The Story about the Thieves in the Night

Originally written March 2012 • Uploaded to Facebook on Mar 26, 2012, 4:43 AM

I originally went to Thailand in search of a place where people are friendly, food is cheap, and smiles are everywhere. Thailand is definitely all of that and more. I have always been very fortunate in finding the Thai people to be exceptional hosts, both within their own borders and beyond. On this specific journey, I decided to revisit my first true love in the world of cities I’ve explored over the past six years: Chiang Mai, affectionately known as the Rose of the North.

Chiang Mai isn’t known for being overwhelming; rather, it’s celebrated for its hill tribes, its incredible culinary delights, and the fact that it is a welcoming, small-scale city easily traversed by foot. It also serves as the classic gateway to the north of Thailand—a well-beaten path that leads into the northern mountains and onward to Laos and Myanmar. This time around, I decided to leave Bangkok in what seemed like the most convenient way possible: walking down Khao San Road and purchasing a ticket for a private, nonstop overnight bus to Chiang Mai, about ten hours away. The tickets were priced well, the travel agent promised a modern coach, and so the transaction was made and bums were placed in seats.

As with everything in Thailand, our 6:00 PM departure time quietly shifted, and we finally rolled out around 7:30 PM—understandably late by local standards. We got out on the highway and made a brief stop at a roadside café around 11:00 PM. A few passengers grabbed refreshments while I went to take a piss. After a short break, we all hopped back on board and resumed the journey. *Apocalypse Now* was playing on the cabin television and the air conditioning was freezing my bones solid. However, in a country where most days easily clear the 32°C mark, becoming a human popsicle is actually a welcome phenomenon. As we all gingerly drifted off to sleep, we hoped Chiang Mai would be just around the corner.

Except, it wasn't.

Sometime around 4:30 AM, we were abruptly jolted awake as the harsh overhead cabin lights flashed on. A guy wearing completely normal street clothes stood in the aisle, loudly telling us to check our things because the bus had been robbed. Given the ungodly hour and the fact that we had absolutely no idea who this person was, the cabin was thoroughly confused by his announcement. He promptly hopped off the bus. We waited in silence for about ten minutes until another figure boarded—this time a uniformed policeman who smelled powerfully of whiskey.

Our confusion deepened, but as the officer stepped down the aisle, passengers began realizing their cell phones or cash were missing. Sifting through my own daypack, I found nothing gone. Slowly, however, voices from all over the bus began reporting stolen belongings. We were ordered to check our main luggage and filed off the bus onto the dark roadside to do so. Opening the lower compartments revealed a scene of absolute chaos; everyone's bags had been aggressively rifled through, and a mountain of gear was missing. Fortunately, I didn't carry anything of real value in my lower luggage, so I wasn't terribly worried about losing a stray piece of clothing or a flashy electric toothbrush. In fact, everything of mine was accounted for—and then some. Inside my bag, I discovered a massive, heavy gold chain that clearly did not belong to me. It was obviously fake gold, but I still held it up and shouted to the officers that this random jewelry had been stashed in my luggage.

The police officers quickly laid out the reality of the situation. These specific private buses operating out of Khao San Road are completely unlicensed, run by freelance operators. They entice backpackers by offering fares significantly lower than the official government bus terminals because they make their actual profits by systematically ripping off the tourists. Most of these long-haul routes utilize two drivers, which makes sense given that few people want to tackle ten straight hours on challenging Thai roads. However, having a second driver also means that while one person is navigating the highway, the other can slip quietly down into the luggage hold through an internal hatch and systematically go through every single bag.

This elaborate hustle was explained to us by an expanding group of friendly policemen, all of whom also smelled strongly of whiskey and wore various mismatched pieces of uniform. What it ultimately came down to was that we had to board a completely different bus to finish the trek to Chiang Mai, because our original vehicle was being impounded and the drivers were being taken into custody. As we boarded the replacement bus with exhausted, worried faces, we learned that several travelers had lost significant amounts of cash and jewelry; they had to stay behind at the rural station to testify. As a final surprise, one of the officers stepped onto our new bus holding a literal handful of recovered cell phones and jewelry that had been stashed in the driver's cabin—stolen from travelers who, like us, had spent the night completely oblivious to what was happening beneath their feet.

Our new, hopefully safer bus finally departed the scene. Everyone desperately wanted to catch a few hours of sleep. While some managed to pass out, I was kept wide awake by a group of Germans sitting nearby, bantering on endlessly about some unintelligible topic and declaring how utterly horrific the whole ordeal was. I wished intensely in that moment that I knew how to say in fluent German: *"I have just been through a pretty damn awful experience and I want some rest. Would you be so kind as to shut the fuck up and let me sleep?"* Unfortunately, my linguistic capabilities in German are limited entirely to *"Bier, bitte,"* which translates to *"Beer, please"—*hardly appropriate for a pre-dawn highway interrogation terminal.