I had a very elaborate dream. This started off with me and a few people moving into an apartment together, one of whom was merely an acquaintance, not a friend, and a sometimes annoying acquaintance at that. We had also brought in with us a cat, and for us to feed the kitty I had stolen an extremely large bag of cat food from my parents’ house. The house itself was fairly nice, though there were many cactuses around the front of it. Inside, it strangely resembled the apartment I live in now. Things were calm until a scary-looking woman broke into my room. I entered in on her as she was stealing my notebooks and some other documents. I was unable to stop her. Furthermore, she had already entered the other rooms. I was incredibly frustrated – one of those notebooks held my actual ideas as to this acquaintance and how I felt about him (namely, how I disliked him and why). After talking to my other housemates who had been robbed, I concluded that this was the answer. I felt rage wash over me but decided not to confront him to his face. No, instead, I would merely press charges when he was out. I looked at my door and I tried to lock it; unfortunately, the hole of the wall where the bolt goes had been damaged beyond repair and even if I locked it the door wouldn’t stay open. It was at this point that my housemates and I decided to confront the person ultimately responsible. His answer was simple. He wanted to know what we thought of him. Such rage!

The dream then plays from his perspective. He meets with a group of very unsavoury people who seem purely evil and he is told that he has a mission to do, and that if he chooses not to follow it, his chances of death are “0″ (I presume I actually meant “1″). Reluctantly, he takes this on, as he risks death anyway, and two beams of light come from the sky, quickly being revealled as orbs. One is blue, one is slightly pinkish, and inside them are floating creatures without wings roughly the size of small ferrets. He takes them back to his apartment.

The perspective at some point fades back over to me. I have once again appeared with a very large bag of food, this time, apparently for these creatures. They are white, and look like white chocolate with a consistency of dog treats. I break them into small pieces so these cute creatures can feed.

Three armed men wearing surgical masks and hoodies robbed a Denver bank Wednesday and got away with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The robbery happened at about 5:30 p.m. at the Bank of the West, 7995 E. Hampden Ave., according to a media release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The robbers “took over” the bank, pointing guns at customers and employees and “ordering them to kneel or not move,” the FBI said.

One robber “vaulted the teller counter” to grab cash and the trio fled, dropping money along the way.

The robbers ran toward a nearby apartment building and likely drove off in a get-a-way car, the FBI said.

Authorities do not have a description of the vehicle.

from the Denver Post.

The FBI’s so-called $83 Bandit, suspected in nine holdups since March, struck again Tuesday afternoon at the UMB Bank at 707 Colorado Blvd. in Denver.

The nickname comes from the the robber’s habit of asking for specific but unusual amounts of money in the notes he passes to tellers.

from the Denver Post.

A 22-year-old is attacked during a robbery at a shopping centre in west Belfast…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: clothes shopping. The blog is also related to: retail shopping.

Except when it’s rewarded! Mr. Mohammad Sohail, deli owner, took the good road back in June and invested a little faith in the thief who tried to rob him.  Once the would-be-thief was on his knees begging for mercy, Mr. Sohail gave him just that:  forty bucks, some bread, and a handshake.  Then a couple of days ago, that same robber sent Mr. Sohail fifty bucks (ten dollars in interest!) along with a note of gratitude and news of how he has a job and a new baby now!   Mr. Sohail, in turn, plans to start a charity foundation.  From Newsday.

I own the banks now, so how is it they can steal from me. My bank, for legal reasons let’s call them Balifax,  have a very poor internet banking system at the best of times.

But when I transferred £32 to pay a credit card bill they tool £150! This is not a simple mistake and is not an error I would make. None of the numbers are even the same, so it isn’t a typo.

No, they’ve robbed me, leaving me without enough money to cover my remaining bills for the month, and they’re now charging me penalty fees for being overdrawn. Their solution to their mistake – to start an audit that takes a week before we can start resolving the issue. All this just before Christmas.  Maybe they should just give me some of my tax money that is propping them up back and we’ll call it quits.

From the website:

“Here are actual demand notes used in successful and unsuccessful unarmed bank robberies – - accompanied by a photo of each robber and appended with details about the robbery itself. “

= a successful robbery
= an unsuccessful robbery

___________________________________________

——————–

———————–

See more bank notes here.

Two black men with guns robbed a Chinese restaurant in Portsmouth.

They got cash from Hay Hing Chinese Restaurant on Deep Creek Blvd. on the evening of November 28.

Police say one suspect acted as a lookout as the other robbed the employees.

Authorities released surveillance camera images of the suspects, both of whom wore black clothing.

If you know anything about this robbery that can help police, call Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.

bron: www.wvec.com [1-12-2009]

Cultural impact on personal relationships

Social ills in African communities are connected to dysfunctional relationships between parents and children, among siblings, relatives, friends, generations, colleagues and lovers. An evaluation of the sources of murder, robbery, housebreaking, fraud, substance abuse and all other self inflicted social ills, confirms the interrelation between these vices and dysfunctional relationships.

The extent of this social deficiency is self evident in murder and suicide statistics. It is an established trend that the first suspect in investigation of gruesome murders is usually the victim’s spouse. It is sad that most murders occurs with spouses involvement in the planning or/and execution. The public domain is full of insurance spouse payouts schemes; prisons are full of domestic violence related offenders; and the courts hear bitter accusations and counter-accusations between spouses or ex-lovers.

High teenage suicide crisis is another reflection of this social crisis. The main cause of these young lives cut short is disappointments by lovers, parents’ expectations and bullying by peers.

Indeed personal relationships are a cultural matter. The rules of engagement, expectations and conducts are defined within a cultural context. There are visible community scars resulting in centuries of active and consistent cultural genocide directed at African people. The resilience of African culture is taking a toll and therefore the centre no longer holds hence community disorientation. The cultural disorientation of Africans has resulted in collapse of personal relationship pillars. Individualism, pride, ego, showing off and self centeredness were heavily discouraged within African communities in favour of collective values and common good. An individual is nurtured to develop personality traits that enhance the strength of relationships.

The cultural chaos visited upon us has deprived Africans of their most productive time in their lives. This crisis demonstrates that economic trends play a crucial role in the cultural development and outlook of a people. The gender war is also caused by shallow assimilation to foreign culture which hits during the peak of the individual’s economic participation. This is the age of thirty to fifty when a person has acquired skills and substantial experience to contribute to society productively. It is for this reason that culture is consistently assaulted. The assault is designed to guarantee permanent dominion of Africa’s enemies.

Protracted campaigns by privately owned media, foreign funded social movements and imperially controlled legislative lobby groups to demonize male gender and make female gender feel totally paralyzed is a conscious and deliberate programme to fuel gender disharmony and mistrust.

The girl and boy children are treated differently. The boy child is left rooming alone and to fend for himself due to fallacy of man’s natural strength. On the other hand, the girl child is encouraged to overindulge thus inculcating lifetime dependency syndrome. A female teenager is brainwashed to believe that her physical beauty is her biggest if not the only asset. This belief is the first step to abuse and condemnation to life of bitterness. It is at the stage of adulthood where the illusion, that life security lies in finding a man, vanishes and reality sinks that a woman also has to shoulder the responsibility of providing for the family.

There is brutal and multi-frontal economic warfare being waged by various imperialist and capitalist forces on humanity. The major stumbling block to complete victory against this war is unity of the oppressed. Unity is held together by their time tested cultural principles. The strengthening of cultural principles rather than mere traditional rituals will improve African people fortunes on the economic front and Africa cannot be economically emancipated without resolving the crisis of personal relations within our community.

By Sbusiso Xaba

A woman with spina bifida says she won’t go into Derry city centre on her own again after an attempt to steal her handbag…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: universal city. For a different topic see various types of bras. The blog is also related to: cities mayor.

Robberies (including muggings, and snatch thefts) are the most common street crime.

Muggings involve using force and intimidation to steal property, while snatch theft is taking property from a victim without the use or threat of force.

Targeting crime hotspots

Police are using their resources in the areas that account for the majority of street crime. And across the criminal justice system, better case management and provision for victims and witnesses is having a positive effect on the levels of crime.

Targeting young people at risk of offending

An important part of the initiative involves preventive work with young people, with an emphasis on addressing the causes of crime.

The positive activities for young people scheme runs during the school holidays. It focuses on those most at risk of falling out of education and into criminal activity, and aims to offer them alternatives.

Cutting mobile phone theft

Last year more than 700,000 mobile phones were stolen – but we’re working hard with the mobile phone industry to help make stealing phones less profitable.

In 2007 the major mobile networks set up systems to ensure that all stolen mobiles are blocked within 48 hours, making them completely useless.

See Stolen mobiles don’t work for advice on how to buy a second hand mobile safely, to make sure you don’t buy a stolen mobile that will soon shut down.

Click here to see the robbery prevention tips.

The chances of being a victim of robbery are low, but here are a couple of things you can do to protect yourself.

• Be aware of your surroundings and keep your valuables hidden – talking on a mobile, listening to an MP3 player, or openly carrying a laptop show potential thieves you have something worth taking.
• Register your phone for free at immobilise.com (new window) This will help the police to return your phone to you if it gets stolen.

Police are searching for a man who walked into a bank on Tuesday and left with an undisclosed amount of money.

According to police, the suspect robbed a UMB Bank, located at 707 Colorado Blvd. around 3 p.m., but did not show a weapon.

from 9news.

Police are investigating a reported robbery at the New China Restaurant on Route 211 in the Town of Wallkill (Orange County, New York, America)
About 9 p.m. Monday, a woman reportedly walked into the New China Restaurant at 254 Route 211 East, armed with a black semiautomatic handgun.
Officials said the woman grabbed cash from the register and fled on foot. Police were searching the area Monday night.

bron: www.recordonline.com [10-11-2009]

I couldn’t get rid of the cops.  I slipped through narrow cracks in the traffic and screeched around every turn, but they were still tailing me in the rear view.  Something wasn’t right.  I fingered the surface of the mirror and felt a slight ridge outlining each car, so I started picking at them with my nails.  One by one, I peeled them off and flung them out the window like chewed and flavorless gum.  That’s when I realized there was probably a lot of money in the business of robbing banks.

This is exactly why Charlotte needs Popeyes they wouldn’t let nobody come up in there beat the manager up, steal a two piece biscuit meal, and then take off in a customer’s car. Who does that? Well I won’t give my opinion but I will say this it is the Holiday season, we are in a recession, and people will do anything to get some extra cash, even if it means get beat up. Meet me round back. Oops but I ain’t one to gossip so you ain’t heard that from me.

Click the Following link to see original story:

http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Bojangles-manager-beaten-up-during-robbery-78088152.html

A [person] wearing a blue hoodie sweatshirt pulled out a gun and robbed a Colorado State Bank and Trust in Parker this morning.

The suspect escaped from the bank at 17821 Cottonwood Dr. on foot with an unspecified amount of money, said Sara Walla, Parker police spokeswoman.

from the Denver Post.

We don’t usually do much commentary, instead letting people’s actions speak for themselves, but there are some news stories that we absolutely cannot let go reported in the way the media would have it. This is one such story.  The following piece is not as complete and thought-out as we want; it’s a piece we’ve worked on for about a week since the news hit the press, but we’d like to work on it more.  Look for a better version in the next issue of ’til it breaks.

Last week the Denver Police Department made a mass arrest of 34 black youth and it seems like nobody has blinked an eye.

The 34 suspects were rounded up because, according to the cops, they are suspects in a series of downtown muggings.

Last we heard, 30 of those individuals have been charged with things like assault and robbery–many of them felony charges.  The police did not make it clear how they identified and rounded up the suspects, but “most of [them] told police they were associated with either the Rollin’ 60s Crips gang or the Black Gangster Disciples gang.”  The police keep dossiers on gang members; apparently they used their lists to round up individuals, throw them in jail, and begin interrogations.

All this ought to raise some kind of resistance from radicals who are also tracked by the police.

Anarchists, especially, should take notice when this shit goes down, cause we’re in gangs ourselves.  It’s true.  All it takes is a crew of folks who have each others’ backs to be a gang.  Our forms of social organization are atypical, and they are our greatest strength.

Even if you don’t think you’re a gangster, the cops already do.  The police in Denver have been using their Gang Units to track anarchists for years.  To them, we’re gangs.

Not only were individuals rounded up after-the-fact on the basis of alleged gang membership, they are being held on $1 million bond for each count.  That is an impossible sum to raise, and also far higher than the bond that would normally be set for crimes like assault and robbery.

We don’t deal with shit anywhere near this serious.  Not yet anyway.  So why is state repression coming down so hard on gang members, even if they did the shit they’re accused of?

Repression of ways of being

It is not so much our individual selves that the state criminalizes, but our ways of being–how we be.

Anarchists charged with conspiracy–facing years in prison for daring to draw breath together.  Black youth rounded up for gang membership–for being so bold as to come into a mass.

And it’s damn right that proletarian youth getting organized should make any rich fuck quake in his shoes.

It is our collectivity they are making a crime.  They know, as we do, when we are weak and isolated, they know that we grow powerful together.

It’s true they jail and charge and imprison us as individuals.  The legal process separates the individual from her source of strength, ties her up in proceedings of what precise acts she as an individual has committed.  But our crimes are for the ways in which our bodies and breathing interact, merge and feed each other, the ways we roll on our enemies.  Those are the patterns that their squads and patrols and the eyes of surveillance sweep for, what the warrants yank us out of.

Cause if the proles get together, God help us all.

Crime pays when cops get shot

The ‘gang threat’ and the War on Drugs have been used as excuses to criminalize urban proletarians, especially black and hispanic youth.  Racist policing and incarceration serve the interests of the ruling class in many ways, including the repression of proletarian populations, the reinforcement of class division along lines of race, and the production of a slave work force in prisons.

Criminalization is a process that involves not only the surveillance, policing, profiling, and arrest of specific populations but also the social factors that produce their criminality.  We criminals have been produced as such by the government and its laws.  What actions and activities we engage in that are defined as beyond or against the law.

For black and Hispanic urban youth, a systematic exclusion from the wage economy has produced high incentives for involvement in illegal economies.  In turn, the state brings heavier policing and prosecution on gang members.  So while most working people hate their bosses and experience the police as somewhat worse than an annoyance, people with criminal lifestyles see the cops and the state as their number one enemy, while bosses are mostly irrelevant.  (In reality, the bosses are behind the violence of the state.)  This could be why, when proletarian uprisings have exploded after police shootings or beatings, they have often seen the central participation of gangs and other criminals.

While some on the Left propose that the ’solution’ to the ‘gang problem’ is to reinsert gang members into the wage economy, we believe that would replace one form of oppression with another.  Gangs themselves have, in moments of insurrection, expressed quite different desires through their actions–specifically, the destruction and looting of capitalist property.  It is not a desire for inclusion in the capitalist system that these express, but a desire to destroy it.

Gangs and insurrection

Gangs have been at the heart of the largest uprisings in the modern United States.  We’re thinking of the Watts (Los Angeles) Rebellion of 1965, and South Central L.A. again in 1992.  These were moments when the U.S. saw insurrections powerful enough to shake the foundations of bourgeois society, times in recent memory when uprisings were put down by massive military force.

Not only were gangs active and powerful in the rebellions, they may have been the reasons they happened at all.  It is important to note that each uprising was preceded by a truce made between rival gangs in L.A.  In other words, the cessation of violence between gangs somehow opened up an orgy of violence against cops, businesses, et al.

We are not trying to glorify gangs.  The role of gangs during the normal (i.e. hellish) functioning of modern society is of course absolutely fucked up.  We’ll offer no judgment, but will make the observation that in times of normalcy, everyone plays their part in keeping this terrible machine running.  That includes activists, leftists, revolutionaries, workers, whatever you think of yourself as.  Uprisings, insurrections are massive breaks with everyday life.  They are moments–the only moments–when we can all escape and attack normality.

If gangs are not revolutionary by nature, but rise to the occasion of an insurrection, how is it that they have had such a powerful role?  And how have their truces sparked social uprisings, while revolutionaries can hardly claim such successes?

This year after anarchist comrades in Oakland fought in the streets in the Oscar Grant riots (January ‘09), they advised us that we need more preparation, our crews need to get ready to fight when something explodes as unexpectedly as that rebellion did.  We need to seek ways to sustain and expand insurrection when it flares up.

We are still on training wheels. Some of the other gangs in our cities, by contrast, are already a war machine.  When an insurrection comes, they are organized, trained, materially equipped and mentally prepared.

Furthermore, gang members’ relationship to the police is one of militant antagonism.  This antagonism is, as argued above, the result of their position in the relations of capital and the state.

Proletarian violence

Media reports have been quick to follow the lead of the police in all sorts of ways.  No surprise there.  What’s really interesting is the media’s sensationalizing the assaults in question as “racially motivated.”

The gang members are all black and their victims have reportedly been white or Hispanic.  The police reported that the gang members used racial slurs in the attacks, but then declined to say how they knew that.  The media even quoted a ‘victim’ saying he was the victim of a “hate crime,” because he felt he was attacked for being white.

The liberal objective of proliferating “hate crime” status has been critiqued elsewhere at length–including predictions that hate crime laws would used to claim reverse racism or reverse whatever more often than not–so we won’t go into that here.  But let’s call this kind of crime for what it is.  Mugging is not racially motivated.  It is motivated by the need for money, which class society creates.  There are a diversity of people walking around in LoDo in Denver, and a whole lot of them are yuppies, but we’re still talking about random muggings.  If it hasn’t happened to you, it’s happened to ten people you know, and it fucking sucks.  It’s broke-on-broke crime.

Broke-on-broke crime means people aren’t robbing banks, or even stealing computers from art galleries, they’re ripping off poor and working folks for the little money or possessions they have.

Nevertheless, if the media can be trusted, none of the assaults targeted black folks.  And that wouldn’t be surprising.  Black youths’ consciousness has been formed in an environment where it is very clear that black people are getting fucked over.  Nobody likes someone who rips off their own people.  But we believe that race alone is a limited, even false, view of who your people are.

The Black Disciples and the Crips have their roots in revolutionary liberation struggles and in black nationalism.  Unfortunately, nationalism has limited ability to overthrow the entirety of oppression and class society, because that struggle must be beyond and against borders and nations, and also because nationalist groups reproduce domination and hierarchy internally.

In the context of a white supremacist society, it makes sense for black folks to organize together against white supremacy, even in exclusive ways.  But while race-based membership might be useful, race-based violence and crime never is.  We need to save the struggle and violence for our real enemies–those who stand in the way of our liberation and self-determination.  Hopefully, the “stop broke-on-broke crime” slogan will catch on.  Ditto bank robberies, boss-napping, and proletarian rioting and looting.

The solution to inter-proletarian violence is proletarian violence.

One more thing should be made clear.  Not all these people who were mugged were working-class.  A lot of them were yuppies.  Whoever they are, they have enough collective power and clout to bring the state down hard on these gangs.  And they get to say stupid shit about “hate crimes” in the paper, while the gang members themselves are silenced.

Nothing here but silencing

What do the 34 individuals have to say?, I would like to know.  But there is nothing here but silence.

Shortly after the arrests began, 9News reported that one suspect had called the TV station before turning himself in to the police.  They did not report what he said to them.  Nor did any news outlet report any statements from the suspects or their families.  Contrast this to the arrest of our comrade Ariel Attack in August.  In that incident there was one arrest, not 34, and journalists were constantly calling and harassing Ariel’s friends, roommates, supporters, family members, and any random ‘radical’ in Denver, in a desperate attempt to solicit a comment.  (They didn’t get a statement from anyone except Glen Spagnoli, who felt entitled as a self-appointed representative of Denver radicals to talk shit about the action Ariel was charged with.)

It is no secret that gangs are consistently denied a voice.  Why is that?  What would they have to say?

The fact is that the few statements that gang members have made publicly have been intelligent, revolutionary, and community-based in content.  For example, in the context of the L.A. rebellion, “The Human Relations Conference, against the advice of the police, gave a platform to sixty black gang leaders to present their greivances.  To the astonishment of the officials present, the ‘mad dogs’ outlined an eloquent and coherent set of demands: jobs, housing, better schools, recreation facilities and community control of legal institutions.” (Mike Davis, City of Quartz, pg 300).

But the police can’t have gangsters’ voices being heard.  They need to wage a war against gangs, and that would be bad PR.

The silencing of gang members opens up space for others to speak on their behalf.  News outlets didn’t interview the individuals who were arrested, but they did interview and publish lengthy statements from an ‘expert,’ a ‘representative.’  Clearly they will not allow gang members to speak for themselves, but are hungry for a more ‘official’ perspective.  The statements came from Reverend Leon Kelly, who runs a Denver gang-prevention program.  To settle any question of what side this Reverend is on, he stated that the arrests “will confirm to these kids that there is a consequence.”

Our task

If L.A.’s rebellions of 1965 and ‘92 were both preceded by gang truces, and these rebellions are real threats to bourgeois society, it would follow that the state’s interests would lie in the repression of gangs, fostering their infighting, and preventing the organization of another truce.

The evidence supports this thesis.  In June of 2009, a former gang member and gang truce organizer named Alex Sanchez was arrested in Los Angeles.  He is being held without bond on charges of being a gang member and allegedly being involved in some of the crimes that gang allegedly committed.

If we desire proletarian insurrection, we would be wise to note that it may all hinge on gangs.  Those of us who are also criminals, who roll in crews, have some things in common with gangsters.  At the very least, we share criminality, ways of being, antagonism to the police and the state, militancy, and a desire to riot and loot.  Everything indicates that we need to get organized, and everything seeks to prevent this from happening.

Anarchists need to know our hoods & our neighbors first and foremost.  Where are our relationships to the gangs in our city?

We do not mean to argue that relationships to gangs are more important than other reliationships in organizing in our ‘hoods, but that organizing our ‘hoods is where it’s at, and gangs are an important piece of the process.  Our ‘hoods are where we live, the places that we stand in struggling for liberation.  But they are also the places we know the least about.

This is, in part, a recognition of that everything about the insurrectionary process remains to be built.  It is also an admission that here we will stand and fight, so let us really begin to learn the territory of the coming battles, and prepare them for war.

War happens elsewhere, we have been taught.  In other places, in others’ lives.  Social peace is the ‘reward’ that comes with our privilege, our position of world dominance.  It is eminently dependent upon war elsewhere, war for others.

But some of us have recognized that something like war is being waged against us every day in the conditions of our existence.  In the cops who are arresting, beating and killing our friends and neighbors.  In the eviction notice from the landlord.  In the fact that we have to work in order to survive.  In the paramilitary attacks by racists, rapists, queerbashers, police of every stripe, who we often find living under our own roofs.

We are already at war.  The lines have already been drawn.  We have yet to recognize where we stand, and we have yet to find each other, our allies. We are divided against ourselves rather than united against our enemies.  We have yet to feel ourselves as a force.

The cops, the media, mediators and representatives of all kinds will do everything to prevent this from happening.

So it must be our task.

of interest:    Free Alex Sanchez:  wearealex.org //   LA ‘92, and the role of gangs: libcom.org/library/la-riots-aufheben-1

As described in the movie, Bangkok Dangerous, it’s true that you need to be aware of the scams that often happen to tourists. Having the look like other Asian girls, and some people mistook us as locaIs doesn’t guarantee we would get away from the scams.

Scam 1.

Beware when walking to Grand Palace area, you’ll be strolling through a park where some people with bunches of birds (pigeons) gather round and you’ll be forced to feed the birds – whether you like it or not – and forced to pay some money. Not really much amount (30-50 baht) compared to what I have had in Milan (50 euros), but still! For those allergic to birds or fear of birds (like me) better run through other ways further across the street!

Scam 2.

When you finally manage to cross the street to the Grand Palace, there will be people (in our case, a nice gentle and polite man) who greeted you in much of politeness “please don’t cross here miss, there’s a zebra cross over there, much safer”.  He introduced himself as one of officer who worked at the government and told us that the Palace was on a break at at the moment so please come back again in 2 more hours. Please always check the schedule of the place you want to visit, and bad for us, we didn’t know the Palace had break time.

He suggested us go to some temples (as he said to be not really touristic but very local and good) while waiting the Palace to be open again in 2 hours, and also bargain the Tuk-tuk in local language to take us there for only 50 bahts (he said, that’s the price for locals, if we bargained it ourselves we would pay more) – and we thanked him for it. We thought – Wow, there’s still a nice man in this world!

Then the tuk-tuk drove us to ‘the temples’, and when we arrived there, it was only small temple, really a local one, and I wasn’t really fascinated with the statues there (after having seen some, they all look the same to me), not to mention there was DOGS there. I hate dogs.  We decided to walk out when greeted by a man who claimed to be Director of that temple (such small temple..) in local language and apologised when he knew we were tourists from Indonesia.  (later on we realised maybe that was his trick to judge whether we were tourist or not). We had some discussion about the statues, then he also suggested us go to…gem factory. “You know that Thailand is really famous for its sapphire, you have to go this gem festival, it only happens every 25 years for a week!! You are very lucky to come at this dates!”. And we were naivettes and just gasped to imagine “the gem factory”, which each probably would only cost 100-300 bahts! He said the price started at 100 bahts, and visa accepted. Hm. What kind of factory accept visa..but probably because it’s big, and everyone will buy like crazy – and to bring cash is only attracting some pickpockets there – I started to rationalised that.

Then again, he showed the tuk –tuk driver to go to this place, which he pointed as “very near, only 15 minutes” – turned to be a hell of tuk-tuk journey with at least 35-40 minute ride. There were big demonstration in Bangkok when we were there, theThaksin-pro people (red shirts) vs. Incumbent-pro people (yellow shirts). And lucky we werenot wearing red since the red considered to be the brutal ones – said the locals. But our Tuk-tuk driver wore red, he was one of Thaksin fans, whom he adored to have populist policy by giving them money (suddenly I remember our own President…)

Anyway. The ‘Gem Factory’ here turned out to be just a small shops, and exclusive one, in residential area, with none of it costed less than 3000 bahts,  and that was just a small piece. Indeed, you could always swipe your Visa here, because it wasn’t much of factory at all to my imagination. If the ‘factory’ was like that, you can magine then what the wholesaler looks like.

And the tuk-tuk driver insisted to take us to the wholesaler. Actually it was a nice place, and much bigger than the ‘factory-where there was festival that held in every 25 years to commemorate the King’, and we could just easily find ourselves drooling over the nice blue, yellow, red sapphire with silver or white gold. There was also the ‘small factory’ with some craftsmen and women made the custom-made ring or necklace or earings we order. Since the ring I eyed costed a fortune (around 29,000 bahts) (and when I was busy calculating with my brain in Indonesian, the beautiful saleswoman was on the ball and swift the numbers into Rupiah currency (she understood Indonesian!!) – we walked out of there with emptyhanded. 29K bahts equals the total cost of our trip in Indochine for the whole 2 weeks!

We were starved to death, and the tuk-tuk driver, again, brought us to exclusive restaurant. OMG. He didn’t know any good cheap food stalls??

And when we decided to go to Grand Palace, it was never on a break, and always open from 9 am to 5 pm, and there was a sign in front of the ticketing place written “DO NOT TALK TO STRANGER, THAT MAYBE A SCAM”. Oh, Thank you very much…!

This story, just doesn’t happen to me but also to other friends who visited Bangkok, the modus is similar, but maybe the improvisation is bit different, but the escorting to gem factory part is always the same thing. The players are : the man or woman (who tell us the Palace is closed), the tuk-tuk driver who gets commission from each places he takes us, the temple guy or director whatever, and also the gem place (well they take advantage of ‘forcing people’ to visit). For other cases, ou can check out the website : www.bangkokscams.com . Well not that you shouldn’t go there, Bangkok is still worth visiting, just put on extra cautions, tourists are always easy targets, wherever, on this planet J