The "To Jomtien" baht bus queue in South Pattaya a cauldron of violence

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I think it is HORRIBLE advice to suggest that any foreigner try to fight with or try to break up a fight with a potential mob of THUGGISH Thais! You can hurl your "Queen" insults all you like. I've heard worse. Anyone can read the bloody results in the local news about what happens when foreigners try such games. I can assure you lots of these events NEVER make the news ... the ones that make the news are the tip of the iceberg.

You can push this macho crap that foreigners should risk their lives this way, but I won't let that kind of dangerous advice stand without comment.

BTW, yes. I do think it is is OBVIOUS that at least some of the workers involved in the baht bus trade have out of control RAGE and are likely clinically insane, and I hope you aren't doubting my report of being threatened with a stun gun.

I stand by my Drama Queen comment.

I certainly did not suggest that anyone tries to fight or even break up a fight. My suggestion was to get in there before it escalates.

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

I realise that it is not something that the likes of you would ever attempt, but nevertheless, your use of hyperbole to bolster your drama sickens me ever so slightly.

[chris2004]

I am glad I bought a motorbike after four years of not having problems at the baht bus stop.

How does that help when you want to get back to Jomtien at 11 pm and are pissed ?

[Jingthing]

I stand by my Drama Queen comment.

...

I stand by my thoughts about you which can't be posted.

You got your snarky insult in and now you stand by it.

Life is good!

[impulse]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

[Jingthing]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

In this case I didn't even see the start of it until fists were flying ...

Coincidentally last night I witnessed a security guard brutalizing a frail old white man. There were no transport gangs about, actually a bunch of white people mostly, so I screamed at the guard HEY THAT'S AN OLD MAN hoping to shame him ... He totally ignored me and nobody else in the crowd seemed interested to help either. The incident later diffused but that guard had entered the AUTO FACE ZONE and bulldozers couldn't have stopped him from doing what he was going to do. (As the other incident, I don't know what the conflict was about, the old man most probably was a jerk, but there was no excuse for the way he was being handled by the guard.)

So much for respect for the elderly.

I really think something nasty is in the air. Something to do with the government breaking down. There is so much hostility among local Thai people towards white people. It was under the surface before but trust me it is breaking out MORE now. If you're not feeling this and you live here, perhaps check your pulse.

For every case that makes the news, there might be 1000 cases that happen and never get reported at all.

Be careful.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Jingthing

[Jiu-Jitsu]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

As long as the fists/weapons aren't flying, you can stop it from happening. Seems that there is more than one DQ on the board.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I stand by my Drama Queen comment.

...

I stand by my thoughts about you which can't be posted.

You got your snarky insult in and now you stand by it.

Life is good!

No 'snarky insult'. You have a tendency to over-dramatise things. I'm sure that I am not the first to notice.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

In this case I didn't even see the start of it until fists were flying ...

Coincidentally last night I witnessed a security guard brutalizing a frail old white man. There were no transport gangs about, actually a bunch of white people mostly, so I screamed at the guard HEY THAT'S AN OLD MAN hoping to shame him ... He totally ignored me and nobody else in the crowd seemed interested to help either. The incident later diffused but that guard had entered the AUTO FACE ZONE and bulldozers couldn't have stopped him from doing what he was going to do. (As the other incident, I don't know what the conflict was about, the old man most probably was a jerk, but there was no excuse for the way he was being handled by the guard.)

So much for respect for the elderly.

I really think something nasty is in the air. Something to do with the government breaking down. There is so much hostility among local Thai people towards white people. It was under the surface before but trust me it is breaking out MORE now. If you're not feeling this and you live here, perhaps check your pulse.

For every case that makes the news, there might be 1000 cases that happen and never get reported at all.

Be careful.

..and here we are again.

[Jingthing]

..and here we are again.

Please in future refrain from changing the EMPHASIS in text you have quoted. You may do that with your OWN text. Not of others. Cheers.

[ginglee]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

In this case I didn't even see the start of it until fists were flying ...

Coincidentally last night I witnessed a security guard brutalizing a frail old white man. There were no transport gangs about, actually a bunch of white people mostly, so I screamed at the guard HEY THAT'S AN OLD MAN hoping to shame him ... He totally ignored me and nobody else in the crowd seemed interested to help either. The incident later diffused but that guard had entered the AUTO FACE ZONE and bulldozers couldn't have stopped him from doing what he was going to do. (As the other incident, I don't know what the conflict was about, the old man most probably was a jerk, but there was no excuse for the way he was being handled by the guard.)

So much for respect for the elderly.

I really think something nasty is in the air. Something to do with the government breaking down. There is so much hostility among local Thai people towards white people. It was under the surface before but trust me it is breaking out MORE now. If you're not feeling this and you live here, perhaps check your pulse.

For every case that makes the news, there might be 1000 cases that happen and never get reported at all.

Be careful.

......I hope you're wrong.......

[Jingthing]

......I hope you're wrong.......

Of course.

The point is avoidance of conflict has ALWAYS been a good tactic in Pattaya.

Now, I think, more so.

My opinion is the trip wires are MORE SENSITIVE now.

[Jingthing]

I had an experience last night that reinforced my strong opinion that a more organized queue management would be a major improvement of the status quo in South Pattaya. Trying to board the bus, with the usual pushing, shoving, and queue jumping, I noticed one man who was fighting with me personally to go ahead of me. I have found if you want a seat you have to go with the flow and be aggressive too (as there is no system to regulate this). When I did board it became clear this man had a special PHYSICAL problem and really did need to have the end seat. It made me think as bad as the situation now is for able bodied people, imagine how much worse it is for those with serious mobility problems.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Jingthing

[DD13]

JT & JJ.....

Why don't you two meet up...have a beer or coffee.....you might get along better....maybe even like each other.....at worst....at best..... you may become real buddies

We are all fish in different waters from where we come from..

Just a thought

ps....The inter-banter on here is why I enjoy this forum

Edited February 16, 2014 by DD13

[impulse]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

As long as the fists/weapons aren't flying, you can stop it from happening. Seems that there is more than one DQ on the board.

Too lazy to retype, so here's a copy and paste from one of my recent posts:

You do what you want.

I'm posting these for the benefit of people who haven't yet made up their mind whether they want to think with their big balls or their brains. I'm sure some of these guys wish they had chosen differently.

If one tourist reads this thread and goes home with a great story instead of in a box, or paralyzed for life, it's a win- and well worth the effort- as far as I'm concerned.

As for young and fit, enjoy it while it lasts. Though it won't help you much when there's 12 of them.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/704124-angry-pattaya-van-driver/page-4

One of my favorite stories is the one about the old bull and the young bull.

They’re standing in the back 40 when a truckload of cows is unloaded at the front gate, a few hundred yards away.

“Let’s run over there real quick and mount one of those heifers”, says the young bull.

To which the old bull replies, “No, let’s walk over there and get them all.”

You'll get it some day...

Edited February 16, 2014 by impulse

[Jiu-Jitsu]

There is usually a period of posturing wherein you can get in there and lessen the tension and give both sides a way out.

Blink and you'll miss it. Then you're in the soup, and all your Jiu Jitsu won't save you from a 12 on 1 beating.

As long as the fists/weapons aren't flying, you can stop it from happening. Seems that there is more than one DQ on the board.

Too lazy to retype, so here's a copy and paste from one of my recent posts:

You do what you want.

I'm posting these for the benefit of people who haven't yet made up their mind whether they want to think with their big balls or their brains. I'm sure some of these guys wish they had chosen differently.

If one tourist reads this thread and goes home with a great story instead of in a box, or paralyzed for life, it's a win- and well worth the effort- as far as I'm concerned.

As for young and fit, enjoy it while it lasts. Though it won't help you much when there's 12 of them.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/704124-angry-pattaya-van-driver/page-4

One of my favorite stories is the one about the old bull and the young bull.

They’re standing in the back 40 when a truckload of cows is unloaded at the front gate, a few hundred yards away.

“Let’s run over there real quick and mount one of those heifers”, says the young bull.

To which the old bull replies, “No, let’s walk over there and get them all.”

You'll get it some day...

Perhaps I've already 'got it' and it is you who haven't. Have you considered that possibility?

I don't run and hide my tail between my legs at the first sign of trouble, but I also don't take on more than I can handle. If I can stop someone from getting hurt, I will.

You guys can run away or do nothing.

Perhaps you just have a limited imagination if you think that I'll going rushing in if there are the odds of which you speak. I would more than likely to tell the ones who are going to get the worst punishment to leave the scene, whilst at the same time cooling the tempers of the other side.

If my warnings are not heeded, I'll move right along.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Jiu-Jitsu

[impulse]

Perhaps I've already 'got it' and it is you who haven't. Have you considered that possibility?

You shot that possibility in the ass by your condescending posts. There's a million ways to steer someone toward the possibility they may be wrong without calling them names. Yet you chose the low road.

[Rimmer]

Off topic bickering posts and replies to them removed. Enough! Everyone is bored reading this on going fight.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Has there been a fight here? Did I miss it?? Expecting a report from Jingthing very soon.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Perhaps I've already 'got it' and it is you who haven't. Have you considered that possibility?

You shot that possibility in the ass by your condescending posts. There's a million ways to steer someone toward the possibility they may be wrong without calling them names. Yet you chose the low road.

I "shot the possibility in the ass" of you "getting it?? How did I do that?? Does that even make sense?

Seems that you prefer to shoot yourself in the foot.

I say what I mean and mean what I say. No need to beat about the bush.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

JT & JJ.....

Why don't you two meet up...have a beer or coffee.....you might get along better....maybe even like each other.....at worst....at best..... you may become real buddies

We are all fish in different waters from where we come from..

Just a thought

ps....The inter-banter on here is why I enjoy this forum

A rather sickening thought.....

[wpcoe]

Your mileage may vary. Evenings get more intense in general. Anyone who uses this queue almost daily as I do, especially at night, I reckon will understand my OP.

Cheers.

The mileage I saw that day was just so different than any other time I've seen/used that queue. It's usually mob rule with the aggressive folks rushing past anybody patiently waiting as soon as a bus pulls up. More than once, when the group waiting was fairly large, I've seen people bypass the bus currently being boarded and go directly to the bus parked in front of it so that it can be full by the time it reverses into position to be the current bus boarding.

I have never seen such an orderly group of folks waiting for a baht bus at that corner. Twice in one afternoon, no less. When I go into Pattaya it's usually mid-afternoon, so the time was about the same as usual. Bizarre.

[namasata]

English is the official language for ASEAN

The thais will have to learn it

Sent from my GT-S5310B using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Then maybe the Russians should learn it too.

[infinity11]

in response to OP title:

so what else is new?

Edited February 18, 2014 by infinity11

[Jingthing]

in response to OP title:

so what else is new?

Yes, not new.

But because I had witnessed a fresh violent incident, I felt it was worthy of a topic here.

[Jingthing]

First question.

Can some one tell me a not horribly rude but still firm way to say in RUSSIAN --

There is a queue here!

When Russian people, and sadly, yes it is mostly Russian people blatantly push and shove their way in front of you in the baht bus queue!

I'm seriously asking. I would like something to say to them in Russian, along with pronunciation tips.

There is no way they're going to think I actually speak Russian, so no worries about that.

I thought of saying, Hey Buster, This ain't Crimea here but thought the better of it.

What is the Russian culture around queues?

I had thought a physical line barrier would do the trick but recently I have observed at Central Food Hall that the Russians don't respect the physical barriers there anyway!

It's really amazing. There's a line of people waiting to pay for cards, get refunds, etc. and the Russians just saunter up on the side (where you're supposed to exit) and demand service.

The way too tolerant Thai clerks then serve them!

Even more hilariously if you're behind a Russian in line, watch out, because they will tend to just turn around and run you over LEAVING the line instead of understanding they're supposed to exit on the side.

Anyway, tonight, I had a really absurd experience at the baht bus queue, inspiring this post.

The queue minders had called the crowd to advance to the "second" bus (going forward from the natural front of queue and I could tell from experience that I would just barely get on the bus IF some Russians didn't push their way ahead).
If you go forward and can't board, then you're in the awkward position of walking back to the "normal" front of queue, which is dicey because by then the line has grown and people there may not respect that you really are ahead of them (you really are, but hope you can picture that).

This strangeness is a good reason the baht bus company should strictly enforce ONLY ONE beginning of the queue, but of course they won't, but just saying.

Anyway, so I moved forward to the second bus respecting the queue, and just as I was about to board a middle aged Russian lady PLOWED in front of me. As I do I TRIED to block her rude move (I've gone native) but she was too quick and she did it. Anyway, I saw that on one side there were five people seated but they were acting like that was full and I knew better, so I found 1/3 of the space for a seat, said excuse me, and SAT DOWN (yes shocking the people, grow up people, it's a sardine bus not you're living room!).

So I was doing the queue minders job by forcing six (as you should know, they need six sitting on each side to move). Anyway, some naive man didn't like being crammed and stood up, thinking he was being gentlemanly or something silly like that. The bus continued filling, people on back, three small Thai people actually standing inside. But there were now "only" 5 on my side. An extremely sadistic queue minder seeing that unacceptable situation starting screaming at ME. Just at me. Which was absurd considering what I had done minutes ago to force six people all by myself. Even before the screaming, I had ALREADY aggressively slammed myself on the person to the right of me, and he wasn't moving any more and I wasn't about to sit on his lap (not cute). But the excited minder wouldn't let up. Instead of screaming at the entire side to move down (frankly just as absurd as there was no room this time, bigger people I guess) he entirely focused on me. Only me. The thing is there was room for one of the three smaller Thais. Not comfortably but I was reading to have them sit on me. But, they just didn't want to bother.

Now I am going into all this absurd detail for this reason. This was a situation where a person less experienced than me could have easily gotten into a violent fight. The insane acting Thai man was irrationally focusing on me (and no, I haven't seen him before) and there was nothing more I could do to meet his crazy demand. A less experienced person could have been goaded into a fight then because his focused bullying really was out of line. Now I know from experience that if you stand up for yourself and give them lip when they deserve it, they will then KICK YOU OFF THE BUS and tell you to walk to Jomtien. So a fight could also happen from that, and then for the inexperienced person, the GANG forms and they get their arse kicked. So it goes ...

Another classic example of the real life potential cauldron of violence at that queue.

Now being experienced, I didn't give him any lip and I did visibly push myself harder into the man to my right a few more times. I felt bad about that but what choice did I have? The man didn't deserve that. There was no more space to move. But I knew that if I put on an act of cooperating with his insanity and didn't give any lip, he would have to drop it.

He did drop it but as he did he GLARED at me with intense hostility like I personally was taking rice out his baby's mouth or something like that. Now of course I hope he isn't a regular worker there because I get the feeling he knows my face now.

As far as theories about why this mad man was picking on me and only me, I have a theory. First is obvious, there was 1/3 of a seat right next to me, so the seating was going to involve me. That was both bad luck on my part and also that I had already pushed the man to my right so a mistake there could have been to know too much and doing his job for him before he could do it himself. The second reason which I think is bigger is that my "pushing show" probably didn't come across as very believable. So it was ironic pushing and he was a Thai not into irony. I didn't believe the pushing would work, I could see there was no more space, but I knew he wanting to see pushing, so I pushed, but I knew nothing was happen from it, and he knew I knew ...

Edited March 15, 2014 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

OK, I tried,

There is queue here!

http://translate.google.com/#auto/ru/There%20is%20a%20queue%20here!

translated to Russian and listened to it.

Frankly, I don't think I can pronounce that.

Is there a better way to say this in Russian that results in something easier to say?

[Spalpeen]

"There is a queue here" doesn't quite get the message across. Google 'Russian insults' and pick the ones you can remember and pronounce. For the Thais, just sit with your mouth open and allow your eyes to wander independently of each other, as if you're having a stroke. That's what the Thais usually do if you ask them a question, so best to adopt the local custom.

[Jingthing]

"There is a queue here" doesn't quite get the message across. Google 'Russian insults' and pick the ones you can remember and pronounce. For the Thais, just sit with your mouth open and allow your eyes to wander independently of each other, as if you're having a stroke. That's what the Thais usually do if you ask them a question, so best to adopt the local custom.

I appreciate the difficulty of asking people to respect queues if they're from a culture with a clearly very different idea about queues. Insults sound dangerous especially with war breaking out (I just read that the U.S. government has reported a huge spike in anti-American sentiment in Russia along with travel warnings). I guess I need expert cultural advice. In the meantime (more like indefinitely), I'll be perfecting my BLOCKING moves! I'm actually quite good at that (lot of practice in high season) so I was somewhat shocked and impressed with that Russian lady tonight who clearly knew exactly what she was doing. (A real pro.)

Good point about faking a stroke. I like that. But in this case I wasn't being asked a question. I was being unfairly, repeatedly, and loudly bullied. I do know not to resist them anymore in any way if I don't want to be banned from the buses (or worse)! Maybe I need to work on how to make any future "pushing" look less ironic. That might be beyond me though ... For that level of acting, they should be paying ME the 10 baht!

Edited March 15, 2014 by Jingthing

[Pattaya28]

I think this "baht-bus-seater" is a trainee having tactical training for the real violence of the jet-ski nonsense. He's being toughened up.

Western Europeans / North Americans / Aussies will queue, whereas the Russians and Chinese will queue jump. A cultural difference.

We are living in a melting-pot, a "hot" melting pot.

[morrobay]

Good Grief man, havent you been here long enough to know not to board buses in the queue areas ? Yes. On Pattaya Tai,on right side, between Beach and 2nd rd intersection you can flag a ride to Jomtien. And you do have better things to do than educate Russians and deal with angry drivers.

Edited March 16, 2014 by morrobay