Several years ago I was out with the boys on Soi 6.

Strictly for sociological research.

Nick was drinking vodkas. Sammie was searching for Ms. Perfect, and young Marton was wrestling with an undersized bargirl on the sofa for what seemed to be about an hour. He weighs in at 85 kilos and she couldn’t have been more than 42, however he was never able to pin her without coming across with a 200 baht bar fine.

In the end Marton was out of breath.

Noticing a CCTV in the corner I asked the mama-san if she could play the last 30 minutes. She wasn’t sure how to accomplish this, however Sammie is an electrician for the Aussie Post Office and within a minute we were viewing Marton’s wrestling match..

We wanted to buy a copy to send his wife.

Marton outbid us with a 1000 baht tip to the mama-san.

These CCTVs are meant to survey the bars for any wrong-doings; sex, drugs, and violence.

Mostly the footage is old men drinking beer.

Not a crime anywhere but Saudi Arabia, although later that month an interesting hoax email popped up on teakdoor.com with a farang complaining about being stopped at Cobra Swamp Airport for questioning.

Here’s his email:

I had a big problem going home. Via the internet, I discovered a few bars had streaming web cams. I wanted to show off a bit to my mates back home, so I arranged a time for them to view me in the bars getting pissed and frolicking with all the pretty birds. I made sure I “hammed it up” with the ladies right in front of the web cams. That was the biggest mistake I’ve made in my life, and at the time, I had no clue. Here’s what happened.

All went well during my trips to Bangkok and Pattaya, but the problems started at the new airport upon leaving for home. I arrived at the exit visa desk and I was soon escorted by three Thai police to a private and strange room. They kept me in the room for almost an hour asking me all sorts of personal questions about my holiday in Thailand.

They queried me about where I had visited; which bars I had patronized; which girls I had brought back to my hotel room; and more silly questions. I gave all very honest and forthright answers, since I knew I had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Then, the three police took me to some official who took my passport and stamped it with the wording “persona non gratis Thailand” (in Thai) Then, I was taken into some horrible holding cell for several hours. After that I was escorted to my flight and sent home.

Upon arrival back into the UK, customs did a complete search of me, my camera, laptop, everything. This searching took most of the day, and finally I was released. Then it gets much, much worse. Two days later the police arrived at my place of employment with a search warrant and seized my work computer and all my external hard drives. Trying to explain to my employer what this was all about was a major challenge and disaster, and I was soon relieved of my job.

Then, the police arrived at my flat with a search warrant and examined the entire contents of the flat. They seized my computer, and to this day it hasn’t been returned. I was then escorted to the local cop shop for further questioning about my Thailand holiday.

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The consensus on the teakdoor forum was this email was a fake.

But people are watching so wear clean underwear just in case it was the truth.

Pi-Sow Yai is watching.