After the anti-climax that had been superstar DJ-muppet Mylo’s set at Astra on Thursday, I went to Glow on Friday to see Atomic Hooligan. The DJ, Terry, was very impressive, but it was a shame there were not more people there. I was loaded on rum and cokes and was as drunk as I have been this year. At 2 a.m. I left and walked outside the club to find a taxi. A random guy from inside was with me for some reason; we said something to each other but I don’t remember what. We were walking along when two guys on a motorcycle pulled over and asked to see some ID.

It took me a few minutes to assess what was going on but eventually I figured out they were either members of the police, or else they were pretending to be so. One of the guys showed an ID that could have been anything, but he was pretty adamant that he was a policeman. I guess they were working undercover trying to bust innocent farang for walking on the road.

The scene turned a little ugly because one of the policemen was quite irate. The man who had driven the motorcycle was a lot calmer and I chatted with him a little bit. The problem escalated when the random farang guy went nuts and started saying things like: “Shit, it’s the cops. Let’s get out of here.” I looked at him and thought: Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? He was starting to flip out and it was making the nasty cop even more angry. “Passport! Passport!” he kept saying. Half the time I carry my passport, the other half I leave it at home. I had my pockets searched and one of the cops asked to see my wallet. I took it out of my pocket, removed all the money, and then handed it to him. He gave it back almost instantly.

I could sense that thing would get worse if I didn’t remove myself from the scene somehow, so I thought of the first lie that came into my head which was: “I work for the Bangkok Post.” I don’t know why I said it, but it seemed to hold some weight. I backed up my claim by pulling out a business card from when I had worked for Business Day (another English language newspaper). The man who had been driving the motorcycle seemed OK with me because I had babbled something in half-recognisable Thai, had waid him, and generally tried to be reasonable, unlike my new friend who was either a fresh face in town or just completely stupid. As I decided to leave, he had tried to run away and the cop had taken him down. It seemed a scuffle was imminent so I called over a cab and left.

I felt bad about not feeling bad for leaving him. I didn’t know him and he might have ended up with a broken nose, a night in jail, or both. But I just didn’t feel compelled to get involved in any shape or form. A decent human being would no doubt have at least attempted to help this guy out. I could have stayed behind and tried to reason with the cops or I could have tried to talk some sense into the foreigner, but I chose to just walk away. Would you have done the same? It was totally selfish, of that I’m sure, but at the end of the day my main priority is to make sure that I don’t get into bad situations, especially with the Thai police, or people pretending to be the police.

I wonder what happened to that foolish guy.

Techno’ tags: Bangkok Police, Living in Thailand