'How to get mugged off in Thailand, for dummies' by Katharine Weaver, Nicola Helm and Lisa McDonald

ooh la la je suis francaise! Moi avec Lisa's wardrobe

We thought we were getting a bit more streetwise to these sly thais who would sooner take you to their cousins dress shop than to the hospital, even if your leg was hanging off, and on fire. We thought we would start our new frame of mind as we moved from Bangkok up North to Chiang Mai. We hadn't even left the airport before they were trying it on. The distance between the two cities is like London to Manchester, and somehow, quite amazingly, they managed to lose my bag. Better still they had no idea where it was. After much form filling out and lost in translation moments and we decided to go to our hotel..the Royal Lanna (that's 'Loyal Ranna' to all our Thai speakers), which is pretty good esp as its next to McDonalds and Starbucks, haha! We asked the receptionists there to call the airline and find out whats going on as their Thai is probably better than ours. So they called about 3 times and didn't say much. Then they said the bag was on its way. Then nothing...for hours. The receptionists fobbed us off as hard as they could, and then just said the airport was shut (at 8pm) and don't bother them until the morning. Oh and all the calls they have made are being charged to our room. We ever so politely told the young lady where she could stick it, and got in some weird van/taxi driven by a husband/wife combo and went back to the airport. We found a mass of lost bags in there but not my beast, so I decided to shout at some Thai, creating a little bit of a scene, and Nicola then dicussed it over with some guy from the airline. Well I don't know what Nicola said but she got some guy called 'Nit's own personal mobile number and the promise that we would get it back asap, I think he was after some no strings attached coffee. The next morning I dressed myself up in Lisa's clothes and looked like some French sailor, but then we get a call that the bag had been found. We got it back, a bit battered, but all in one piece!