Bangkok - Twenty foreign tourists were abandoned in a tour bus on a roadside after being robbed by the staff, police said Tuesday. Police found the tourists at 6 am Monday sitting in a driverless bus on the side of the Asian Highway in Ayutthaya province, 90 kilometres north of Bangkok.
The tourists said they had forced the driver to pull over after finding their cash and belongings had been stolen by the bus's three male staff while some of the passengers slept on the overnight bus from the northern city of Chiang Mai to Bangkok.
"They wanted to check the pockets of the staff, but the driver and boys just fled the scene, leaving the tourists in the abandoned bus," Senior Sergeant Apichart Phuanganthong said.
Three of the 20 tourists - who were mostly from France, Israel and the United States - said they had lost cash amounting to 100,000 baht (2,907 dollars) along with valuables that included cameras, laptops and iPods.
The tour operator agreed to compensate the passengers for half the stolen cash, Apichart said.
