The incident came to light when a video of the tuk-tuk driver chasing down the men was posted on TikTok earlier today (Mar 25).
The name of the tuk-tuk driver was not revealed, but in the video a man in a yellow shirt with a hip pack slung over his shoulder took exception to one of the tourists and chased after him down the street.
He ceased his pursuit only after a Thai man recording the video shouted from him to stop.
The video was also posted on Facebook by ‘Base Sae-jo", accusing the tourists of being drunk. However, the tourist being chased appeared to be noticeably agile and aware.
The Phuket News was told that the driver had parked the tuk-tuk and left the key in the ignition while he went to solicit customers.
Four foreign men got into the tuk-tuk, started the engine and drove away.
At this stage police have yet to confirm whether any complaints have been filed over the incident.
The intense reaction by the man who appeared to be the tuk-tuk driver follows an incident in Patong on Tuesday night (Mar 23) when a motorbike taxi driver pursued a female Thai tourist over the motorbike taxi driver’s belief that she and her friends had recorded him producing a weapon in public.
The tourist, Orathai Aeampet, posted a video of the motorbike taxi driver pursuing her while she sat on the back of another motorbike taxi on her Facebook page.
The video was shared on the Thai-language Facebook page “Urgent incident Let’s together help Phuket V.2” ("เหตุด่วนเหตุร้าย ร่วมด้วยช่วยกัน ภูเก็ต V.2”).
“There is no safety for tourists. We just drive along like this. Where is the safety?” Ms Orathai said in the post.
“Try to think about whether Patong is a tourist attraction nowadays or not? Can you carry a weapon too?”
Ms Orathai explained that she and her friends were about to record a video of themselves singing together on the street when a group of motorbike taxi drivers started verballing them.
The motorbike taxi drivers believed the group of women wanted to record them. However, the women had already noticed one of the drivers carrying a weapon and decided to not record anything, and promptly left, Ms Orathai said.
As shown in a later video, the weapon was a large knife.
One of the drivers, the one with the large knife, unconvinced the women did not record any videos, pursued the motorbike Ms Orathai was riding as passenger.
Fearful, Ms Orathai repeated her explanations that no previous video was recorded, while recording the motorbike taxi driver pursuing her. In this video the motorbike taxi driver is seen putting the knife away on his motorbike.
Patong Police publicly recognised the incident through a Facebook post of their own, but only to report that the “two parties” were both called to Patong Police Station “to discuss and resolve the issue”.
The motorbike taxi driver was named only as “Mr Teerawat”.
“Mr Teerawat apologised and admitted his mistake and is ready to be punished and prosecuted in all respects,” Patong Police reported.
“The Patong Police Station has taken further legal action,” was all the report said.
Additional reporting by Eakkapop Thongtub
GerryT81 | 27 March 2022 - 14:53:44