Webby
Tue 21 Nov 2006
I have just realised that someone has lifted the best part of $300 (in crisp US notes) from my bag at some point since I have been away. This is despite the fact I always padlock my bag up before I leave my room!
Well in all my years of travel this is only the second time I have had stuff stolen. You may remember someone broke into Rusty Hoe last March.
The annoying thing is I had those dollars specifically to pay for the rest of the organised trip I am going on so I have to go and get more now, probably at a much poorer rate than I got back home.
I am getting my Vietnam visa over the next few days. I was planning on going to the Embassy myself but my hotel travel agent will do all the leg work for me for a small fee. That means I can concentrate on work and make back some of that stolen cash!
November 21st, 2006 at 8:00 am
Ouch! That money would go a long way in Cambodia/Vietnam.
November 21st, 2006 at 8:07 am
Indeed it would have. I suppose in my money we are looking at around £160 which is not the end of the World.
Knowing what the cleaners get paid out here (assuming a cleaner took it) they’ll be living it up for a few weeks!
November 21st, 2006 at 10:27 am
here is the thing - I had $120 stolen in a hotel in Honduras. I had it all in small bills to tip people along the way but there it went. As I walked around the local village the next day I realised that it probably clothed and fed a family for weeks so what do you do - at least you didn’t flush it down the toilet or filter it through your liver.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:56 am
That is some consolation I suppose providing it did n’t fall into the hands of the owners.
It is not going to help anyone in the long run though.
I believe it happened when I stayed in a Bungalow at Kata Beach, Phuket - I don’t think I locked my bag then! That’ll teach me.
November 21st, 2006 at 12:06 pm
I once hid a $100 bill in my underpants to go through a border. African rules about money are, shall we say, archaic and weird. Anyway, after crossing the border, I really really really needed to go, and forgot the money was there. $100 down the long drop. Totally wasted, but funny. Even at the time I thought it was funny.
At least you can fantasize that a cleaner paid for medication for a child or something.
November 21st, 2006 at 3:18 pm
i don’t think it’s any consolation - someone dishonest took it, whether they really need it or not, there’s probably plenty of completely honest hard working folk who would benefit just as much from that money.
November 22nd, 2006 at 2:57 am
I tend to agree no excuses at least it will not spoil your trip stay safe
Neale
November 22nd, 2006 at 6:40 am
It’s not an excuse. But I just spent less, bought fewer souvenirs. So that’s 100 dollars that didn’t go into that poor country’s economy. At least Webby’s money is circulating.
The hard part for me about having something stolen, is just the idea that my space was really violated.
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:12 pm
What great morals we all have. Maybe we have never had five kids at home who are starving, no education and no opportunity to build websites that might lift us out of our misery!
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:53 pm
What happens next time when the thief gets caught by their employer and is fired from their job that supports their family?
November 22nd, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Then that cleaner is f******!
Remember that question - If you were a vegetarian and you were told that if you ate one chicken it would mean that another ten chickens would not be killed - Would you eat that chicken?