Hotel oddity #5
byThe 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…
Travel
Barcelona pickpocket statistics: 6,000 thefts per day on visitors
byBarcelona 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
byWhy 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
byAfter 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
byPapua 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
byAtul 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
byOvernight 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
byRailway mafia groups fight over territory along the thousands of kilometers of track across Central & Eastern Europe. The most lucrative connections are those…
Pickpocket heaven at Oktoberfest
byPsychology is an integral part of a good cannon’s skill-set. He must be able to read the mark. More than one good pickpocket has…
Oktoberfest: Breasts, big beers, and Bavarian barf
byCalled 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
byWe 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…
byBrother-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
byWhat 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
byThe 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
byOn the wall under the shower head, three feet above the floor, this pipe drained water after every shower. Not one of the nicer…
The flower gift lift—Part 3 of 3
byThe Offer of a Flower is a Foil for Filching Palma de Mallorca, Spain— Bob and I trailed a trio of young women through…
The flower gift lift—Part 2 of 3
byPalma de Mallorca, Spain— Thirty to forty women practice this form of filching every day in Palma. They linger where the tourists are: around…
The flower gift lift
byPickpockets with flowers Palma de Mallorca, Spain— She looks like your grandmother—possibly even your great-grandmother. With a gap-toothed smile, she offers you a single…
Shoulder-surfers and pseudo-cops in Sweden
byI want to wail even in Sweden, because the country has long been perceived as enjoying a relatively low crime rate. And it did….
Exchanging foreign currency
byYou can save up to 20% when you change money abroad if you shop around. Maybe more. I found myself in Rome recently, with…
Fake police, aka Pseudo-Cops
byIn Bangkok, seemingly corrupt police are extorting large sums from foreign visitors. In South Africa, pseudo-cops are stopping drivers and pedestrians, requesting wallets in…
Bangkok airport scam and fake police
byWe good citizens are trained from an early age to respect authority. It’s not easy to ask a uniformed policeman for identification, or even…
Hotel oddity #2
byWe had a large and beautiful room at the Corinthia Lisboa Hotel in Lisbon. The business hotel’s casual restaurant, Tipico, is excellent, and features…
Kill bed bugs with heat
byBed bugs, we read, are living in hotels everywhere, dining on us. As a frequent hotel guest (200+ days a year for 16 years)…
A pudding
byAfter twenty years of baking this decadent dessert, which I’ve called by a name I’m quite fond of, I must finally, if fleetingly, commit…
The mosaic sidewalks of Portugal
byI came across some calceteiros in the process of creating the gorgeous Portuguese mosaic sidewalks. In time, shoes polish the mosaics to a slippery…
Traveling with luggage
byI’m sure it sounds obsessive to mention the necessity of onboard watchfulness when you fly. The likelihood of theft while on an aircraft is…
Street crime in Lisbon
byThieves are thick on Lisbon’s two main tourist trams, 15 and 28. Within five minutes of arriving at a tram stop for #28, we’d…
Drink-drugging on the rise
byDrink-drugging as a means to theft and/or sex is not new, but on the rise. It’s increasing in Colombia and known to be an…
Hotel security in the hands of housekeeping staff
byLoot ‘n scoot: Through my police friends, I learned of another devious M.O. resulting in theft from hotel rooms. The thief simply poses as…