The marketing slogan for the Prime Minister’s mobile phone operator doesn’t just apply to the company’s touted network coverage, but also underscores that vulnerablity that all Bangkok citizen’s face with regards to petty theft. In this case, we’re talking about the PM’s wife, whose purse was snatched at a cafe in one of Bangkok’s more upscale and popular shopping centers.
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My wife’s good friend was robbed today.

A group of friends and former colleagues from my wife’s former company gathered this evening for a much anticipated reunion dinner at a popular restaurant in a well-travelled soi in an upscale area in the financial district. At 6:50 pm, the sun was beginning to set, but there was enough daylight to easily mistaken the time of day to be several hours earlier.

My wife’s friend and her husband had parked their car a few meters from the restaurant and were about to step in from off the street when a man on a motorcycle raced past, snatching her purse. The rider was halfway down the street before she could scream or her husband could react. Half a party at a police station filing a police report, half a party guarding the car from the possible return of a thief armed with stolen car keys, and one ruined evening for an entire party of friends.

The relatively low rate of petty crime in the central business district can make it easy for one to grow complacent. My wife and her friends are still a bit shellshocked, and I’m that much more paranoid (as well as a bit delusional to boot, nursing fantasies of foiling a purse snatching on my wife, followed by me beating the would-be thief within an inch of his life).

The moral of the story: keep alert, and be wary of motorcycle riders with no license plates on the bike.