The swimming pool at night and the exotic riverside Thai restaurant Salathip. Provided to China Daily

At Silom, stalls stretched down the road for around 1 kilometer, selling everything from pad Thai (stir-fried noodles with eggs, tofu and shrimp or chicken) to hairy coconuts, protest pins and counterfeit iPhone cases bearing the catchphrase "Shut down BKK". In front of one stall, someone had parked a pink Beetle with the same slogan pasted in English and Thai on its windscreen, and a tip box on the roof. The area was a creative hotbed.

Buy, buy in Bangkok

Honeymoon in heaven

It was hard to reconcile what I saw with the images of violence that have made front-page news in past weeks. A disappointingly small gathering listened to one man speak from a truck, but his speech was soon drowned out by the strains of pop music from the market stalls and the intoxicating smell of Thailand's street food. It was like the protesters were hoping to topple the government without disturbing the shoppers and picnickers.

Much like the Plexiglas shields of the riot police on standby, the itinerary for my trip with a former flame was bulletproof: Three nights at the Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok (it has a sister property in Chiang Mai); dinner reservations at Salathip, its exotic riverside Thai restaurant; an evening at Asiatique, a trendy new riverfront development for shopping and dining that the hotel offers a free shuttle boat service to; and day trips to the Grand Palace, backpacker-friendly Khao San Road and Taling Chan floating market.

As the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has joined hands with big department stores in Bangkok to offer a series of special promotions from June 15-Aug 15 to lure big-spending Chinese, we also decided to check out Siam Paragon (a luxury goods Mecca nestled beside another protest site).