I’m happy to report a bag theft that ended with a smile.
Jay and Lyn Smith, of Tallahassee, took their 18-year-old son on his first trip to New York City. They took the train from the airport to Penn Station and rode the escalator up to street level.
Because they would be attending a family wedding, Lyn had brought some heirloom jewelry with her in a small purse, which she wore strapped across her back and in front of her. At the top of the escalator—classic!—the sandwich. Someone stalled at the top and a pile-up ensued, people squashing into people until the stall moved on.
That’s when Lyn’s bag must have been cut from her shoulder.
She cried, devastated by the loss of the sentimental pieces and angry with herself for having let this happen. As a former police investigator, she felt she should have known better.
Several months later a small box arrived via FedEx. The sender was identified in the top left corner as “Annie Amtrack.” Curious and mystified, Lyn and Jay opened the box. Inside was every item from Lyn’s stolen purse: her credit cards, her checkbook, the diamond bracelet and sapphire ring that had been her mother’s, her nail file, her shopping list—everything except the $300+ in cash she’d carried. All just dumped into the box.
There was also a note. Scrawled on the back of one of Lyn’s own checks, an apology: “Found on Amtrak. Needed the money. Sorry.”
The questions in this case are many; the answers are few. Did Lyn simply forget her purse on the train? (Not possible, she says.) Was it stolen on the train? On the escalator? Was “Annie” the thief, or did she merely find the thief’s leavings? If she was the thief, perhaps she was trying to balance her karma, like the muggers in Mumbai. As finder, should she have given the bag to Amtrak’s lost-and-found? As finder and returner, did she deserve to retain the cash for services rendered?
Your thoughts?
Regardless, Lyn was thrilled to have her belongings back. Now, she said, “my oldest daughter will one day have her grandmother’s ring!”
Just For Laughs Comedy Tour 2010: Gina Yashere, Ryan Hamilton, Bob Arno, Robert Kelly, Frank Spadone, and Jeremy Hotz (not pictured)
Bob and I are presently touring. It’s just three weeks across Canada—nothing long or exotic. We’re not roughing it, either. Well…15 cities in 21 days is a little rough.
We’re part of the Just For Laughs Comedy Tour—bringing raucous humor to large and small cities from east to west. The tour has been organized to the smallest detail with the dual goal of putting on fabulous shows almost every night and making it as easy and pleasant as possible for the artists. That means our hotel rooms are ready no matter how early we arrive. Keys are handed out without our needing to check in. Our frequent flyer numbers and hotel loyalty program numbers have been entered for us. We’re pre-checked in for flights, and cars, vans, and buses are always ready when we are.
National Arts Centre Theatre in Ottawa
When we get to each theater, our names are on the dressing room doors and our favorite snacks and drinks are backstage in the green room. Our own secure wifi network has been set up. The backstage ambiance is relaxed at first, but energy quickly builds as the comedians gear themselves up for their sets. Each has his or her own way of mentally preparing. One sings and does little dance steps. One reviews notes. One snipes at anyone he sets eyes on, warming himself up. And one doubles over with stomach cramps from anxiety. Each is a seasoned professional and hits the stage in attack mode, ready to tear the audience apart.
New to Canada, we never know what to expect as to theater or audience demographic. It’s fun to experience the differences. The theaters range from beautiful, old, traditional ones like the Capitol Theatre in Moncton, New Brunswick, to the big beer-barn of Centennial Hall in London, Ontario, to the enormous Massey Hall in Toronto. Our audiences, from 800 to 3,000 people each night, have paid to see us and are therefore vastly different from the corporate attendees who basically challenge us with “go ahead—prove yourself.”
The Just For Laughs Comedy Tour stage set at rehearsal.
We’re no strangers to life on the road. 200 to 250 nights a year in beds not-our-own, for the past 17 years is the experience I speak from. This tour is high-intensity-travel.
We’re in a different hotel every night or two. After the third or fourth hotel, I lost track of our room number and now make notes for my pocket every day. Yesterday we actually entered the wrong room. Housekeeping was there and let us walk on in. We saw other people’s stuff and realized we were on the wrong floor. Such a weakness in hotel security. We keep the do-not-disturb sign on our door.
Inside the Just For Laughs tour bus
Road food is tiresome. We want a breakfast better than Starbucks, but not as big and bland as hotel buffets. We found a good restaurant chain for breakfast, then got sick of it. It’s a struggle to find an independent restaurant or diner we can walk to with so little time to spare. Dinners are mostly impossible. We leave for the theater at 5:00 or so, and are busy until 10 or later—exactly restaurant dinner hours in all but the biggest Canadian cities. We usually manage a decent lunch; sometimes very good ones. Since we stay in city centers, we must usually be sure to go for lunch before the joints close up at 2 pm.
Artists, staff, and some crew board our little jet
Mostly, we fly from city to city. We’ve also traveled by tour bus, the big comfortable kind with sofas, bunks, kitchen, bathroom, and internet. Between Prince Edward Island and Halifax, we took a private chartered jet.
While we were flying among the Maritimes, all the tour gear and sets also flew, or was driven overnight. We used smaller, packable sets and limited sound and light equipment. Now we have an 18-wheeler that carries the huge Just For Laughs set pieces, sound, lighting, catering, and office. I can’t imagine what’s in the many, many trunks that are unloaded every day and packed up at the end of each city’s gig.
The truck doesn't fit into one photo.
For us, it’s important to have packed every thing we want or need, but nothing else. Packing every single morning makes you think about what you really want to unpack. What you really want to unpack varies vastly from person to person. Especially from Bob to me. I am the minimalist in our family. He brought his espresso machine. Touring in cold weather is an extra complication, having to look after such easily losable items as gloves and scarves.
Just a few of the sea of trunks and set pieces carried by the truck.
We thoroughly enjoy the company of the other comedians in the show, as well as the staff and crew. We don’t sense any of the competitiveness or jealousy common among magicians. From our perspective, the mix of personalities on this tour is harmonious, and the beginning of lasting friendships.
Thiefhunting day one is not over. Not by far! Days have passed, however; things have happened and plans have been made. In order not to thwart eagerly anticipated events, I shall wait one day before continuing the story of Thiefhunting day one.
Instead, a few other observations that have been on my mind. Like fireworks. Every night, fireworks go off somewhere below us. Because I love fireworks, I leap to the windows to watch, even though I’m awakened from sleep. A display might be 30 explosions, or 300. It might be near or far. But shortly after it ends, there’s always another. Three, four, ten shows of fireworks each and every night. Our windows are wide open and our room looks down upon the entire city, so the displays are inescapable and to me, a joy. Albeit a noisy joy.
I asked our sound recordist Michele what inspires the fireworks. A wedding, a birthday, anniversary, any excuse, he said. It is a poor neighborhood and the people like to show off. It could be someone getting out of jail. Or it could be to cover up another sound…
Six tall flights below my room is a mountain road. Only two lanes, but busy with traffic. I’m appalled by the concentration of carbon monoxide fumes that come into our room and invade the hotel lobby. But it’s the same all over the city. Car fumes are chokingly bad. Mixed with the ubiquitous cigarette smoke, the air is putrid. I find myself holding my breath for as long as I can manage. Add to that the sulfurous clouds from the nightly fireworks and I imagine my lungs slowly blackening.
On the left: Bob’s rig. A strip of white tape is just a spare piece, used to secure checked bags. On the right: Bambi’s set-up. Not aluminum, but still like new after five years of hard use.
Road Warrior Packing Tips
Eighteen years of near constant travel gives one a certain authority on the subject. Bob Arno and I are on the road together about 200 days a year, making more than a hundred take-offs and landings per year. Although we travel side-by-side to the same destinations, we have very different ideas about how to pack and what works best on the road.
Let’s start with checked bags. What do you bring?
He:Zero Halliburton hard-shell aluminum cases. Usually a regular suitcase-shaped one for clothes, and an 18-inch cube-shaped one for equipment. They’re hard to break into and almost indestructible.
She:Same, but only one. It opens like a clamshell and both halves lay flat when open. I always slide it under the bed and use it like a drawer. I don’t unpack much.
How is your stuff organized within the suitcases?
He:Everything is in containers. Socks, shirts, shoes, shaving stuff, all of it. They all zip or close, and I’m rather fond of the containers as well as what they contain. Ties and belts are rolled. All shoes have shoe-trees. Suits lay flat and are interwoven to prevent creases. I bring a great steamer, but I usually just need a few blasts with it. I’m not a perfectionist wrinkle-wise.
She:My clothes are folded and stacked as they would be in a drawer. Even dresses. Clothes in one half of the bag, shoes and accessories on the other side. Shoes are all in bags. Belts are usually flat instead of rolled, because they take up no space that way. I’m fanatic about sealing liquids in plastic bags. I’ve had one leak too many. Other than shoe bags, I’m not big on containers.
Inside Bob’s Halliburton cube.
Cabin baggage. Do you use a roll-aboard?
He:Absolutely. A maximum regulation-sized Zero Halliburton, black aluminum. Its telescoping handle is actually too short for me—all roll-ons are too short for me!—so I have a snap-on handle extension that makes it really comfortable to drag. The bag locks, and it’s padded inside. I stuff it full of hard drives, video cameras, and other recording equipment. Because of the bag’s excellent security, I don’t have to worry too much when I’m forced to check it on smaller planes. However, because it’s so dense with electronics, I have to pull half the items out at every security check, lay them flat in a bin, and put them separately though the scanner.
She:Mine’s a red Mandarina Duck, also the largest regulation size. It has tons of zipped pockets, and anything I need is a just second away. The power cord for my computer, plug adapters, a book, iPod cord and earphones—they’re all in outside compartments. Inside I have a black suit and a dress, both on the same hanger, important shoes, a hard drive, and just a mass of necessities. I could probably live with just that bag. In fact I did once, out in Africa when my checked luggage didn’t show up. Ten days with just my carry-on!
Our daily haul. What about your second carry-on, your “small, personal item”?
He:Yep, another Halliburton. It’s a briefcase, which holds two Mac laptops, a few more hard drives and power cords, my wallet, pens, and reading. It balances on my roll-on, and I can snap my extension handle over it to fasten them together. Strong and safe!
She:A Mandarina Duck shoulder bag that goes with the roll-aboard. This bag is fantastic. It holds my 17″ MacBookPro in one padded compartment, and all my important items in another. Wallet, iPods, jewelry, foreign currency, airplane power adapter, reading, a shawl, and innumerable little essentials (like passports and dark chocolate). The bag attaches securely on top of the roll-on and the two stand as a single unit.
Have any unusual packing tips?
He:1. Bags and pouches for everything, and the same ones all the time so you know where everything is.
2. In addition to an international plug adapter, I keep a short extension cord with multiple outlets in my roll-on. It allows me to share a power outlet, even if, like in an airport, they’re all being used. It’s useful every single day.
She:1. I keep a small pouch in my shoulder bag, about the size of my hand. It’s my airplane bag, and goes on my lap on every flight. It contains noise-canceling earphones, a pen, lip balm, and a nail file. Things I know I’ll want on the flight.
2. On the road, the lowly shower cap has a hundred uses. As shoe bags, a rainy-day camera cover, to hold not-quite-dry socks, collected seashells, or an oozy bottle of lotion… even to cover the tv remote if you’re squeamish.
3. When packing a nice suit jacket, stand the collar up and open the lapels so they’re flat. That way you avoid hard, sharp creases where the lapels fold and your jacket will look more elegant.
4. I use shampoo for hand-washing clothes.
Criticisms on each other’s method?
He:Bambi isn’t in charge of all our video equipment and hard drives for video editing (which we do on the road), so she can use her space for useful things that benefit us both. Neither of her cabin bags is lockable, though, so she’s always reluctant to leave them in a hotel storage room. To me, her bags are messy inside. I don’t know how she finds anything, but she does.
She:All his pouches and little bags! I don’t know what’s in any of them. And with luggage weight restrictions, why haul the weight of containers? Bob’s two carry-ons take too much time to get into. I can grab a credit card, loyalty card, pen, tissue, or bag of peanuts in an instant. I take out my computer, check email, and put it away all in a minute or two, while standing up. I get through airport security and I’m on my way in under a minute. Bob’s set-up is slow. But I’m not above locking my stuff into his bags sometimes.
Is there a more phallic kitchen tool on the planet? Or one more ridiculous?
You should see the thing in action! This is an espresso-maker for the coffee-obsessed traveler. To work it, you grab the black “head” and pump vigorously. I am not kidding.
Of course, first you need a source of boiling water, which sort of spoils its promise of convenience. You can’t just pull to the side of an endless desert road and pump out a shot of espresso; or whip one up on a beach blanket. But in a hotel room equipped with a water boiler, it makes a passable coffee with a nice crema. You need to carry around the coffee, sugar, and the right cups, too. Maybe even a grinder. It’s not my idea of convenient. For all its trouble and the extra stuff that must be carried, it’s not, in my opinion, trip-worthy.
But it sure is amusing to watch a man operate it. I don’t mind drinking the coffee, either.
Violent sex in hotel rooms may or may not excite you, but it’s happening more and more often these days. “Traumatic insemination” is the correct terminology for the savage act these male perpetrators perform.
Yes, I’m referring to bed bug reproduction, and it’s probably occurring in a bed near you. Hopefully, not your own. Hopefully, not one you’ve slept in.
Given the number of nights I stay in hotels every year (200+), this concerns me. I know that mosquitoes are attracted to me, but I’m not aware of having slept with bed bugs. Now that infestations are pretty much exploding across the country, I worry about the possibility, but not in an obsessive way. I don’t inspect hotel beds, for example, though maybe I should.
I’m not just worried about being bitten. I’m afraid of bringing the parasitic hitchhikers home with me, in my clothing or luggage.
The entomologist in my family shared this little zinger from a fellow bug man who travels a lot (but probably not as much as I do):
…when I stay in hotels, all my luggage immediately goes into the bathtub. I don’t drop any clothes on the bed. One of the experts in bed bugs who does a lot of traveling said that he has now found bed bugs in 4 of the hotels where he stayed. He also takes everything that can be thrown into the dryer as soon as he gets home and runs the dryer for about 20 minutes. Another thing to do is bring giant trash bags with you on trips. When you get to the hotel, break out the trash bag, put a piece of luggage in each bag and seal it whenever you aren’t actively dipping into the luggage. It isn’t fun but getting an infestation of bed bugs in your home means all new furniture, rugs, drapes, etc. It is a very expensive treatment and you lose lots of stuff.
(The bug scientist quoted above prefers not to be named.) First I’d ask him: what kind of hotels do you stay in? But that would be naive, because any bed can get them if a bed bug-carrying human or animal has been in it.
The insect we’re talking about, Cimex lectularius, is a wingless external parasite that feeds only on blood, says entomologist Lenny Vincent. It only needs to feed about once a month, but adults can survive over six months without a meal. And the female can lay some 540 eggs during her lifespan.
When I was a child, my parents put me to bed with the same comforting verbal-barbiturate every evening: “Night-night… sleep tight… don’t let the bed bugs bite!” I believed bed bugs were some sort of mythical creature, like tooth-fairies and goblins and bambianikins; fictitious characters to smile about and dismiss.
And to some extent they were fictitious; at least in the U.S., bed bugs were pretty much history, thanks to DDT. Had I known as an eight- or ten-year-old kid that tiny bed-dwelling critters that dine on human blood actually existed, I would have been up all night, or screaming with nightmares. But DDT went away in 1972, and foreign travel increased, bringing new infestations. Now, bed bugs are back.
Back to bed bug sex for a minute. Males are attracted to the scent of a well-fed individual (bug, not human) of either gender. An accosted male will send out a scent signal indicating that he’s not fair game. When the male finds a female, he plunges his aedeagus (penis) into her belly, without bothering to find a proper entry point. Hence the term, traumatic insemination. My guess is that the female vows never to mate with that guy again! You’ll soon learn, little miss bug: they’re all the same….
As awful as a bed bug-infestation-brought-home sounds, I can’t examine every hotel room and bed for bugs. I can’t imagine storing luggage in the bathtub—not all hotel rooms even have bathtubs—nor can I imagine the hassle of the plastic bag wrap. But I may live to regret my laziness. I should take it from an entomologist.
Think you’ve got ’em at home? For $350, you can call in trained dogs to sniff them out with 96% accuracy.
People can look up and report sightings and infestations at The Bed bug Registry, though claims are not verified.
Pest control companies are hawking heat treatments. One provides a bed bug-baking service for any size space. Four hours at 130° does it, they say. Maybe less. Confidentially. So your neighbors (or other hotel guests) don’t know you’ve got bed bugs.
Perhaps even you can smell them. Bed bugs are said to smell like cilantro and unripe coriander seeds. Or, the other way around: “The very name coriander is said to be derived from the Greek word koris, meaning bed bug. The foliage of the plant, and its seeds in the unripe stage, have an odor which has been compared with the smell of bug-infested bedclothes.” The Oxford Companion to Food, 1999.
Bob Arno here, on our recent visit to Iran. The country has been in the news lately regarding the arrests of 30 persons accused of a U.S.-backed cyber war. We passed through last week, while also visiting Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and India. This is not an in-depth analysis about the stability of the present government in Iran or what lies in the future regarding its precarious relationship with Europe, Israel, and the U.S.; simply some observations from a short visit. [Way below!]
I first visited Iran in the mid-sixties as a young entertainer, performing in a shabby nightclub in Tehran. The booking was for two months and quite typical of the kind of engagements I was getting all over the middle East in those years, in Beirut, Cairo, Dar Es Salaam, and Teheran. These clubs were basically a front to sell alcohol and what were then called “consummation girls.” Even today, Lebanon advertises for girls to work as dancers and consummation hostesses in clubs across Lebanon.
The nightclub shows were simply an excuse for the management to have a license and to be allowed to stay open in a Shari’ah society. These were tough audiences, not especially interested in a young Swedish comedy performer, but the novelty of pickpocketing was intriguing and different from the usual fare of belly dancers, jugglers, dance teams, and singers. My show at the time was rough around the corners and I hadn’t yet acquired the confidence or slickness which later became my trademark and is essential to being a good pickpocket. With a few simple pickpocketing stunts I was able to bamboozle this nearly-ninety-percent male crowd and hold their attention.
Halfway through my booking, the club management informed me that I had been invited to the palace to do a private show for the Shah. No, there was not going to be any extra fee; this was an invitation to entertain the royalty (as if I were a court jester), and I should consider myself honored that his highness the Reza Shah had requested my services.
My manager at the time was a British show-business entrepreneur—Lord Anthony Moynihan. Moynihan was married to his second wife (he would eventually be married five times), a Pakistani belly dancer called Princess Amina. A diva of considerable proportion and a nightclub attraction with great popularity throughout the Middle East, she always guaranteed large audiences. Lord Moynihan was in Teheran, together with Princess Amina, who was performing in the same venue as myself. There have been many colorful stories written about Princess Amina. The most accurate one was written in 2002 in The Daily Times (of Pakistan) by Kaleem Omar.
Lord Moynihan was instrumental in structuring my career and coordinating my early bookings from the mid- to late sixties, culminating in several gigs at the London Playboy Club run by the infamous Victor Lownes. We parted ways in early 1970, when the Lord became one of the most wanted men in the UK for financial fraud. I, too, had long suspected Moynihan of “unusual” business practices, but I was never able to nail him with evidence, despite our close association. I finally got hip to his shenanigans when Victor Lownes told me that Moynihan could no longer enter the club premises, because he had been caught operating a cheating syndicate, pushing roulette chips over the table lines, with sophisticated diversion techniques involving beautiful girls leaning and shading the line of sight of the dealers. I don’t know who learned most from whom during our eight-year relationship. But that’s another story. And another post.
The Lord, Princess Amina, and I were brought to the Palace in downtown Teheran and invited to dinner. No, not with the Shah and Farah Diba, but at a separate table in a different room. Most memorable were the table settings, the porcelain, and the gold utensils. For a young impressionable Swede this was certainly a first.
A security adviser soon told me to enter the sitting room and do my show. Gathered on a large sofa were the Shah, Princess Farah Diba, King Hussein of Jordan, and his young wife, Queen Noor. But there were parameters. I was firmly instructed not to touch the Shah during my performance. How does one do pickpocketing if he’s not allowed to touch his subjects? Further on, the Shah wore a gold Rolex Presidential watch—at the time one of the most expensive watches in the world, and certainly not something that I would experiment with. The only thieves who are able to lift Rolexes are in Naples, Italy (then and now), and their technique is most certainly not appropriate for light dinner entertainment in a royal setting. I had to resign myself to some other table magic routines, which were my usual fallback material when all else failed. My evening with the royal rulers in the Middle East was not a success to boast about. I never ripped off the Shah of Persia. Well, not the official way.
And now we go forward, to the present day. I haven’t been back to Iran since the sixties. Today, hopefully, I am more astute at reading security trends and the political winds. I especially wanted to talk to ordinary young people about their feelings on Iran now and how they see their future in relation to Europe and the rest of the world. I expected to see parallels with Turkey, where the dialog about joining the European Union is intense, if not conclusive. Our first destination was Bandar Abbas, a city of around 370,000.
Driving through the center of the town I noticed an abundance of graffiti, or recently overpainted graffiti. I was curious about whether the slogans or messages were political, and for or against the government. I got the most amazing replies to my questions—mostly outrageous explanations, with no grounding in reality. For example: people are allowed to advertise for a month on the walls and then the municipalities paint over the walls to allow for new messages.
Or, an even better explanation: young people are encouraged to express themselves artistically on the walls, and then they are repainted for new creative expressions. I could not find a single person who would insinuate or say that these were angry statements from the opposition which had been removed or painted over by the authorities. End of that story.Â
But I did find several people in their mid- or late twenties who proclaimed that most of the young people hated the present regime, that they were robbed of their election, and that nobody cares or pays any attention to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. True, these were people who spoke English and had a good education. Had I been out in the countryside and had a similar conversation with farmers, I might have gotten an entirely different story.
The most significant reflection I can pass along is how friendly everyone was, regardless of where we walked. We were obviously a novelty to the people, but there was absolutely no anti-American mood expressed or observed anywhere. People were genuinely friendly and open, and wanted to communicate and interact. There are many countries around the world where we Americans are sneered at, or receive a cold reception; Iran, at present is not one of them. That is not to say that the regime is not presently jockeying and manipulating world opinion. They are facing an embargo or trade sanctions in the UN, and perceptions of European visitors, tourists, or business travelers can shape the dialog.
We did notice civilian dressed security personnel following us from time to time, when we traveled and stayed with a group of other Americans, but mostly we were on our own and without escort, supervision, or secret surveillance. We spotted a few young clumsy pickpockets on the perimeter of a large crowd that had gathered around a troupe of shady “three card monte” men, operating just like they do in the rest of the world—spotters, shills, and a main operator. And, as usual, they scattered when a motorcycle with two cops approached.
In the souks we saw many social subgroups in their traditional garb. One should certainly not point a camera at these conservative women without permission. Some gave us the okay; others declined. Yet others struck unbidden poses and begged to be in our photos.
Iran is clearly at a turning point this year. It will be interesting to see the developments the next six months. Because I recently wrote about the Mahmoud Al Mabhouh killing in Dubai, I will conclude this post with an observation about Dubai, and its latest chess move: barring entry to any person with an Israeli passport. There has been a lot of speculation about whether this presumed Israeli operation was sloppy, arrogant, or ill-informed of the quality of the surveillance equipment. Senior analysts in the intelligence communities have expressed conclusions that they must have underestimated the advanced surveillance technology in Dubai. Security guru Bruce Schneier opened his recent Crypto-Gram newsletter with an interesting summarization.
I recently spoke with Samuel Lewis, former Ambassador to Israel for eight years during the Carter and Reagan years (and later director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff during the Clinton years). Ambassador Lewis has a deep understanding of the Iran-Israel conflict: he too thinks that the Israeli Mossad had underestimated the Dubai technology advances. That is, if the Mossad are the people behind the assassination. My own theory on this is that the Israelis wanted to send a clear message both to Dubai and its banking system, and to HAMAS. The software and the technology going into the camera surveillance systems must surely be well-known to the Israeli intelligence community. In weeks to come, we’ll hear more interesting revelations about the Dubai affair.
7:00 a.m. in the Colaba Market area, where life is lived outdoors as much as in. Residents were just beginning their day. Someone was asleep on a handcart under a cloth. Others slept on the ground, on palanquins, on steps. A man stood in the road brushing his teeth vigorously with his finger. A boy sat among his goats, which nuzzled and cuddled him. Men and women arranged technicolor produce in baskets, for sale. Handcarts rushed by in every direction.
A chicken truck squeezed through the narrow lane, carrying seven stories of live caged birds. The driver hung a scale from the back of the truck and extracted a fistful of chickens—that is, a fistful of their legs. They hung upside down like a giant flapping pompom as the murgh-walla tied the bundle of legs and hooked the now calm birds on his scale. A customer, or perhaps he was a delivery-man, threw three large bundles over his shoulder against his filthy shirt.
Around the corner, a banana truck unloaded huge stalks of green bananas onto the shoulders of runners. An old, frail man came back again and again, each time carrying three massive stalks stacked on his left shoulder, while a larger, younger man carried two stalks.
Cats, dogs, goats and babies played in the dust and litter. Bob and I were ignored, or greeted with smiles and waves. Several Colaba Market residents directed us to some nearby point to see the sea. We wandered off in that direction, leaving the wide street of multi-story buildings. We wound through labyrinthine alleys of rickety dwellings and make-shift shelters of scraps and tarps. Customers were already seated in an open-air barber shop, a tailor measured and cut cloth, and a man pressed trousers with an antique iron full of glowing coals.
As we approached the sea, the dusty ground became black muck. A gang of small boys ran around us with squirt guns. “Water shower!” one shouted, as he fired a stream into the air. Old wooden boats lined the route to the bay, tilting in the mud, weeds growing through their broken bottoms. Black crows perched on their structures, surveying the garbage strewn about. The stench was overpowering. It became clear to me that we had entered a dump. A few lone men and boys passed us, walking through the putrid sludge toward the water. I hurried forward, eager to get past the fetter—until I caught sight of the view.
A hundred small boats lay bobbing on the still water of the bay, colorless and silvery against the white morning light. Across the bay, an easy walk away, the red dome and new tower of the Taj Mahal Hotel rose in stark contrast to trash-strewn beach at my feet. I was transfixed by the disparity, and began taking pictures. Crows cawed and little waves splashed against the rocky shore.
Suddenly I noticed the few men here and there on the beach and at the water’s edge. I was staring at their toilet. Appalled and mortified, I hurried away. Bob followed. We cut through a low part of the slum instead of retracing our path. It was neat and organized, with muddy but clean paths. The friendly smiles of women and children just starting their day helped me recover from my shameful, insensitive behavior. A tiny girl ran behind me calling “auntie! auntie!” When I turned, the child game me a huge grin. “Happy Holi,” she said, giving us a useful phrase that made everyone smile.
Holi is India’s spring festival of colors, a day on which people get wild and crazy and throw colors in the form of powdered dye.
Another day, after a fabulous meal at Soam, we walked the few blocks to the north end of Chowpatty Beach and began to walk south around the huge crescent of sand packed with people. A tiny naked boy ran up to us, hand out. He was filthy and gorgeous, and trotted along side us with bouncy little steps. He couldn’t have been more than five years old.
We tried to ignore him, afraid he’d get lost following us so far. I wondered if he had a mother, and how such a young child could be allowed to run loose and barefoot through dangerous traffic. Did he have anyone to care for him? I wondered what he’d do if I scooped him up, washed him, and fed him. Would he eventually feel a need to go back “home”? Did he have a home? Would he know how to find it? Or would he be content to stay with strangers who took good care of him? Then I wondered how the Indian government would react if I said I wanted to take him home and provide for him.
I was sad when the little boy finally left us. I worried about him finding his way back. But maybe “back” was just a point—the spot where he found us, with no other significance. Maybe he has no place at all; he sleeps where he is when he gets tired. I saw quite a few children asleep in strange places. One boy of three or four was sprawled across the middle of a busy sidewalk. That he hadn’t been trampled seemed a miracle.
Later, a former police officer from Mumbai told me that the boy definitely had someone watching him, and that he’d been sent to beg. At least his perfect little body hadn’t been maimed for “professional” advantage.
A huddle of people sat on the sidewalk at the edge of the beach. A woman was tattooing the arm of her customer. A boy held together a stack of D cell batteries from which a pair of wires connected to the buzzing tattoo gun.
Bob and I saw less misery in the streets of Mumbai compared to previous visits. We saw fewer people sleeping in the open, and far fewer beggars. On arrival at Mumbai airport, visitors used to be circled by aggressive beggars the moment they stepped outside. That situation no longer exists. Police told us the city is able to feed many street children, but that it’s an enormous financial drain.
This visit, I saw very little street food outside of officially regulated restaurants. Bhel puri, the famous Chowpatty Beach snack, used to be made à la minute at carts on every corner. Trucks and taxis do much less horn-honking now. Restaurants are smoke-free.
Our cool and quiet hotel was right off the hectic Colaba Causeway. A table in the lobby held two thermos pitchers, one of sweet chai, one of arabic coffee. Between them was a small water-filled bowl in which four tiny glasses were submerged. As the day went by, the water got cloudy and murky. The water (and glasses?) were occasionally freshened.
How safe is the safe in your hotel room? Not safe at all, it turns out, unless you factor in the odds. Odds are, your safe won’t be broken into. But the fact is, the crackin’s easy. Of course it is—hotels must be able to rescue valuables from faulty memories (forgotten codes, departed guests who forgot to empty their safes), lost keys, dead batteries, and power outages.
Hotel management and/or security can always access room safes. But how? Depends on the kind of safe. Does it open with a metal key? By swiping a magnetic card, or punching in a code? Does it use a plastic key card with a pattern of holes punched in it?
A hotel in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Is the safe safe?
Bob and I have long endorsed the use of safes in hotel rooms, as long as they are electronic. We’ve shied away from metal- and plastic-key safes, concerned about how many copies float around. But there are other ways to enter safes, and an untold number of people who have access, authorized or otherwise.
A deluge of thefts from hotel room safes in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, led to an investigative report by Burkhard Kress for Extra, a news show on German RTL TV (unfortunately not online).
Hidden camera captures master override code.
Kress booked a room there and mounted a hidden camera, then called hotel management for help opening his safe. The hidden camera footage captured the code that management punched into the safe’s keypad, which ended with the room number. With the permission of the guest in the room next to his, Kress tried the same code appended with the other room number. The neighbor’s safe opened. Anyone with the master code could open every safe in the hotel.
And anyone with a hidden camera could capture the master code.
These three, who shared a room, called police when they found cash missing from their safe. As there were no signs of a forced entry, they believe they were robbed by hotel staff. Police never responded to their call, so they went to the police station.
Kress had his cameraman stake out a different room for a week, waiting for a safe break-in. Alas, he was never hit. Eventually, Kress found out why. The thefts occur in rooms booked by two or more friends staying together. When a theft is reported, front desk staff insist the theft was committed by one of the “friends.”
Guests are required to pay a fee for the use of the safe. This, along with the fact that the only rooms hit are booked by two or more friends, leads me to suspect that these safe thefts are inside jobs. Who but front desk staff know both those facts? Of course the thieves might also be former employees, or individuals in cahoots with an employee.
According to Eric Fischer, a tour leader interviewed by Kress, these thefts have been going on for years at this and other hotels in Palma. He’s kept a log of them. He himself had €14,500 stolen from the safe in his room. When the Spanish police investigated the theft without much interest, Fischer suggested that they take fingerprints. “The police responded no,” he said, “you must be watching too much German TV—we don’t do that.”
These old safes can still be found in budget hotels.
What about those plastic key cards with a pattern of holes punched in them? They can be copied onto cardboard by anyone with a pencil and a hole punch. Safes that open with a keypad or your own magnetic card (credit card, grocery store card, or anything swipeable) often have a visible keyhole for a tool held by hotel management or security. Or, the safe may have an innocuous-looking panel that simply snaps off to reveal the keyhole. Whose got that key?
Bob and I have also come across safes screwed to loose shelves in closets.
In our book, we wrote:
Safe-cracks are extremely rare, although a man was recently arrested in Palma de Mallorca and charged with a spate of hotel safe robberies. Somehow, he had come into possession of a master tool which hotel security uses to open certain jammed electronic safes. (Other electronic safes can be opened by security using numerical bypass codes.) Presumably then, the man also had the tools to get into the hotel room itself. The burglar posted his female accessory at the elevator. They each had a cellphone and kept an open connection between them. When people came to the elevator, the woman would delay them for one minute. The burglar would hear the conversation, tidy up, and get out of the room.
The “international conman” captured last September social-engineered his way into guest rooms and tricked hotel staff into opening safes. Hotel management, meanwhile, walks a fine line, compromising somewhere between providing real security and reluctance to inconvenience guests.
So how does Mr. International Conman get into your safe? Or—maybe not your safe because, obviously, he’s going to target a “whale,” or some other affluent hotel guest. First, he needs to get into your room—when you’re not there. Like any good con artist, he knows that front desk staff at most hotels will ask for ID, so he’s prepared. Here’s how. First, he follows you to learn your room number. Later, he goes to the front desk and, giving your room number, asks for a printout of “his” charges to date. Bingo. He’s now got your name and address. Next job is to whip out a fake ID, right in his car in the parking lot. Sounds like a lot of trouble, doesn’t it? But look at the payout.
Our usual set of old, beat-up Halliburtons.
What should you do, then, with your million-dollar bauble? Carry the stuff and get pickpocketed or mugged? Leave it in the hotel safe for the safe-cracker to burgle? Put it in the front office safe? Often, Bob and I choose to lock our stuff into our largest hardsided (aluminum) luggage.
This is a good moment for intuition, or at least for some conscious reasoning. Bob and I stay some 200 or more nights a year in hotels and, though we don’t always use the safe, we’ve never had a problem with one. YMMV. The practical danger in using the hotel safe is remembering to empty it before you check out. When I expect a hurried or groggy, pre-dawn check-out, I scrawl a bedside note to myself.
What kind of joints do you stay in? What do you carry?
Credit: Rickard Ignell/Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Traumatic insemination is worth mentioning as a follow up to my post on bed bugs in hotels. Male bed bugs, ScienceNews reports, “ignore the opening to the female reproductive tract and inject sperm with a needlelike appendage directly through the outer covering of a mate’s body.” Yikes!
The report also explains that the male insects will happily mate with well-fed individuals of either sex until an accosted male sends out a special pheromone causing the aggressor to back off.
The pheromone can actually be detected by humans. It smells
a bit like almond, but not particularly pleasant. “Older people say that you used to be able to tell whose house had bed bugs because it had a peculiar smell.”
