When you travel in a public vehicle in South East Asia, you should expect and be prepared for such situations. I had a similar experience with Filipino "terrorists" in the past, but I took them out. I wrote about that experience in my blog a few months ago:

http://syncmyworld.blogspot.com

For me, though, it's not a big deal since Malay or Filipino crooks are easier to handle. They are small-time crooks, and sometimes, I even feel sorry for them.

I find white people to be more dangerous because they can kill you without any reason at all. I was in Los Angeles when LAPD cops beat the hell out of Rodney King, and a riot broke out. Koreans with automatic weapons guarded their shops like crazy, as if loaves of bread and containers of milk were more valuable than black people.

I've often felt too that Neo-Nazi Aussies in Sydney or Crazy Kiwis in New Zealand, specially in Christchurch, could have cut my throat if I were not too careful.

Canada was probably the only white country that I've ever felt reasonably safe.

Even when I visited Sri Lanka during the civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the government, I did not feel that it was more dangerous than American cities like Los Angeles.

Of course, it's also not good if things are too safe like Singapore. Your body will lose its "resistance," and it will become weak and ill-prepared when the situation needs it. There was an old Singaporean lady who yelled at me when I was alighting from a Singaporean bus in the past because she said that I should be thinking about safety. That's the problem. If I get used to a safe environment, I would become frail, nerdy and weak like many Singaporeans and some HK nationals. That means I wouldn't be able to travel freely, and I'd be easily mugged by terrorists.

It's the Age of Terror, officially starting in 2012, so it's something we should expect and prepare for.