Mugged in Mumbai—and an unexpected Karmic twist
“I WANT,” is the driving force behind mugging: need and greed. But these muggers in India also had intangible desires that compelled them to…
Hotel oddity #6
See anything wrong with the chain lock on this door at Miami’s Radisson Mart Plaza Hotel? It’s mounted backwards! Upside-down. It’s useless this way…
Mac + paperclip = fire
Anyone remember this old relic? We were so thrilled with it. We’d spent a year in Africa and needed a laptop. Apple didn’t make…
Hotel room safe thefts
How safe is the safe in your hotel room? Not safe at all, it turns out, unless you factor in the odds. Odds are,…
Boy in park with dog
Adult: “Nice dog. What’s his name?” “Thermidore.” “Hi Sermidore! Good dog!” “THERmidore,” child enunciates. “Oh, SIR Midore,” adult says. “An honorable dog.” “No, Ther-mi-dore.”…
Beware hotel phone scam
Heads up, travelers. Beware the clever new scam happening in hotels now. In order to thwart it, proactive properties are placing notes like this…
“How I mug,” as told by two muggers in Panama
“The mere mention of Colon sends shivers down the spines of travelers and Panamanians…” —Lonely Planet on Colon, Panama After the brutal armed robbery…
What are bed bugs doing in hotel rooms?
Traumatic insemination is worth mentioning as a follow up to my post on bed bugs in hotels. Male bed bugs, ScienceNews reports, “ignore the…
Street crime in Stockholm
Beware, pickpockets are working here. That’s the first thing an international visitor sees when entering Sweden at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. Face level signs are…
Golden Dragon RAM
“Hand Picked Golden Dragon” RAM wrapped in gold silk brocade! Cleaning the garage, I found these gorgeous packages perfectly preserved in an airtight box….
Street Crime in Nassau, Bahamas
Wondering about street crime in Nassau, Bahamas? First we witness a tourist robbery, then meet another tourist just robbed at gunpoint. We’re standing on…
Bad behavior in Cairo
I’m mortified to remember the time I refused to shake hands with an Egyptian. It’s a sad commentary on the state of the world…
Hotel oddity #5
The Hilton Tokyo-Bay, aka Japan’s Disneyland Hilton, was shockingly behind the times when we visited. Our paper electronic room keys had our room number…
Barcelona pickpocket statistics: 6,000 thefts per day on visitors
Barcelona pickpocket statistics Barcelona visitors experienced 6,000 thefts per day during 2009’s tourist season. 115,055 pickpocketings and bag snatches in Barcelona were reported in…
Why thieves prefer black bags when stealing luggage at airports
Why Thieves Prefer Black Bags Yeah, this story’s everywhere, about the Phoenix couple who made a living stealing luggage off the airport carousel. Police…
Crime in Port Moresby, PNG
After further research, I feel compelled to write a little more about Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. For all the pretty pictures in my…
Faces of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea Would a slathering of Dijon tempt the formerly (?) (supposedly) cannibalistic highland villagers? I couldn’t get myself to attempt the experiment….
Knock-out gas on overnight trains
Atul and Smriti Shah experienced it first-hand. “It happened during the night,” they concluded. “The entire compartment was sprayed with some sort of gas…
Theft on overnight trains
Overnight train travel requires watchfulness. Stations can be seedy. They’re open and available to anyone, with or without tickets. They attract a varied population…
Central and East European Train Crime
Railway mafia groups fight over territory along the thousands of kilometers of track across Central & Eastern Europe. The most lucrative connections are those…
Oktoberfest: Breasts, big beers, and Bavarian barf
Called in to pickpocket goodies from the massive Munich Oktoberfest crowd, Bob and I, just back from Japan to do a show for Monsanto…
Hotel Oddity #4
We checked into a hotel last month and plodded through the tedious check-in procedure in a daze. It was a Millennium Hotel, but I…
When TSA confiscates your pocket knife…
Brother-in-law, though a frequent flyer, forgot to move his pocket knife from his carry-on to his checked bag. He groaned when TSA discovered it….
Hotel safe theft
What would you do if you opened the safe behind the hotel manager’s desk and found your passports gone? One woman took creative action….
Airport bags for liquids
The new 3-1-1 profit is here. Or in Ireland, anyway. For a euro ($1.47), you get two quart-size plastic bags in a plastic egg….
Hotel oddity #3
On the wall under the shower head, three feet above the floor, this pipe drained water after every shower. Not one of the nicer…
Aggressive hospitality
A reader of this blog recently wrote to me and described a suspicious encounter: In Dublin, I noticed a tall young man in a…
How Bernanke’s ID thieves did it
Anna Bernanke hung her purse on the back of a chair at Starbucks. It was stolen and, soon after, she and Ben became victims…
Las Vegas real estate business ethics
Legal-but-dirty, beat-the-system, shady business is being committed by Las Vegas homeowners at the inducement of a real estate agent, as reported by Joel Stein…