Pattaya Municipal Council workers called in the police after they spotted thieves trying to make off with a rather large cast iron drain cover.
Pattaya Police officers arrived at the scene in Soi 8 Naklua to find two diminutive Thai men and one large cast iron drain cover. The metal cover was weighing in at about 150Kg and one meter wide. the two Thai men a little over one meter tall and about 50Kg each wet through. They had already loaded their haul onto a motorcycle sidecar combo and were just catching before driving off - they were pretty well drained after the exertion of removing and loading the drain cover.
There was another co-conspiritor but he had done a runner when the plod showed up - he was caught and charged later. The two men arrested at the scene of the theft were: Khun Prapat aged 42 and Khun Tawee aged 43.
They told the police that they had stolen the cover to sell for scrap to raise money to buy whiskey to celebrate Songkran. It would have been poetic justice if they had gotton away with their thieving idea, bought the whisky, got drunk, and then drove down the hole they had left in the street.
