Teo Cheng Wee ponders how real the state of emergency is in Bangkok.

In Bangkok

I KNEW it was too good to last.

Just two days after I arrived in Bangkok to uncharacteristically empty streets, the cars and stop-start traffic synonymous with the city are back in full force.

When I first arrived, it took me a little over 20 minutes to get to Government House, where thousands of protesters from the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) are camped out. 

But when I went back to check things out yesterday, it took me 40 minutes.

Yes, traffic - that ever-reliable barometer of normalcy in Thailand - is back.

Yet, in an odd way, this has brought a smile back on my face, because it means life in general is also back (sort of) for Bangkok dwellers, many of whom are tired and upset at how a group of renegade protesters have held their economy and livelihoods hostage.

Thailand is supposed to be in a state of emergency, but I can hardly tell.

After cautiously staying home the night after the PAD clashed with pro-government supporters outside Government House grounds, the Thais have returned to the streets, determined to get their lives back on track.

"Fine. Protest. Do whatever they want to do to spoil our economy. I got a real job to get to," one shopkeeper told me.

Most of them still stay clear of the Government House - taxi drivers either turn me down or give me dirty looks when I tell them I want to go anywhere near there - but elsewhere in the city, Bangkok has been fairly resuscitated, minus the tourists.

Ah yes, the tourists. Please ask your countrymen to come back, vendors tell me whenever they find out that I'm a journalist from Singapore.

Singaporeans, I have learnt, play a bigger role in the tourism here than I would imagine.

"You see? Everything is normal right? Write that in your paper. Don't you think it's safe to come back?" they ask me. Usually I just smile and agree.

I certainly won't say it's dangerous, which is what the tourists I've met here think as well. 

But for a country that is just two hours away from home, that won't change drastically overnight, that won't disappear if we don't visit it immediately, what is the impetus in coming here now?

If I imagine myself as a father of two kids, will I bring them here on holiday now? If any of my friends want to bring their family here, would I say come now, or would I tell them to just wait for a while?

That is when I realised: A state of emergency is still a state of emergency.

And that is why the Thais here can't wait for it to be called off.