indians euro-tour group robbed: bus disappears

greenchutney

http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/200...ber/145907.htm

Holiday from hell
By: Kiran Tare
November 1, 2006

The tourists were on a 16-day tour of Europe and left Mumbai on October 15. After seeing Italy they boarded a bus run by a German operator and toured Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Netherlands, following which they arrived in Brussels.

On October 25, the group including the driver stopped for lunch at a city in Brussels. When they returned, their bus had disappeared. In it was their luggage and handbags, which held passports, visas, air tickets, documents, money, clothes, mobile phones, video cameras, gifts and other valuables. Fourteen people in the group lost their passport.

Said Sunil Warty (55), “How can a 55-seater Mercedez Benz bus be stolen? The German driver accompanied us for lunch. He should have stayed with the bus.

Screaming and shouting, Jharna Khachandani (33), another tourist, said, “After this, I can proudly say that India is the best. I have decided not to travel abroad every again.”
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.....a whole bus..creative crook i must say...~~~~~~~

martintheveg

Do you know, it never ceases to amaze me how
low theives can sink.
many years ago, after returning from the Middle-
East, i had everything I owned stolen from me in
Paris, the trouble and stress this caused me was
undescribable, and it was only through a reverse-
charge phone call to my Father, and a ( begged)favour
to a French bank from him, that I managed to get home.
It doesn`t sound so bad now, but back then, and I was still
only in my teens it was very scary.
I do hope these Indian folk will NOT be put off travelling,
As an ex. h.g.v. driver, I agree that the driver should have stayed with the vehicle.
Martin.

ananda2193

I would think that it wouldn't be to easy to hide. What a way to ruin a trip. Those thieves must have incredible balls.

Bhaswaran

so..........it happens everywhere....

here......we often get reports of bikes and cycles been stolen.....sometimes cars.........but a whole big bus, this is ridiculous

..it seems...the thief thinks big, he does big .........if he thinks bigger....an aeroplane or a ship may be stolen one day...........and if he thinks gigantic.......one day.....a space shuttle may not be found

arunchs

Pretty awful, especially when you are in a rejoicing mood.

But we all must be ready for some contingency when we are travelling. I always keep two wallets with money distributed into them and keep one in the bag and one in my pocket. So if one of them is gone, you still have means to return home. Where possible, I try keeping a credit/debit card in some third location for added security, but that doesnt happen often. But when travelling abroad, passport is real big problem for safekeeping.

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tasuray

Third world countries like India have lots of bad reputations from foreign tourists.But I've never heard that a entire bus have been stolen in anywhere in India.So it seems that thieves of first world countries are also better than 3rd world as they are advanced in other fields.It is a request to 1st world tourists think before criticising us.