"I shall return to seek revenge...," reads a message, probably written by a red shirt, on a steel Skytrain column adjacent to the burnt down but still smouldering CentralWorld shopping mall, close to Rajprasong intersection.

It was Sunday, 9am, a "big cleaning" day, which took place four days after the military crackdown that led to at least 16 deaths and arson attacks on more than 30 spots in Bangkok and beyond.

Thousands of volunteers - mostly young and adult, educated Bangkok middle class - were doing all they could to help the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) clean up the dirt and rubbish and remove all the anti-government messages such as "Abhisit Murderer!", "Abhisit Bastard, Go and Die" in the area.

At a narrow lawn with palm trees in front of heavily damaged CentralWorld, in which a temporary corrugated wall has been put up, red shirts' belongings such as mat-tresses, red Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship bandannas and even red shirts were still scattered around - a sign that the reds hastily abandoned the area on Wednesday, as they were dispersed.

On observing the damage around him, a man who was chatting with a stranger on a pedestrian overpass linking Gaysorn Plaza and CentralWorld said perhaps emergency rule should be kept for a year in order to deal with the red "mob".

Pattanaphong Tanawisut, a co-proprietor of the glossy "Hi So Party" magazine, was also at the intersection and told me his heart was broken. "It's like burning our own house," he said, adding that he was neither a red nor a yellow shirt, he said.

Pattanaphong, who led his staff of 30 to join the voluntary cleanup of the area, said both feuding camps were still seeing things from their own perspective only, even in the aftermath of the killings and riots four days ago.

"They haven't start looking at things from the perspective of the whole [society]," he said.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva still insists on his "self-righteous view", he said.

"Today, I think those who have taken sides must recognise that they have played a part in the burning [of Bangkok]."

In front of the untouched Renaissance Building, Banchong Phiewnin, a 50-some-thing security guard from Kalasin, said what the government did on that day "was too much", as most protesters were unarmed.

The guard who took shelter inside the office building on that day then said there was an attack on a Bangkok Bank branch earlier this morning and he also heard that Don Mueang Airport had also been attacked, resulting in five fatalities.

The red shirts in his neighbourhood went wild upon hearing the news, he said, but when asked if he could verify the Don Mueang news, Banchong said I shouldn't believe him yet.

As we conversed, Somsakul Komaenkul, a mother and her family of five, then stopped just in front of us to ask where I was from.

"Ok, The Nation is very good," was her reaction to my answer. The woman - whose daughters are studying at the nearby upper crust Mater Dei School, said she would oppose any move by the government to offer monetary compensation to the red shirts who had been killed or wounded.

"It's my taxpayer's money. I want to call Abhisit to let him know my view."

I asked if she thought the conflict would continue and one of her daughters volun-teered to predict: "It will be worse than the three southernmost provinces".

Somsakul then looked at Banchong the security guard and asked if he was a red shirt.

Banchong paused for a few seconds. "No I'm not."

When the family left, the guard then said angrily, "If I confessed that I'm red then they might have lynched me. Let me tell you frankly, I am fully red and I don't care what others say. I do have my ideology."

When I walked back in the same direction I came from, I noted that the hate messages including the one vowing revenge had been scrubbed away. Then I also learnt about the latest bank attack and news that the curfew would be extended for two more nights on top of the four nights Bangkok has already experienced.