Fun With the Royal Thai Police (updated)

Today's writing comes with two little tidbits of advice. First of all, If you ever have to deal with the Royal Thai Police force, I strongly advise against it. Secondly, when you are helping your friend move furniture from his old house to his new house, make sure the neighbors know who you are and what you are doing. Failure to do so will inevitably invoke a visit from the fore mentioned Royal Thai Police force.

Here's the story. My German friend called me up and asked if I could help him move. I gladly obliged especially after the promise of a free meal. Along with one of my Thai friends, we managed to come up with a couple small trucks, and set out to do the deed on Sunday. Upon arrival, we started moving furniture out into the driveway in preparation for loading it into the trucks. No sooner than we finished moving everything out, I noticed a Thai policeman standing at the gate. In his left hand was a cell phone camera, and his right placed firmly on what I quickly identified as a Colt Python .357 Magnum. At that point I heard probably the only word of English he knew "STOP!". And it worked!

So, here we are:

1. An American who speaks English and limited Thai.
   
2. A German who speaks German, some English but better Thai than me
3. A Thai who speaks Thai and (somewhat correct) English.
4. A Thai Policeman who speaks Thai and knows how to say "STOP!"
5. Two nosy Thai neighbor ladies who are somehow related to the landlady
6. The Thai landlady (on the phone) who speaks NO English

The first thought that crossed my mind was one that I will spare you from reading. After about an hour or so of playing the language barrier game, it all boiled down to the rightful owner of a laundry rack. An agreement couldn't be made without the presence of the landlady and the laundry rack in question. Neither of which could be at the house at that particular moment. A future meeting time and date was set for the landlady to view said laundry rack and allow for the rest of the furniture to be removed. So, we then spent the next hour moving all the furniture BACK inside the house. It's all the fun of moving only you don't actually take anything anywhere.

Tomorrow will be round two, and hopefully this was my last encounter with the Thai Police. I will give the guy some credit though. He managed to take command of the situation and utilize all the different translation possibilities he could. By the end, I actually saw him crack a smile when a resolution was reached.

UPDATE: Moving day number two was not quite so eventful, but did get quite expensive for my friend. The deed is done, and the laundry rack has been lost. My friend still claims that it was his, but not worth arguing about anymore. At 7:00am he met the landlords at the house and they made a full list of what items were his and what items belonged to the property. Minus the laundry rack, he was pleased. The issue with the deposit however was not so simple. They refused to refund his 8,000 baht deposit despite the house being in immaculate condition. In addition, they demanded the payment of an additional 3,000 baht for "their" trouble, and failure to pay would result in another visit from the police. He paid the money, but while removing the rest of the furniture, the landlord laid claim to a couple more pieces of my friend's furniture. When we asked to look at the list that they had agreed to it suddenly turned up missing. At this point it was just time to cut our losses and walk away. What a nightmare. When dealing with the local law, it is always the foreigner who is in the wrong. Trying to prove otherwise is generally more expensive and time consuming than just paying the fee, fine, or whatever else they cook up.