Lost and Found

"Hey can you call my phone for me?" I asked Ozzie over g-chat. I'd been hunting around for it in my room for the past ten minutes and decided this would be an easier way of locating it. I can be a bit difficult to reach by phone. I always forgetting to charge it, or forgetting I turned it off, or left it in my backpack, or my purse, or my room.

" haha someone answered who isn't you :) they said heidi wasn't there :)" Ozzie replies. What the hey? Ohhh nooo... It couldn't be true. I'd made my weekend visit to starbucks and must have accidentally left it there! And someone had picked it up? I mean, people don't really surprise me. But it is annoying to think that someone didn't have the decency to simply inform the starbucks staff that they'd found someone's phone.

me:     ummmm
           great
           do you know anything else?
           like where they were?
Ozzie: nope
           did you lose your phone?
me:     yep
Ozzie: or lend it to someone?
me:     nope
Ozzie: do you want me to call and ask if they'll give it back?
           ha ha
me:     yep
Ozzie: no answer....
me:     oh good grief

Well this was a find kettle of fish. And Ozzie had been in direct communication with the culprit!!! It was maddening to think of.

Ozzie: no worries, Heidime:     um... thanks?Ozzie: I lost a phone once           it's not too bad :)           you can get numbers from me if you want when you get a new phone           if you can't find your old one
I wasn't about to give up so easily though. I mean, sure, it was a long shot. But I don't make enough money to let expensive things like phones just walk off like that. Especially when whoever has walked off with the phone is dumb enough to answer it when someone calls! I convinced Ozzie to call Anisha, thinking they might just be dumb enough to answer a new number. Turns out I was right! Anisha not only got them to answer, she got them to divulge their location. 
Ozzie: okay the woman answered and said she is at the Night Bazaar. Anisha recommended that you go and call from a pay phone or something and meet up with her somehow. I'm not really sure how to meet up with her but Anisha thought if you went down there, found a pay phone, called your phone then you could meet up me: wow, seriously? (I was still amazed that this woman had not only answered the phone, but told Anisha her location). Ozzie: yeahme: wow        ok, well I guess it's worth a shot       that would be awkward though       what do you thinkOzzie: Anisha said she would go there asap because she thought the woman might leave soon - so I would go there, find a pay phone, call, and then meet up and get your phone back. who cares about awkwardness.
And so it was I found myself racing through the streets of Chiang Mai in attempt to apprehend a cell phone thief. I promise, I do not try to get into these situations. They just happen to me. 
I was half skeptical of the whole thing. I thought Ozzie might be playing a trick on me. I would go down there and he would be there with the other CVs waiting for me. "Heeyyyy Heidi! Dude! I'm sorry someone took your phone! Let's hang out and get some rotee!" Either that or no one would be there and the next day they would gleefully ask if I had actually gone to the Night Bazaar. "Dude! Heidi! That is hilarious that you actually went man! I didn't think you'd actually do it!" 
But I parked my bike and began a frantic search for a pay phone. I finally located one next to a bathroom and began jamming change into it and dialing my number. No dice. I couldn't get the blasted thing to work. I looked around the market, wondering which of the innocent-looking faces in front of me might be walking around with my phone! I tried a different pay phone. This one worked. I wasn't sure what I would do if someone picked up. 
"sawatdi ka" a voice on my cell phone answered. I swallowed."Hello, I think you have my phone," I said, meekly. How bizarre was this? she replied in broken but fairly fluent English that, yes, she did. Well obviously as she was talking on the ruddy thing! "Are you at the Night Bazaar?"
No. she was at her hotel. But when pressed she kindly gave me the name of it and its location. It was "by the train station." I had a hard time understanding her, but I got the name of the hotel, that it was a white building, and that it was near the s.o. gas station. "Well, could you leave it at the front desk for me?" I asked as politely as I could manage. Really, I could not believe I was having to talk this person around to returning my phone to me. 
After hanging up, I wasn't sure what to do. The sensible thing would be to look at a map, but I didn't have mine with me, having left in a hurry. I'd never been to the train station before, but I could remember seeing it marked on my map and had a pretty good idea of where it was. However, the odds of my finding her hotel were not awesome. I imagined it was probably some tiny hole in the wall, off on some side street, with signage that was all in Thai characters. Or perhaps this was all some diabolical trick to lure me into a trap. I imagined arriving at the hotel only to find that she had moved on to another, more remote location. I would continue to call her and she would lead me further and further out of Chiang Mai and before I knew it I would be trapped in the headquarters of some secret society. This is what happens when you have an over-active imagination. 
But of course I couldn't give up now. so I hopped back on my bike and headed in the general direction of the train station. Motoring across Chiang Mai made me feel like batman chasing down the joker, or possibly like sherlock holmes hunting down moriarty. "The game is afoot!" I thought to myself. I spotted an "Esso" (ahhh, s.o.!) gas station and decided to stop and ask for directions. Luckily, I could remember the word for train in Thai. It was not in the direction I had thought. I turned around and stopped to ask someone at a rotee stand. They pointed the same way. 
"Are you lost?" a burly man with a northern Englandish sounding accent asked me. He had just pulled up on a motorbike and was holding what seemed to be his young daughter. I told him I was looking for the train station. "Ah, it's a bit complicated. One moment, I'll just help this young girl," he said to his wife. "If you go that way, there'll be a big tree. Turn right and you'll go past the train station. If you get to a stoplight, you've gone too far." His wife (who was Thai) eyed my purse in my front basket with concern. "You should be careful or some naughty boys will steal that," she warned me. I thanked them both for their advice and shot off. Unfortunately there were about five big trees. I tried turning right at one of them and ended up at a dead end. But the next turn I tried was the right one. Before long I saw train tracks and then the station. success!
And yet, how to find the hotel. I cruised the perimeter of the train station, hoping to find another "Esso." I nearly gave it up when I ended up at the highway. "I should just take this home and try calling again," I thought. But there was one road left I hadn't tried, and so I turned around and sure enough, there was an Esso gas station with a brightly lit, swank hotel not far from it. 
Until this point, I'd been making up stories about this woman to excuse her for walking off with my phone. Perhaps she was not very well-off and needed the phone in order to call her ailing grandmother. But when I saw how nice her hotel was, I just had to shake my head. I do not understand people. 
Glowing with success I strode through the doors and asked the woman at reception if anyone had turned in a phone. I wasn't sure if the lady had actually done so. I was half apprehensive that she might be working at the hotel and that I might be speaking with her. 
"A man came and picked it up," I was told. Wha!? Now this I did not see coming... Perhaps it was another phone. "Was it a black nokia?" I asked. "Yes. Your friend came and got it. Ozzie?" How the heck had Ozzie known where it was? I was puzzled, but there was nothing I could do except head back. 
secure in the knowledge that my phone had been retrieved, I went straight to my dorm. I could get the phone from Ozzie later. Lo and behold, he pulled up to the gate at the same time I did. When I asked him how he'd gotten my phone, he told me that the woman had called him. Well, good for her. 

  

Anyhow, all's well that ends well. But may I just say: what the heck is wrong with people!?