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Published: June 10th 2009
Dear Friends and Family,
Some of you have already heard about this, but I wanted to share it with everyone. I am safe. I want to establish that right away. Two nights ago I had the most terrifying night of my life, but things are under control here, and I am OK. After spending the day traveling from Ban Ta Khun, on our first night here, we went to an internet cafe slash restaurant slash guesthouse called Good Dream, and here we met the manager Vivi. After the cafe closed down we went with Vivi to her sister's bar, called Jam Club. There, they had guitars and mics set up, so I got to play and sing American songs to the people there. There was also a group of Swiss Germans who were all in a band together that played also, then we all jammed together, it was a lot of fun! We spent that night at Krabi Nature View, down by the pier. We went to sleep and the next morning we went via long-tail boat to the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, Railay. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I spent the day swimming and playing with monkeys who would jump up on your shoulder if you help fruit in your other hand. That night we went back to Jam Club and I played music again. This time I jammed with the Thai owner, who had an incredible voice and loved singing American songs. His rendition of Take Me Home Country Roads by John Denver was awesome! I had my backpack with me, with my laptop, camera and cell phone all in it. On the way back to our guesthouse that night, around 1:30 am. We were stopped by a group of 9 local Thais who were between the ages of 20 and 25. They were boat drivers, and we started talking to them about going on a trip the next morning to Koh Phi Phi and some of the other nearby islands. We talked to them for about half an hour, and took pictures with them, so they knew we had some expensive equipment on us. My friend Brian is interested in Muay Thai and asked them to show him some moves. They did fake slow-motion fighting in the street. After about half an hour we told them we had to go, and gave them traditional bows and said thank you. They spoke very very little English, so it is difficult to say what happened, but when we walked around the corner after bidding them goodnight, they ran around the corner and started beating Brian. He dropped his backpack and I picked it up and started running. Quickly 5 of them were all beating him at the same time, and I thought he had gotten away. When I turned around, I was about 50 meters away from them, and I saw them pick up a bottle and shatter it on Brian's head. I dropped both our bags and turned around, trying to figure out what to do. There was a parked car with two people in it and I started screaming POLICE POLICE HELP HELP! The Thais heard me screaming and by that time Brian had kind of gotten away from them and was nearer to me. They ran up to us again and we both turned to run. We made it around the corner, and they stopped near to where our bags were on the side of the road. Two of them were on a motorbike and started driving towards us. At this point Brian was covered in blood and we turned up a side street and hid in a garden. We could hear the motorbike driving around and could hear the rest of the group yelling at us. We hid for about 15 minutes before we felt like we could try to find the police. A group of kids saw us as we were leaving our hiding place and they called the police who came right away at that point. We went back down to the pier where we had been jumped and our bags were gone along with the guys who jumped us. The police then called an ambulance to take us to the hospital, where they spoke no English at all. I was flipping out trying to get them to care for Brian while helping me call the US Embassy in Bangkok. Brian's bag had two cell phones, a camera, passport, money, and other important documents. They gave Brian stitches and sent us to the police station. There, the officer on duty was not helpful at all, it took them 3 hours to get one page of written statements and they had us write out a list of our possessions that were stolen and told us to come back in the morning. It was unbelievable, Brian looked absolutely horrible, and they didn't do anything really, they spoke next to no English. Frustrated and without options, we left the police station. At first they refused to give us a ride, but then agreed to after we refused to leave if we had to walk the streets as it was about 5 am at this point. We went to the only place where we knew we could trust the people, Good Dream, where our friend Vivi was manager. We got in and stayed up for the hour until she showed up. Her and her sister, who owns Jam Club, took us to the police station the next morning. Her sister and her husband are good friends with the Chief of Police who came to meet us personally. The police service improved a thousand fold because we had locals with us. We spent hours giving detailed statements and providing physical descriptions. We left around 2 that afternoon and went back to sleep at Good Dream. We slept for a few hours until Vivi woke us up to tell us that we had to go back to the police station. They had already found 3 of the guys who jumped us, although not the main ones that had instigated the beating. We identified them and much discussion followed in Thai while we just sat there and answered the occasional questions when our friends needed to clear things up. We went back that night and slept for close to 12 hours confident that we were receiving good care. We also stopped by the pharmacy and picked up meds for Brian, who was looking better at this point. Today we went back to the police station and they had picked up another of the 9 guys. The 4 that they had in custody were basically claiming that the other guys that were with them that night were people they had only met that night and that they didn't know them very well at all. They seemed cooperative. The police promised that they would continue to try to find the other 5 guys along with our bags. We are going back there again tomorrow morning. I slept all afternoon again after getting back from the police station. We will have to leave for Bangkok by tomorrow afternoon in order to get there on Friday because the embassy is closed for the weekend and Brian needs a passport by next Wednesday so that we can fly from Kuala Lumpur to China. I will give another update tomorrow, but I think there is only a small possibility of returning our stuff, in all likelihood it is gone, but you never know. The police have been very helpful, the chief keeps checking up on us, and we have an escort to go back and forth from the police station. Thank God for our friends here, as we could not have gotten through this without them. It was the most terrifying moment of my life, I thought that they would kill Brian, and me if I hadn't run away from them. We had been very friendly to them the entire time we talked to them, but I think they were all drunk, they had been passing around a bottle of Thai Whiskey and had offered it to us, but we refused. I am safe now. I have lost my trust in Thailand. I was having a fantastic vacation, but it is not even worth thinking about that at this point. I don't have the heart to recount the days leading up to this at Ratchabrapha and Railay beach, but they were amazing. Over 700 pictures are gone along with my computer, and that is one of the things I am most upset about losing. I will give updates on this, but also have full access to email. My Skype name is kyle.mealey and I am on that pretty awesome as I am not allowed to leave the guesthouse and have no real desire to except to go to the police station. I will write an update after tomorrow morning when we go back to the police. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
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Laurie
non-member comment
sorry for the news
What a terrible experience. We are so glad that you are both okay. I hope that you will be able to recover from this incident and enjoy your trip. We are eager for news! - Laurie Horvitz