Other People's Stories: (Nearly) Taken in Thailand

My friends, a wonderful married couple now, recount a time when she was almost kidnapped in Thailand, a country they still visit almost yearly.

There were six of us, right, and we were trying to get a cab to take us to our next destination. There were two cabs there, and so the three guys stood there negotiating with one of the taxi drivers while the girls were sitting in the other cab. 

There were two girls at the back while I sat in front, with the door open, one leg out of the car. That's when our cab suddenly took off, right, and I had to reach for the car door to close it! I yelled at the taxi driver to Stop!! Stop!! but he just kept speeding away. 

Yeah, we were like 'What the _?' when we saw the other cab suddenly take off, right? 'Cause we never told that guy where we were going.

Man, I tell you, that look on B_'s face was one I will never forget. She turned towards me, her eyes wide open and dilated with fear and she was banging both arms against the window, yelling out to me.

We hopped into our cab, and told him to follow the other cab. We tried to catch up with the other cab, but he was driving too quickly, and he sped through the maze of back-alleys and small lanes until we lost him.

We were yelling at our taxi driver to call his friend in the other cab. He rang the friend's mobile but the friend would not answer. 

All that ran through my head was like, Oh man, what am I going to tell her parents, man. 

All three of us girls were shocked, silent with fear and stunned to the point of being unable to react. 
Yeah, you know what saved us? 

Thailand traffic.

We were caught up in a jam on a main road, and saw our chance to escape. We bolted out of the cab, and threw some baht onto the seats and just ran and ran, through like, eight lanes of traffic. 

We finally found a landmark and called the boys to come and get us. 

Thank God, man. I shudder to think what the guy's intentions were for us. 

Yeah, so, travel tip for Thailand. Make sure the guy is always the first to get into the cab, and the last to leave. I heard about a guy who was loading their shopping into the taxi's trunk when the cab took off with his wife in the backseat and she was never seen again.

These things are rare lah you know, but...

His voice trails off, and his eyes peer into an alternate universe for a moment where the girls did not escape, and he shudders a little and shakes his head back into a reality where she is across the table from him, smiling.