BBC transport producer Sue Emmett has been caught up in the travel chaos in Bangkok. Along with an estimated 100,000 other stranded holidaymakers, she is trying to find another way of getting home.

"You are the second orphaned tourists I have met today," said the hotel receptionist in charming broken English. "But don't worry, I can help you."

Sally and Kevin Wilson, British tourists stranded in Bangkok

Sally and Kevin Wilson are desperate to get home to Exeter

The Thai authorities do appear to be taking exceptional steps to help "orphaned" travellers such as myself.

The Ministry of Tourism has pledged to pay up to 2,000 baht (the equivalent of about £40) per stranded tourist, per day, towards hotel accommodation and food.

Such is the potential for the current protest to devastate the country's holiday industry.

'Lack of information'

To some travellers this is a wonderful opportunity to extend their holidays virtually for free.

Others are frustrated, angry and miserable.

Kevin Wilson is a nurse specialising in treating sufferers of severe anaemia at the outpatients' clinic at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

He was due to return to the UK on 29 November. He has already had to cancel one clinic this week and if he can't get back home next week he will have to cancel three more.

I'm very homesick now and I just want to get home

Sally Wilson, British tourist

'I'm a tourist, get me out of here'

"I feel a real responsibility for my patients," he said.

"There is no-one else at the hospital who can take over this work for me. If patients go without treatment it can be potentially damaging for their quality of life.

"I feel very frustrated at the lack of information about when we might get home. It is difficult to keep patients informed."

Kevin's wife Sally is a medical secretary at the same hospital. She is just as keen to get home.

"I've just started this job and I feel extremely bad that my colleagues will be having to do my work for me," she explained.

"I've had a lovely holiday, but I'm very homesick now and I just want to get home.

"My mum burst into tears when I rang her to say I didn't know when I would get back. She's worried that the protests will escalate and that I might get caught up in them.

"She just wants us back."

Sleeper trains

More fortunate are Jimmy Dee and his wife Shonat from Edinburgh.

They've been stranded for a week, but have managed to get one of the few flights leaving for Europe from a regional airport in the north of Thailand.

Shonat and Jimmy Dee, British tourists stranded in Bangkok

Shonat and Jimmy Dee have managed to find a flight to Europe

They were also able to book an overnight sleeper to take them on the 470 mile journey from Bangkok to the rescheduled airport before the tickets ran out.

Now the train information office says there are no more sleeper tickets available until 6 December.

Shonat, a swimming teacher, said: "I'm delighted to be going home. I don't like the heat too much and I'm really looking forward to being in the cold!

"I'm anxious to see what state the house is on after we left our 20-year-old son there on his own," joked Jimmy, a telecoms consultant.

In the streets and bars of Bangkok the conversation of stranded tourists is dominated by the subject of how to get home.

A popular route is to take a train or bus for a minimum of 20 hours to neighbouring Malaysia in the hope of getting a flight out of Kuala Lumpur.

As for me, I'm heading for a military airport three hours from Bangkok that has temporarily been made available to help with the crisis.

I'm hoping to get to Mumbai, India, then eventually on to London.

But television pictures here show scenes of chaos as the military airport struggles to cope with anxious civilians and mountains of luggage.

The scenes are somewhat reminiscent of the opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5.

Oh well, at least I should feel at home.