Myth Or Reality: Thieves Hijack A Bus Full Of Tourist

[ITGabs]

I heard that one time in thailand a group of thief assault an entirely bus full of tourist

stealing everything from the bus, they left only the passports, flight tickets and a bit of money.

apparently they put somniferous gas in the night when all the tourist slept, nobody know how the thieves stolen everything.

friends from different countries warned me about many kinds of theft and cheating before traveling to Thailand, this is the only story that could be a myth, any of you know if this really happened?

[chuang]

Suggest you wear a gas-mask when travelling on a tour bus....

[Soutpeel]

Suggest you wear a gas-mask when travelling on a tour bus....

and to be super safe a chemical suit as well..

[Payboy]

The midget in the luggage compartment is so 1980's.

[Swiss1960]

apparently they put somniferous gas in the night when all the tourist slept, nobody know how the thieves stolen everything.

So credible... their are for sure plenty of tour operators who let the tourist sleep in a bus somewhere on a parking place in the middle of the night and not offering hotel rooms... or then plenty of thiefs who will climb the rolling bus and inject gas and get it to stop without having any accident...

so you better keep away from any bus...

[Eff1n2ret]

"....stealing everything from the bus, they left only the passports, flight tickets and a bit of money."

<deleted>. The sort of people who would do that wouldn't scruple about taking every bit of cash, and they wouldn't leave passports, which are worth a lot of money in the wrong hands.

[ITGabs]

yes I have my doubts seems to me that nobody in Thailand know about this history but.

The VIP bus in Thailand have two levels and have two access to the luggage compartment, one in the front and one close to the toilet door.

The VIP usually have accidents or more that the normal thai bus. I had one, the stupid driver take a short cut in some town and get part of the roof off with a small bridge, no bus changing or an attempt to fix the roof. people complain because the rain and cold but the stuff not do nothing.

and for example between Bangkok and Krabi the bus stop in Suratani, 1 2 3 4 hours? I think this is usually in many of another long routes.

When people tell me this history was not a joke, was the typical urban myth like the friend of the friend, I ask almost the same and very skeptical.

I remember this history because recently I saw "trouble in Thailand"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DtAWRtcQLk

I think could be true, VIP are very unprofessional, unsafe and cheap, 100% for noob backpackers, plus a long stop like in Suratany with bad weather or flooding... I think the gas is so much, but I think everyone knows about somniferous in the beer, water or wherever from girl bar, wherever NN people.

I heard this story about 5 years ago from backpackers that being in Thailand

So if worst and stranger things happened in Thailand, this is not so freak, I think...

[Ulysses G.]

Just take the government busses at bus stations. The ripoff buses are always private busses and usually to/from Kao San Road.

[Chicog]

You learn something new every day, somniferous. I may try and use that in the pub later if someone is boring me with reasons to watch Manchester Dhabi instead of Arsenal.

But the OP sounds a bit of a fairy story.

It's certainly happened on minibuses to Pattaya though, a French team knocked out some Kuwaitis, got out of the bus before the hotel, and when the Kuwaitis emerged they'd lost everything worth stealing.

But that was something somniferous in beefburgers IIRC.

[DP25]

It's an urban legend. I heard the same stories from other Americans the first time I went backpacking in Europe. Especially in Italy, the way people talked every train was getting hit by gangs using knockout gas to rob passengers. It's not real, knockout gas as used in the stories does not exist. There has only been one documented use of such a gas in all of history, in the Moscow Theatre Seige in 2002, when terrorists took over a theatre and the Russian military used some unknown secret gas to attempt to knock everyone out. Unforuntely the gas as used in these stories is not real, because the real gas used by the Russians ended up killing almost 200 people instead of just knocking them out. The gas from the stories, where everyone wakes up the next day completely fine exept for a few missing items, does not exist.

[sbk]

Never heard of knockout gas but the person in the luggage compartment is (or at least was) a fact. Happened to people I knew more than once. The buses to avoid are, as UG so rightly points out, the ones that depart from Khao San Road. Go to the government bus station and take a government bus.

[BookMan]

My niece had her Kindle and various other things stolen from her bag in the luggage compartment last year in Thailand.

She also told me of how a backpacker she met told the story of waking up in the bus groggy and seeing a man in the aisle with a gas mask on.

How seriously you can take this story I don't know...

My niece didn't take any more buses after that, preferring to fly.

[barefoot1988]

nope. only heard about those stories when they wake up with sore bottoms

[Payboy]

nope. only heard about those stories when they wake up with sore bottoms

From passing too much somniferous gas?

[ITGabs]

thanks for the comments

It's an urban legend. I heard the same stories from other Americans the first time I went backpacking in Europe. Especially in Italy, the way people talked every train was getting hit by gangs using knockout gas to rob passengers. It's not real, knockout gas as used in the stories does not exist. There has only been one documented use of such a gas in all of history, in the Moscow Theatre Seige in 2002, when terrorists took over a theatre and the Russian military used some unknown secret gas to attempt to knock everyone out. Unforuntely the gas as used in these stories is not real, because the real gas used by the Russians ended up killing almost 200 people instead of just knocking them out. The gas from the stories, where everyone wakes up the next day completely fine exept for a few missing items, does not exist.

I heard the history from Americans and Germans when I went backpacking in NZ and OZ so probably is a mix between that histories and the thing what happened in Pattaya

[cdnvic]

Years ago buses did get robbed in remote areas, but the knockout gas stories are just another Thai urban legend.

[Ulysses G.]

I agree that the sleeping gas stories (in Thailand) are urban legends, but a staff member on chartered busses going through people's luggage when they were asleep used to be pretty common.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Ulysses G.

[Swiss1960]

I agree that the sleeping gas stories are urban legends, but a staff member on chartered busses going through people's luggage when they were asleep used to be pretty common.

Well, in Europe (Italy, Poland), there have been some pretty well documented cases (documented in some normally reliable newspapers) where people were robbed while sleeping in the train and whatever kind of anesthetic gas was suspected... train companies did later change all locks on those sleeping wagons and those stories disappeared soon after...

[phuturatica]

I've been on a bus which has had someone robbing things from the luggage department, however I am not stupid enough to leave anything valuable in the luggage area.

[cdnvic]

I agree that the sleeping gas stories are urban legends, but a staff member on chartered busses going through people's luggage when they were asleep used to be pretty common.

Well, in Europe (Italy, Poland), there have been some pretty well documented cases (documented in some normally reliable newspapers) where people were robbed while sleeping in the train and whatever kind of anesthetic gas was suspected... train companies did later change all locks on those sleeping wagons and those stories disappeared soon after...

If those stories were true there would be many deaths involved. Anaesthesia is a rather exacting science done by professionals for a reason. Too little and it doesn't work, too much and someone dies. To knock someone out on a bus or a train would take a ridiculous amount of gas to get the concentration in the air to a sufficient level, and that's not something one can do without being noticed, gassing yourself, or starting a fire.

People prefer to think they were gassed rather than admitting they got robbed and slept through it.

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

I have a friend who passes gas that is enough to knock you out. That would be an improvement over the smell. But as far as the somniferous gas goes I think that is a urban mist.

[cooked]

My sister in law got knocked out by a guy opening the door while the occupants were sleeping and spraying something, in Italy. She is a doctor and to be believed. They were robbed of course. This happened about 30 years ago.

[bendejo]

The highwaymen -style bus robberies are not that rare in certain South American countries. Ecuador definitely, maybe parts of Peru and Colombia. Never heard of it in Argentina nor Brazil, but in those countries it is now usually cheaper to fly than take a long-distance bus.

Every evening you can see the rip-off buses boarding on Ratchadamnoen, KSR backpackers queued up in droves. No worries! Next step I'm anticipating is solicitors handing out their cards to them, saying "calling me tomorrow after your things have been stolen."

[damo]

February 2004, a Hmong attack on Rte 13 killed eight Lao bus passengers, plus two Swiss tourists

http://adventures.worldnomads.com/destination/116/travelguide/4/Laos/Dangers-and-annoyances.aspx

At the time I wanted to travel overland through Loas to Vietnam, my wife found out about this and we decided otherwise. Trains used to get boarded by armed thieves in Phitsanalok BKK bound and passengers robbed at gun and knife point throughout the evening until Pichit or Nakon Sawan, then they started to police the trains at night and it stopped. No gas though.