Bangkok’s airports are occupied by protesters, but I’m not too bothered. I’m in Chiang Mai, 700km away, and it’s as relaxed as ever on Wednesday evening. Unperturbed by the day’s news, I go for dinner, slurping down a big bowl of hot and sour prawn soup and a Singha beer.

Later, I find out a man was pulled from his car nearby and shot dead. Then I read the prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, has flown home from Peru. In the face of trouble, he has retreated to his party’s stronghold — Chiang Mai. Sometimes, the news comes to you.

I spend much of Thursday online, trying to figure out what’s going on. The group holding the airports and Government House in Bangkok — which they have occupied since August — is the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), more commonly referred to here as the Yellows, after the colour of shirts they wear in deference to Thailand’s revered king.

Their counterparts are the Reds, supporters of the ruling People’s Power party, formerly led by the exiled and notorious Thaksin Shinawatra. Somchai, the prime minister, is Thaksin’s brother-in-law. His control seems weak and he doesn’t appear to have any authority over the army. Rumours abound online of an imminent coup, despite the constant assurances of the po-faced army chief that he won’t stage one.

Foreign journalists tell me that the Yellows are mainly urban, educated, middle-class people who want to oust the government and neutralise Thaksin’s allegedly corrupt influence for good. The Reds are mostly poor, rural-dwellers fiercely loyal to Thaksin. But it’s more complicated than that. This is also a north-south split, a divide between Bangkok and the rest of Thailand, between royalists and republicans, and between the long-standing rich elite and the nouveau riche. Really, it’s an old-fashioned battle over money and power.

The schism is causing rifts across the country. Families and friends are split. There’s a sense it could even collapse into civil war. As it stands, Thailand is mired in an intractable and potentially bloody political quagmire and, now that the airports are shut, trade and tourism are suffering too.

As the evening goes on, the atmosphere turns slightly uneasy. First we hear that Somchai is sending in the police to dislodge the airport protesters. We hear there will be a coup at 6pm, but there isn’t. Then it’s definitely going to happen by 8pm, but it doesn’t.

About 9pm, an experienced foreign correspondent joins us for a drink. “The PAD is coming,” he says. “They have taken the train from Bangkok. The whole train — eight carriages — is full of Yellows. And the Reds are waiting for them.” This is an unnerving development. The Reds are supposed to be the unruly mob, but the Yellows are coming here, right into Red heartland. Where will they fight? Maybe just up the street at the Lanna Palace hotel, where the Reds are holed up. Truth is, no one knows. It’s all getting a bit same-same, as Thais say — no one has anything to go on but speculation and conjecture.

Could Thaksin come back? Let’s hope not. Will the King intervene, as he has before? Probably not. Is the cabinet still here? Maybe, although there were C130s flying in and out all day.

Is the prime minister still here? Apparently so. What’s going to happen? Nobody knows. The conversation goes round in circles.

Eventually, I give up and go to bed. The train from Bangkok won’t get here until the early hours of Friday and the idea of wandering around a city in the hopes of stumbling across pitched street battles doesn’t seem terribly sensible.

The next morning, I have breakfast on the terrace outside my guesthouse. The street rings with the clatter of kids in a nearby school playground. A man on a moped zooms by with a spare tyre in one hand and an inflatable blue swimming ring swung over his other shoulder. A couple of tourists amble past, gazing curiously at the enormous temple across the street. I make a To Do list: “Extend visa, post parcel, decide outfit for garden party”.

I start to wonder if two glasses of wine could have caused me to imagine last night’s edgy waiting game. I check with the front-of-house staff: “Was there any trouble? Any fighting?” “No,” one woman says, with an excited smile. “Everyone say Yellows come and fight, but they didn’t.” Just another rumour.

A friend in Bangkok messages me on Facebook to say people were woken by explosions there last night. Thai news sites say grenades were thrown and shots fired at the pro-Yellow ASTV station and there was gunfire in Bangkok near Don Muang airport. The prime minister says he is staying in Chiang Mai because he doesn’t trust the army.

By Friday evening, the police have mobilised at Bangkok’s main airport. The Yellows inside say they will “fight to the death”. The waiting game is nearly over. I can hear what sounds like a street demonstration — rousing calls on megaphones, drums, cheers. They’re probably Reds, but maybe they’re Yellows, arrived at last from Bangkok. Some Americans tell me the “demonstration” is a party at a temple a couple of blocks away. Nonetheless, I get to thinking it might be time to leave Thailand.

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