Thieves Denied Hat Trick

I’ve been to Thailand a couple of times and really enjoy it. My first trip I was there for a few weeks and the second was last summer and I spent 3 months there. I had a great time in Thailand, loved the people, and when I graduate I’m hoping
to get a job teaching there.

However in my last week in Thailand I had 3 unbelievable incidents. Two of these happened in Phuket when I was riding a moped from Patong to Kata at night. Both incidents involved a group of Thai men riding into my moped and knocking me off, then kicking
me a bit and taking my money. This happened 2 nights in a row. I wasn’t too bothered by it and just laughed about it, 2 nights in a row! It's not wise to ride on a road like that by yourself because that can easily happen, and the
fact I did it 2 nights in a row was pretty stupid, so it was my fault. Plus I got police reports so I claimed the money back on my travel insurance.

However the third incident happened to a friend and myself when we were in Bangkok. We were staying in a hotel called “Woraburi” (or something like that) which is on Sukhumvit Soi 4, I think. I had never stayed anywhere other
than Khao San so it was an alright change – a bit more expensive, but alright. After a few beers my friend and I went to the 7 Eleven to buy water and chill out at the room, and jumped in a tuktuk that was sitting outside, because we were too
lazy to walk to our hotel.

The tuktuk took off in the wrong direction, but we didn’t worry because we thought he was looking for somewhere to turn. Then he came off Soi 4 and on to bigger roads. My friend started to worry but I told him to chill out, maybe the
driver was going to do a big loop…?
After around 5 minutes it was clear we weren’t going where we had planned, so my friend gave him the card from the hotel and the driver just nodded and put it in his pocket. My friend kept suggesting
to me that we jump out and run the next time he slowed down, but I said that’s how you go about getting beaten up or shot.

Eventually the tuktuk took a turn down a few really narrow side streets and we really started shitting ourselves. We were shouting at the driver to stop but he completely ignored us and we were going down these little roads so fast we knew something was
wrong. Then the tuktuk turned up another alley but it had a bit of an incline and I honestly thought the thing was going to roll. Then my mate shouts at me to look ahead, and all we saw was a heap of Thai men with bats, and one of them had something
that looked a lot like a gun. My mate jumped out the tuktuk (which was still moving) and I was out about an inch behind him. My friend was lucky enough to be wearing trainers but I had gone for flip-flops that night, and as soon as I hit the ground
they came right off and I was running with bare-feet. There were a few Thai people milling around and they shouted at us, but I screamed back “He’s got a gun!!!” and kept sprinting. I never looked back but I could hear the
tuktuk turning and coming after us.

Might I add that this was all happening in the pissing rain. I have never run so fast in my life, and I was just waiting to hear the crack of bullets or something. I managed to run a bit faster than my mate and I was ahead of him when I tried to slide
under a parked car. It wasn’t happening, no way was I fitting under the car. My mate went running past and burst out laughing at me and dragged me out and we kept running. At one point we ran up to a security guard of some sort of complex
and asked him to help us, but he didn’t speak English and my Thai vocabulary didn’t cover the situation we were in. He wanted us to come inside what looked like an office but we didn’t fancy it. We ran round the corner and
heard a tuktuk coming so we lay down behind a car and it just screamed past us.

Eventually we flagged down a taxi, on our third attempt standing in the middle of the road. We gave the driver 2,000 baht for taking us back. My feet were bleeding and the guys at Woraburi were excellent and sorted them out a little bit for me. I was
heading home in a few days so I just left it until then to sort them properly.

It was pretty unbelievable, I reckon if we hadn’t jumped out and got away we were going to get a beating and everything robbed. Maybe we would have been murdered, I don’t know. I get a sick feeling when I think back to it, but we laugh about
it. Trying to hide under a car wasn’t wise.

All the people I spoke to at the time of these incidents said it was the first they’d heard of it happening, and it all happened to me in a week! It would never stop me going back or recommending Thailand though.

Stickman's thoughts:

When read this the first time around I found it all rather hard to believe….and then the author sent me photos of the period immediately after – and it would seem it is all true!