Bandit Country

[imaneggspurt]

No apology required. I thought your post was well balanced but the original post may have benefitted from the reason you were out at that time of the morning. MJD is just an opportunist tw4t who will no doubt claim that you are a Brit and therefore it is all 100% your fault.

I spent over a year on the darkside and enjoyed it very much. I never encountered any problems but my naivity may have helped ! Those who advice getting a car want to try driving down Soi Nernplubwan/Klang and they will understand the benefits of a bike - not to mention parking.

Nevertheless, I fear that there will be a continuing growth in these sorts of incidents and it can help if people like you are prepared to recount their stories.

It could have been a lot worse for you.

Too true and thanks for that.

I'm home early tonight by a devious route. It was a very scary experience and it's made me think a lot. I believe if I'd stopped or been stopped I would have lost the bike plus some other stuff worth about 50,000 baht (please nobody tell me.....I know) plus bank cards and perhaps suffered personal injury if I'd crashed or been attacked. Perhaps they could even have forced me to empty the ATM - who knows. I just knew I didn't intend to stop. Perhaps many years riding m/bikes and having one with gears and reasonable power helped, but I know I was very lucky.

I've made a lot of mistakes in my 2 years here and where I live may well be one of them given my other circumstances, so I have to have a rethink.

My reluctance to use the car, apart from convenience, is due to what can happen to you when a Thai decides to throw his bike at you. My incident was minor, but have a read through this (where you can also find my tale). http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Motorcycle-A...on-t233572.html

In criticising some of the posts here I decided it was prudent to let others decide whom I was referring to. It certainly did not include that from basjke, whose sarcasm I appreciated (thanks for pm).

Surely we have to post such experiences here for the benefit of others and surely we don't need the smart assed posters stating the bleeding obvious eg. 4.30am is late duhhhhhhhhhhh

Anyway, no purpose served by arguing with them. I hope the incident has been of interest to some and has served to make them think about things they do, as indeed it has me.

sorry to hear what happened ,if we cant wear a simple gold chain ?? thats bad .we all have to live ,we just have to be street smart ..we cant all turn into mice and be in bed by 9 and let all the thai criminals do what ever they want after dark, get a big bike join a local mc club . these pussies wont mess with you then coz they know they will have more than you to answer too ,i dont believe in carrying weapons ,but if all this crime going on keep rising then it might be an option...a small mace spray can would be good to have or a little revolver lol .50.....i forgot to say where is this darkside every one keeps referring to ????????

i dont think being a hairy @ssed HA would stop thais stealing a necklace off a vest wearer, no sir, and the harley and wouldnt keep up with a well ridden 125 2 smoke !