 Thai police confront anti-government protesters in Bangkok |
Members of one group of Britons caught up in events have been talking to the BBC about their plight and the knock-on effect on their lives back home.
JANE HEROD, ANAESTHETIST
 Paediatric anaesthetist Jane Herod fears operations may be cancelled |
The specialist paediatric anaesthetist was due to fly home from her holiday on Friday but has been told to expect delays of up to three weeks.
She now fears operations for some of her child patients may have to be cancelled.
The 41-year-old, who has worked in London at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for seven years, has a list of operations to get through and says she has no idea how she will get home.
"We feel quite stranded... it's very frustrating," she said.
"The specialist neurosurgery list is difficult to cover at very short notice... if I'm not there someone else will have to come in at short notice and you put extra pressure on your work colleagues.
"It will be very tight for everyone else and there is a possibility the operating lists may be cancelled."
Dr Herod was due to administer general anaesthetic to children with leukaemia who are due to have chemotherapy on Tuesday and treat babies with cleft lips and palates on Thursday.
 |  If we have to switch flights that could be thousands of pounds. I have no idea if our tickets are still valid  Dr Jane Herod  |
"It's a great inconvenience. The hospital has a very large catchment area and families put their lives on hold to bring their children to hospital," she said.
"If it [an operation] gets cancelled at short notice, it's very difficult for them."
Dr Herod, from Highgate in north London, is living in a hotel in Siem Reap in Cambodia with 15 others.
She was in Cambodia, having travelled through Laos from north Thailand, when she first found out via the BBC World Service about the demonstrations .
The Foreign Office has advised her group not to go to Bangkok airport and she said there is a two-week waiting list to fly to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
She also said their travel insurance is likely to be invalid because policies do not usually cover civil unrest.
"Our travel company has not been the most forthcoming... we're funding everything, we're out of pocket," she said.
"If we have to switch flights that could be thousands of pounds. I have no idea if our tickets are still valid."
 The lack of information is the hardest thing, says Dr Meacher |
The 43-year-old doctor, who helps runs the intensive care unit at London's Charing Cross Hospital, is part of the same group stranded in Cambodia.
She said her job at the busy 24-hour unit will be covered by her colleagues and patients will be looked after, but it will put intense pressure on them.
"You can't expect your colleagues to cover indefinitely, it could be weeks," she said.
"No shifts will be uncovered, but my colleagues will have to work in blocks and be on call constantly.
| The terrible events in Mumbai have pushed Bangkok down the agenda Dr Roseanne Meacher |
"They will get exhausted and things will become more stressful and the possibility of errors will go up."
Dr Meacher, from Shepherd's Bush in west London, said the hardest thing is the uncertainty and lack of information.
"The terrible events in Mumbai have pushed Bangkok down the agenda. Getting through to the airlines is virtually impossible and we've just been told to hang on and wait by the travel company," she said.
"We have no idea when we will get out of here and there is a possibility we could be chucked out of the hotel.
"Every morning they let us know if there are rooms or not."
Dr Meacher first found out about the protests on Wednesday through the BBC World Service and says she is getting most of her information from the internet.
She has managed to speak to her mother back home but says there is a virtual information black-out.
 We took our own initiative, says IT consultant Tom Hovell |
The 29-year-old from central London said he is on unpaid leave from Monday.
"There are a number of people who have become very upset. This has caused a lot of stress to themselves and family members back home," he said.
"It's the lack of knowing and the financial fear... you look on the internet and see the cost of a flight in the £2,000 bracket."
| We got fed up with the lack of information and decided to look for a way home ourselves Tom Hovell |
He said a Foreign Office official told him the next available flight out of Bangkok and the surrounding area will probably not be until 23 December.
But he and 15 of the group of 16 have made their own arrangements to drive to Bangkok where they have been told they can get on a flight out of a military airport.
The 16th member of the group has arranged to fly home via Kuala Lumpur.
"We got fed up with the lack of information and decided to look for a way home ourselves," he said.
"If we hadn't sorted this out ourselves, we'd still be waiting."
Mr Hovell says he hopes his backpacker insurance covers the costs of the hotels and extra travel - but he is not sure.Protesters occupy Bangkok's international airport
Tension is growing in the Thai capital Bangkok as thousands of anti-government protesters occupy the city's two main airports for a seventh day.
Police said they were negotiating with the group as experts warned of soaring economic losses from the blockade.
Some 100,000 passengers remain stranded in Bangkok while efforts are being made to find alternative airports.
Meanwhile, thousands of government supporters held their first rally in the capital since the blockade began.
| People were pushing and cutting into the line because they were afraid of missing their flights Farah Uddin BBC News website reader at U-Tapao relief airport |
The opposition want the government to resign, accusing it of being corrupt, hostile to the monarchy and in league with exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Fears of clashes between pro- and anti-government groups have grown since a new grenade attack on opposition supporters in Bangkok on Saturday night, which injured about 50 people, three of them seriously.
So far the two sides have not encountered each other but there are fears of serious violence if they do, the BBC's Jonathan Head reports from Bangkok.
Bedding down
There is little sign that the tens of thousands of tourists stranded in Bangkok will get home any time soon, the BBC's Quentin Somerville reports from Bangkok's international airport.
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The check-in desks are empty and on the concourse floor lie hundreds of anti-government protesters, settling in for another night of occupation.
They have bedding and plentiful supplies of food and water.
Televisions and radios blast out speeches calling for Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to step down.
He says he will not go but he has been unable to dislodge the protesters.
The army are against him and the police have so far proved ineffective, our correspondent says.
The protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) are a loose alliance of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class.
"Obviously it hurts the economy, but it's the only way we can push out this government," PAD supporter Prathan Tandavanitj, 60, told Reuters news agency at the airport.
Police say they want to avoid any violent confrontation and will not use weapons against the protesters at the capital's international and domestic airports.
An opposition spokesperson said talks with the police were not about ending the protest but about "improving security".
In Bangkok, red-shirted pro-government demonstrators condemned the airport blockade and accused the protesters of economic sabotage.
One banner read: "We love Thaksin. He is our hero."
Trying to leave
Some travellers have been trying to get to smaller airports around the country, but these are being overwhelmed.
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A few airlines have been using an airport at the U-Tapao naval base, about 140km (90 miles) south-east of Bangkok.
But the authorities there are said to be overwhelmed with hundreds of passengers cramming into the small facility.
"There was only one X-ray machine, and the line for that was very long," said Farah Uddin, a BBC News website reader.
"People were pushing and cutting into the line because they were afraid of missing their flights."
More than 450 Muslim pilgrims stranded at the international airport were taken by bus to the base on Sunday where they were to board a plane for the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
Spain and Australia have been arranging special flights to evacuate their citizens.
Thailand's tourist industry is losing an estimated $85m (£55.4m) per day, and the government warns that the number of foreign tourists arriving next year may halve, threatening one million jobs.
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