

And now they are trying to catch the Thai Prime Minister, attacking his motorcade and rampaging through government buildings trying to locate him.

The PM, Abhisit Vejjajiva has declared a state of emergency, but you wouldn't know it where I live. The Thai New Year celebrations are already underway with traditional water-fights being the only form of violence in my neighborhood.

What a contrast with the scenes elsewhere in the city, where it was mob rule. So what will happen next? Well, there are several possibilities:

1. Abhisit calls a snap election (which he'd be unlikely to win; Thaksin's allies have consistently led in the polls).

2. Abhisit resigns...then what? Probably more political jockeying for position and a coalition of some sort might be cobbled together....which could result in more protests from one side or the other.

3. Thaksin returns from exile to lead the Red-shirts in a sort of uprising....that'd be messy and bloody, and frankly I think it's unlikely. The former prime minister faces a number of corruption charges and could also be jailed for his conviction last year on one corruption charge.

4. Perhaps the Army might intervene and stage a coup, as it has done frequently in the past. That might help quell the current crisis, but it'd do little to heal the deep divisions between both sides.

5. Abhisit rides it out or gets tough. Either is unlikely to do much for his relations with the reds. Trying to ignore the protests will leave him looking even weaker; ordering a violent crack-down may simply harden the resolve of the red shirts and provide fodder to their questionable claims that Abhisit has dictatorial tendencies.

Whatever happens, I think one thing is sure...it'll happen on the weekend.

KANCHANABURI, Thailand – This job takes me to all sorts of interesting places and I meet all sorts of fascinating people, but it's not often that I come home and tell my wife that I met a tiger.

When I say I met a tiger, I don't mean I looked at it through the bars of a cage in a zoo. No, I mean, I actually took it for a walk, like a impossibly large lumbering dog.

I stroked it like a cute kitty and nervously patted its head, which alone was the size of your average poodle.

It was easy to be lulled into thinking this huge beast was a gentle pet – but my brain and tens of thousands of years of evolution were screaming "PANIC".

This animal is a potential killer. One swipe from its tail would be enough to floor me. A playful scratch from its claw would have severed a major artery.

We were filming at Thailand's so called "Tiger Temple" near Kanchanaburi. The story was about new ID cards being introduced to try and prevent these magnificent animals being smuggled. But all I could think about was the sudden panic, as it decided it didn't like my aftershave or the color of my shirt.

We'd been told not to wear red, as that can "excite" the felines. But what if they just didn't like appearing on camera?

I stupidly presumed the tigers had already been fed... but no they hadn't. And there wasn't just one; we were in a small quarry surrounded by half a dozen hungry man-eating beasts.

I started to think back to some of the "hostile training" we'd been given for going into war zones. Check your exit routes... erm, a 200 yard sprint to the quarry exit. Mmmm, what would be the chances of out-running 6 tigers over 200 yards?

Oh yeah, and then there was the part of the course about potentially dangerous animals to avoid... snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes, but no-one mentioned TIGERS. I thought back to "Apocalypse Now" when the guy on the boat says "I didn't come to 'Nam to get eaten by no friggin' tiger man".

Well, I definitely didn't come to Thailand to get eaten by one either. But it soon became apparent that the animals were not limbering up for the morning "maul the CNN correspondent" game. In fact they seemed much more interested in each other, than us.

After 20 minutes the fear began to subside and I actually began to enjoy this incredible experience. Their grace and agility was mesmerizing. They were playful, affectionate and stunningly beautiful to watch. But don't get me wrong: the thrill of seeing these animals up-close was tempered with fear and respect.

At no point was I under any delusion that these tigers, although born in captivity and used to humans, were still the top of the food chain... and I was but a walking snack. Humbling and certainly not "just another day in the office."

BANGKOK, Thailand - It's one of those ironies of journalism, that we strive to be impartial and independent in our reporting, to stay aloft, watching, counting, calibrating, but not acting or interfering.

Rohingya refugees get treated in Idi, Indonesia.

As journalists, we strive to be impartial and independent in our reporting, to stay aloft, watching, counting, calibrating, but not acting or interfering.

Yet on occasion, by simply telling people what's happening in this complex, grey-shaded world of ours, sometimes we journalists do change the status quo. The very act of drawing attention to an issue does sometimes have an impact.

We decided to call my special report into the Rohingya "A Forgotten People," but of course after all the reporting we've done on the issue, it feels like now the Rohingya are front and center of the political stage here and hardly forgotten at all.

Here in Thailand, the issue is going to be one of the main discussion points at next week's ASEAN meeting – a summit of south-east Asian countries.

The Thai prime minister has stressed the need for regional cooperation – and ASEAN will certainly be the forum in which that talk of cooperation could be galvanised into action.

Since the pictures of Thai soldiers towing out boatloads of Rohingya and cutting them adrift on the high seas were broadcast on CNN, the practice appears to have stopped.
Drawing attention to this story has changed it.

That's not to say that we haven't been meticulous in our attempts to show both sides of the story – to highlight that some Thai people feel the Rohingya are economic migrants looking for work and that the Thai government feels unable to accommodate them during this fierce economic downturn.

But we have also focused on what the Rohingya go through in trying to escape terrible persecution and privation in Myanmar, formerly Burma. The reports of horrendous abuse, statelessness, land-confiscation and torture give context as to why these people are willing to gamble with their lives, take to rickety unseaworthy boats and cross the ocean.

Their allegations of mistreatment in Thailand at the hands of the military has prompted a government inquiry. The prime minister himself is closely watching its findings and has promised to bring those responsible to account.

I'm not sure any of this would have happened if it weren't for a few journalists doggedly pursuing this story. The South China Morning Post first reported the story. We followed up with more testimonies and other news organizations such as Reuters, the BBC and The Associated Press have also devoted extensive coverage to the issue.

In making "A Forgotten People" we have never felt we were on a mission to discredit this government or show Thailand in a bad light. We simply wanted to find out the truth and tell the story from every angle. That very vital act of disclosure is why I got into this profession in the first place.

And I'm proud to say this story is one of the rare occasions where simply reporting what we found has made a difference.

BANGKOK, Thailand – The emerging scandal involving the Thai army's alleged mistreatment of hundreds of ethnic Rohingya from Burma is slowly getting more and more worrying each day.

This picture taken December 23 by a tourist to Thailand's Similan Islands shows handcuffed refugees under guard.

We don't know yet exactly what happened, but a dark picture of hundreds of deaths at sea is emerging, and some are laying the blame with the Internal Security Operations Command of the Thai army.

The Rohingya have long been persecuted in Burma (or Myanmar as the junta renamed it) – many are stateless, living in horrendous poverty on Burma's border with Bangladesh, unwanted and downtrodden.

Some 200,000 are on the Bangladeshi side of the border, scraping a living in sprawling refugee camps.

That context perhaps explains why so many thousand each year risk their lives in unseaworthy boats to try and find a better life in south-east Asia.

The men that boarded those boats must have known the journey would be perilous. They kissed good-bye to their wives and children and embarked on a voyage that was fraught with risk, destination unknown, but with the ultimate hope it would be transformative.

Just the slimmest chance of earning a few dollars a day in Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand made it seem worth gambling with their lives. Watch how the refugees' plight came to light

Then imagine their overwhelming relief and delight at finally sighting land after days or perhaps even weeks adrift.

They'd made it – but what these refugees didn't know was this was Thailand, not Malaysia, and the reception would be less than welcoming.

What happened next is unclear. The army insists it did nothing wrong, that it was villagers who took the Rohingya to a remote island in December, where they cared for them until they were ready to leave.

But according to many of the Rohingya survivors' accounts, relayed to aid groups, they were detained by soldiers, beaten and intimidated and then towed back out to sea in their engineless boats, without sufficient food or water.

The lucky ones made it to either the Andaman Islands or Indonesia after weeks drifting at sea but many drowned as they jumped off the boats to try and make it to distant lights on the horizon or swimming in vain towards passing boats.

In the last couple of days the story has focused on another group of 46 Rohingya who came ashore in Thailand just last Friday.

Their whereabouts remains unknown. It's the same story for another group of 80 Rohingya who also arrived recently, possibly part of the original group which arrived in December.

The U.N. has asked for access to these 126 supposedly detained refugees, but the Thai government has dragged its feet for days.

Perhaps it simply doesn't know what became of them or perhaps it has something to hide?

There are reports that they may have already left Thailand, but that leaves more questions. When? How? The fear of course is that they have been dumped at sea again.

If this is true, it is utterly reprehensible and those responsible should be brought to justice.

The Thai prime minister has launched an inquiry, but many are wondering whether this will really result in any prosecutions. Read more from Dan Rivers on the scandal

All told, more than 500 Rohingya are missing and if the survivors are to be believed, the Thai army needs to be held to account.

This represents a major test of the credibility of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

I hope he has the courage to pursue a thorough, impartial and exhaustive inquiry into what has happened.

He needs to move fast – if these Rohingya are still in Thai custody, he must tell us where.

If they are not, who authorized their release, when were they set free and crucially how?

The prime minister has constantly reminded international audiences of the need to rebuild Thai society through the rule of law. This is his chance to put the rhetoric into action.

He was a mate of London's inimitable, blond mop haired mayor, Boris Johnson, he knew British opposition leader David Cameron at Oxford and now he's suddenly become prime minister of Thailand.

Abhisit Vejjajiva is Thailand's youngest leader for decades.

Abhisit Vejjajiva has had the classic English education: Eton, politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford and an economics masters for good measure. He's suave, urbane and sophisticated... and I have a feeling he may not cling onto the top job for long.

He only managed to get to there after he courted his former political enemies. They mysteriously switched sides and the fresh faced 44-year-old Abhisit suddenly was catapulted on to the world stage, without ever having won an election.

His coalition is precarious and fragile. His political bedfellows are men who until a few days ago were his political nemeses - loyal to the ousted billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

But the big challenge for Abhisit is connecting to the average Thai voter. In a country where the majority are still impoverished rice farmers, this presents a big challenge for the smooth-talking Mr.Abhisit.

His privileged background and lack of "real world" experience will leave many in Thailand wondering whether he really can empathize with their daily difficulties.

Abhisit has copied many of Thaksin's populist policies, aimed at winning over the rural poor. Cheap health-care and micro credit will be popular, just as they were under Thaksin, but I wonder whether he quite has the "x-factor" to really wow the masses.

Abhisit needs to act quickly, shoring up Thailand's faltering economy, re-building its international image and healing the deep political scars that mark the fault-lines running across this nation.

He needs to do this quickly because many think the clock is already ticking for his coalition to fall apart. I sat down with Abhisit for an exclusive interview just after he won the vote to become prime minister and he refused to give a time frame for fresh elections.

The problem is he has no mandate from the people at the moment and has only risen to the top, after horse trading and deal making in parliament. Sooner or later he must face that test and go to the nation... and without some quick footwork to prove his mettle I fear he will fail.

Watch Dan Rivers' interview with Abhisit Vejjajiva on Talk Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand - I'm racing back to Suvarnabhumi airport after having witnessed the chaos at the U-Tapao Naval airbase, around 100 miles southeast of the capital. Thousands of tourists are jostling for position in the burning sun outside the inadequate military terminal building. This remote airfield is one of the only ways out of Thailand now anti-government protesters have closed down Bangkok's two airports.

U-Tapao was a curious mix of typically Thai festival atmosphere, with lady-boys singing and dancing for the bored and tired tourists and some enterprising Thais have opened foot-massage parlours for all the aching foreign feet. There are beer tents, food stalls and lots and lots of passengers, in resigned, polite whsipers, waiting, hoping, praying they'll make it onto one of the few planes leaving this paralyzed country.

It was difficult to get any information, but one Australian official told me they were advising stranded tourists to stay in their hotels, unless they already had been issued boarding passes by their airlines, as the Vietnam War-era airstrip was totally overwhelmed.

At Bangkok's two main airports, the protesters are refusing to end their sit-in, demanding the resignation of the prime minister before they'll go. But many seem tired and flagging.

A short time ago a police helicopter dropped thousands of leaflets over the airport - I presume the message warned the People's Alliance for Democracy to leave or else. But the "or else" seems a long way off. The police remain cautiously positioned on the far outskirts of the airport, having been literally forced back by the apparently better organized and more aggressive protesters.

What is terrible is that as the tourists slowly leave from U-Tapao, none are arriving to replace them. December is normally the high season for visitors - but I'd imagine many people planning of a tropical Christmas break to Thailand are looking at other countries. Those who've already booked are probably beginning to look at their holiday insurance. Thailand's tourism industry is falling apart in front of my eyes and this will only serve to increase the political instability here.

It's a terrible shame and the timing is awful: all this is happening amid the worst financial crisis for decades. The hotels are emptying and the way things are going, it'll be a long time before they are full again.

BANGKOK, Thailand - It's almost three months since anti-government PAD protesters in Bangkok swarmed into government house - the official seat of Thailand's prime minister - and staged a sit-in. They are still there and since their demonstration began a lot has changed, but the underlying issues remain unresolved.

Protesters have barricaded themselves inside Bangkok's Government House.

Thailand has slowly but inexorably, slid downhill. One prime minister has quit, another has taken his place and the issue of cronyism and corruption in politics has become ever more heated.

Last night there was another grim milestone on this slow descent into chaos. A bomb went off at the protest site, killing one and wounding 21 others.

We don't know who planted it or why, but taken together with the other recent blasts, clashes and street battles, it is a sign of just how volatile this situation has become.

The other grenade attacks and bomb blasts of recent weeks have been disturbing, but last night's was the first to kill a PAD protester.

I went to see the protesters today and they are shocked, but determined; many busying themselves by reinforcing their fortifications around government house.

Sandbags block the streets, the stripped carcasses of several buses have also been used as barricades and netting has been strung up to stop other explosives being lobbed into their complex of tents.

It feels as if they are preparing for battle - and I fear last night's fatality is unlikely to be the last in this struggle between those who want to expunge every trace of Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies from the machinery of government and those who feel he was the best prime minister Thailand ever had.

The billionaire former premier himself remains a fugitive; found guilty of corruption here, his visa revoked in Britain, he's thought to be in Dubai trying to find a new home.

He is no doubt following these troubling events in Bangkok closely. What's happening in Thailand now is a struggle for its political soul and Thaksin remains a key player even while abroad.

Profound questions about whether democracy works and whether the majority can be trusted to make the right decisions are being thrown up by a noisy minority who have paralysed the government and are determined to overthrow it.

The current Prime Minister, Thaksin's brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat, appears weak and helpless.

The army have refused to disperse the protesters and he's been forced to put on a brave face and try and ignore the fact he can't get into his own office.

This may go on for another three months, or even three years, but sooner or later a decision will have to be made. Who should run this country? A cabal of the Thai elite ruling for the benefit of the people, but refusing to hold free elections for fear they'll lose, or the majority of Thais who have repeatedly voted for Thaksin, and who are susceptible to corruption and vote buying?

It's not a new dilemma - can you really trust people to elect the best leader and if you can't who should decide who runs the country?

It reminds me of a quote by Sir Winston Churchill: "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

BANGKOK, Thailand - If this were any other country, I'd say I'd just witnessed a revolution. But this is Thailand, and things aren't quite as they seem.

Protestors gather inside the compound of Thailand's Government House on Tuesday in Bangkok.

The normal check-list of the overthrow of a government seems to have been fulfilled.

Tens of thousands of protesters? Check. Occupying state run TV station? Check. Climbing over the railings of the Prime Minister's office and staging a mass sit-in? Check. Major roads blocked? Check.

But despite all the turmoil in Bangkok, it's still far from clear whether the People's Alliance for Democracy really have the momentum and numbers to oust the government.

The truth is they are well supported among the middle-class and traditional elite of Bangkok, but go outside the city to the countryside, especially the north-east and many hate the PAD.

The PAD wants the overthrow of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. Samak is the self-proclaimed proxy for ousted billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. I asked Samak once whether that was true once and he snapped back "What's wrong with that?".

And that's the problem. Many of the same people who managed to get Thaksin kicked out after months of mass protests, which culminated in a military coup in 2006, are now demanding that Samak goes as well.

They feel cheated that having got rid of one leader who they say was corrupt and on the make, they've been saddled with another.

Of course both Samak and Thaksin strenuously deny they have done anything wrong, but the fact that Thaksin and his wife have been indicted on multiple corruption charges and have jumped bail to Britain hasn't exactly helped his cause.

No charges have been filed against Samak, but his association with Thaksin, a man effectively on the run, is tainting his entire administration, which is being branded as a Thaksin puppet government by the PAD.

But as I sweated my way through another PAD rally last night in the searing tropical sauna of Bangkok, I tried to find out who all the protesters would have Samak replaced with.

The answers seemed muddled and vague. As they munched on spicy Thai snacks, (no political movement can function here without seriously good fast food!), they told me they know they want to get rid of Samak, Thaksin and all their cronies, but the problem is they don't seem to know what will happen when they do.

The leader of the PAD Sondhi Limthongkul has told me that the entire political system needs to be changed, and says that perhaps Thailand isn't ready for full democracy, because of the endemic corruption. So is it the People's Alliance for Democracy or the People Against Democracy?

It must be remembered that Thaksin won two landslide elections, and a third which wasn't contested by the opposition. Samak's party also won the last election in December, albeit by a narrower margin, but made their allegiance to Thaksin clear. The PAD's argument is that the votes were bought and the system is corrupt, hence the current deadlock.

What's critical now in all this is how the Royal Thai army will react. They staged the coup that got rid of Thaksin, but it seems incredible that they would stage yet another coup to get rid of another democratically elected leader.

The fundamental problem with the current stand-off is that a powerful minority in Bangkok doesn't agree with the government that the vast majority outside Bangkok have elected.

Putting claims of vote-rigging aside, Thaksin and therefore Samak to a lesser degree, are both hugely popular. Until the PAD can offer an alternative which rivals that popularity, overthrowing another government would seem only to undermine the dysfunctional democracy here.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Well he's gone and my contact at one of the Western embassies here summed it up nicely - "Thank God for that."

Like the diplomats, I was beginning to wonder if Gary Glitter's limbo status in the transit lounge of the airport was going to turn into a farce for weeks or even months. I had visions of that film "Terminal," starring Tom Hanks, who ends up living at in the transit lounge of an airport.

This time, though, instead of sympathy for Hank's fictitious refugee character stuck in a bureaucratic hiatus, I have nothing but scorn for Glitter. Although he protests his innocence, he clearly appears to be doing his best to evade going back to Britain and signing the Sex Offender's Register.

Like the other 30,000 or so offenders on the register he will be forced to notify the police of his address and give them warning of any plans to travel. British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has now, with typically convenient timing, unveiled plans to toughen up the rules, meaning perhaps sex offenders could have their passports confiscated.

In all the ridiculousness of the media chase surrounding Glitter - from Vietnam, to Bangkok, to Hong Kong and back to Bangkok and then finally to London - it's easy to forget that this man has saddled his victims with a legacy of suffering, guilt and untold psychological scars, that will reverberate throughout their adult lives. He appears to show no remorse and now seems to be living under the deluded impression that somehow he will be able to restart his singing career.

Clearly, Glitter needs treatment and supervision, and I sincerely hope he will never come back to Southeast Asia again.