I was standing at a bus stop at the On Nut BTS station waiting for the Bangkok airport bus 552 at about 12 noon yesterday. I was told the bus goes directly to the Suvarnabhumi international airport and only costs 32 THB.

I thought I was going to have a pleasant journey to the airport but I was wrong, dead wrong.

This noisy bus stopped in front of the bus stop and this ruffian came down and snatched my luggage, which was less than 1 feet away from me. I was left speechless and stunned for a couple of seconds. Then I realised this man was running back to his bus with my luggage!

His bus then started driving away. What did I do? I was not going to stand there and let him steal my luggage so I ran after his moving bus and jumped aboard. I asked him what he was doing and where his bus was going. I told him I wanted to go to the Suvarnabhumi airport and he told me it would cost me 80 THB.

I paid him the money and sulked at my bad luck. 80 THB is not a lot of money as long as they get me to the airport. I thought that was the end of the whole crazy incident but I was wrong.

You see the 3 guys in my picture above? The fat guy standing next to the door was the guy who snatched my luggage. Whenever they went past a bus stop, the 3 guys would run down the bus and yell at people to board their bus. They kept doing that at every single bus stop and they would gesture rudely at people who refused to board the bus.

I sensed something was amiss. If they kept doing this at every bus stop, maybe they aren’t going directly to the airport. All these people who boarded their bus did not look like people who were going to the airport! Damn! I was right. They stopped for a toilet break or something a drink/snack seller boarded the bus and tried to sell us his stuff. This never happened when I took the airport bus from the airport to the city area.

At one of the bus stops, a rather attractive Thai lady boarded the bus and sat on the seat the skinny guy on the left was sitting on. Bad mistake! The guy on the right started getting really close to her and kept on staring at her. I could see she was unhappy and uncomfortable with the man’s advances.

I saw the bus headed for an expressway and I thought they were going to drive me to the airport. Instead, the pulled over and dropped me where 2 motorcycle taxis were. One of the men told me to get a taxi from there to the airport. I was in no mood to argue and quickly alighted the bus without saying thank you or anything nice. I was outnumbered and outsmarted by these cunning bastards. I wish I could take a picture of their faces but this photo was the best I could get.

I flagged a taxi and paid another 125 THB before I could reach the airport. What was supposed to be a 30 minute journey for 32 THB, cost me 295 THB and more than 1 hour of my time.

I learnt 1 thing from this experience…

1. Sit on or hold onto your luggage when you are at a bus stop to avoid getting your luggage snatched away like mine. If you’re a farang (Caucasian), you’re a more prominent target than an Asian guy like me so be vigilant!

This is by far my worst Thailand experience. I have had taxi drivers who drove me around in circles, Tuk Tuk drivers who drove to a different destination but this is on totally different level of scamming.

Tagged As: Bangkok, Suvarnabhumi, Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand

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