Exiled Former Thai Prime Ministers Spotted Eating Char Koay Teow in Penang

While our own former Prime Minister Najib Razak has been spending his time flitting between hospitals and the Kajang Prison, two former Thai Prime Ministers who have also fallen from grace, have been spending their time enjoying Penang island and all the sights and sounds it has to offer.

Thaksin Shinawatra served from 2001 to 2006 while his sister Yingluck Shinawatra served from 2011 to 2014.

Thaksin was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 by the ‘Yellow Shirts’, a movement by citizens against him and has lived in exile for more than a decade.

In 2017, Yingluck fled Thailand to escape arrest over a rice subsidy scheme. Thaksin is also estimated to have a net worth of $2 billion or approximately RM9.1 billion according to Forbes.

With all of that in mind, Malaysians were definitely surprised to spot the exiled pair enjoying street food at a local market, no less as well as enjoying tourist activities around Georgetown.

Overseas, the authors of the Billion Dollar Whale, the story of how Jho Low apparently swindled billions of ringgit through 1MDB have recently launched a social media campaign to hunt down the fugitive.

However, here in our country, Malaysians have displayed their usual hospitality by being welcoming to the Thaksin and Yingluck despite their ties to corruption.

Videos and photos were taken of the two by passerbys while Yingluck herself, who still boasts 6.2 million followers on Facebook, shared images to her page as well.

She mentioned that she was visiting Penang for a second time and was similar to Phuket, which made her miss it. She wrote that she wanted to revisit old memories with her brother and that:

“The food is similar. And what's even more strange is that the city often has photo spots along the walkways or shops for people to take photos as memories. I want our tourist town to improve more to have more memorable spots and take pictures.”

The pair sat on a trishaw, enjoyed fried oyster and Char Koay Teow at the Cecil Street Market; enjoyed snapping shots at the street art and murals like the famous ‘Little Children on a Bicycle’; and even happily posed for photos with the local community.

@chinapress_northern Sawatdee Ka!Welcome to Penang.#tiktoknewsmalaysia #tiktok新闻 #trendingnewsmalaysia #tiktok新闻大马 #tiktokmalaysia #中国报北马人 #fyp #tiktokthailand ♬ 泰国蹦迪舞(Remix) - 精彩王波

Former prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra were seen at the Cecil Street market and a food court in Weld Quay on Wednesday (Sept 21). pic.twitter.com/lzyI2UtA7R
— Salzian Nawawi (@salzian) September 21, 2022