Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Mobbed and Robbed
Before anyone panics... the average age of the suspects was about 5 years old and they got away with 3 cans of soft drink.
Anthea (flatmate) and I had a big afternoon of shopping, buying clothes, DVDs and lots of food - including a slab (24 cans) of tonic. My hands were very full with bags and my motorbike helmet and Anthea was carrying the tonic and speaking on the phone... So neither of us had any free hands and our gate is difficult to open and involves reaching through a hole and unlocking a padlock.
There are often lots of little kids hanging around and playing in front of our gate. We live next door to a Wat and a lot of people live in the Wat. There are also apparently street urchins who live in our area. All these kids are normally very cute - I will try to post some photos soon (except maybe not of the little nude kids, that might not be appropriate - but so many of them are nude all the time, if you are in the street taking photos there will be nude kids in your photos). Where was I? Yes - we say hello to these kids all the time and have never had any problems... until yesterday, when they surrounded us in a cute but scruffy and hyperactive mob. At first it was funny to be in a sea of dozens of tiny reaching hands but it quickly got out of control and by the time Jono opened the gate for us they had taken the cans of drink off Anthea. 5 cans got away. One little boy was hiding one behind his back so we got that one back, and one little good samaritan girl went into the Wat and came back with another one but 3 warm cans of tonic were stolen and probably quickly consumed.
They didn't try to reach into our bags or anything and were only after the drinks but it did get a bit out of control. This was one of the few occasions when our guard Narith (we finally have his name right - it's not Monirith or Sevirith) was not out the front, but he told off the kids after. I didn't realise that would need a guard to help us fend of 5 year olds! I guess now we are aware of what can happen and will be a bit more alert but not alarmed.
After that 'incident' we locked our huge gate (with barbed wire at the top) and retreated to our expat luxury of gin and tonics and pirated DVD watching.
Anthea (flatmate) and I had a big afternoon of shopping, buying clothes, DVDs and lots of food - including a slab (24 cans) of tonic. My hands were very full with bags and my motorbike helmet and Anthea was carrying the tonic and speaking on the phone... So neither of us had any free hands and our gate is difficult to open and involves reaching through a hole and unlocking a padlock.
There are often lots of little kids hanging around and playing in front of our gate. We live next door to a Wat and a lot of people live in the Wat. There are also apparently street urchins who live in our area. All these kids are normally very cute - I will try to post some photos soon (except maybe not of the little nude kids, that might not be appropriate - but so many of them are nude all the time, if you are in the street taking photos there will be nude kids in your photos). Where was I? Yes - we say hello to these kids all the time and have never had any problems... until yesterday, when they surrounded us in a cute but scruffy and hyperactive mob. At first it was funny to be in a sea of dozens of tiny reaching hands but it quickly got out of control and by the time Jono opened the gate for us they had taken the cans of drink off Anthea. 5 cans got away. One little boy was hiding one behind his back so we got that one back, and one little good samaritan girl went into the Wat and came back with another one but 3 warm cans of tonic were stolen and probably quickly consumed.
They didn't try to reach into our bags or anything and were only after the drinks but it did get a bit out of control. This was one of the few occasions when our guard Narith (we finally have his name right - it's not Monirith or Sevirith) was not out the front, but he told off the kids after. I didn't realise that would need a guard to help us fend of 5 year olds! I guess now we are aware of what can happen and will be a bit more alert but not alarmed.
After that 'incident' we locked our huge gate (with barbed wire at the top) and retreated to our expat luxury of gin and tonics and pirated DVD watching.
