Tourist Has Bad Luck After Theft At Thai Wat

[george]

Tourist has bad luck after theft

BANGKOK: A German tourist has returned a sliver of glass he filched from a revered Thai temple in the hope of ending a run of bad luck that has plagued him since taking it, reports here said today.

Chakarat Chitrabongs, the Thai Ministry of Culture's top bureaucrat, told the mass circulation Thai Rath newspaper that the tourist had sent the glass shard along with a letter of apology to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

The tourist, who signed his name as Juergen Z, reportedly wrote that he had found a tiny glass tile chipped off a wall in Bangkok's Wat Phra Kaew, or Temple of the Emerald Buddha, while visiting it two or three years ago.

He pocketed the tile after his tour guide told him he could take it home as a souvenir, Chakarat told the Thai-language newspaper.

"Whether I have been cursed or not, I don't know, but something supernatural has been occurring ... and I have faced only bad luck, both in my personal and work life," the letter said according to the daily.

"So I am sending this tiny piece of glass back to you with this letter, and I will send money to donate to the temple to apologise and try to get rid of my bad luck," he wrote.

The 221-year-old temple is a popular stop on the itineraries of many foreign tourists visiting the Thai capital.

Agence France-Presse 2003-11-30

[Ugots2Believe]

That's a rediculous superstition !

I bet he just got a haircut on a Wednesday

[george]

German tourist returns bad-luck souvenir

BANGKOK - A German tourist who took home a piece of decorative glass he found at Bangkok's sacred Temple of the Emerald Buddha and then suffered a two-year run of bad luck has returned his souvenir to Thailand and expressed "remorse for his ignorance", news reports said Monday.

Chakrarot Chitrabongs, permanent secretary of the Culture Ministry, was quoted by The Nation newspaper as saying the tourist mailed the glass fragment from Germany to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in an effort to improve his soured fortunes.

He said the 2.5-centimetre-long green, polygon-shaped shard was believed to have broken off an old pavilion at the temple, Thailand's most sacred shrine.

The tourist, who identified himself only as Juergen Z in his letter, claimed a tour guide suggested he keep the fragment as a souvenir after praying for "permission" from the Emerald Buddha.

"Since returning to his country, Juergen suffered bad luck both in his personal and work life," Chakrarot quoted the letter as saying. "It was just like a curse. Previously such things had never happened to him."

The tourist was advised by a Thai friend to return the glass fragment.

"He said he felt remorseful for his ignorance, and he urged the TAT to put the glass back into its place," Chakrarot said.

--Agencies 2003-12-01

[steffi]

Let's try this one again.

The headline is

"Tourist has Bad Luck after Theft At Thai Wat"

but the story clearly shows that tourist believed at the time that it wasn't wrong

to take the glass so how can it be theft?

Please try to keep to the facts in your headlines.

Will you remove this reply too?

[george]

Steffi,

We used the original headline that came with the first article in the newsfeed from AFP, and have not changed it in any way.