Intruders

  Don't tempt people with unlocked luggage. Never leave an unlocked suitcase in a hotel room. You can buy cable locks, which can be used to lock your luggage together and onto a piece of furniture. Keep in mind that room locks can be picked and hotels always have spares. If you return to find a hotel employee in your room, they will generally have a feeble excuse for being there, for instance, they might say that your room was already open and they were checking to see whether everything was OK. Do not leave items near open barred windows. You would be surprised at the number of petty items that can be swiped from ground floor windowsills: like a half used deodorant stick or a personal notebook full of incoherent musings - anything!

   Even in the better hotels, reception desks are frequently unattended. The room keys are typically kept in an drawer or on hooks. This can lead to opportunistic "borrowing" by strangers.

  Hotel thieves will hesitate to cut open suitcases, as when this happens it can prompt police action, whereas when they pick a lock, theft is harder to prove. Nobody will have the time to pick locks whilst you are travelling on a train or bus, but within the private confides of a hotel room, it’s a different matter. Combination locks are superior and take too long for thieves to fathom the code at random, even if it’s only three digits. Ordinary locks are less convenient than combinations as people are prone to losing the keys! This is probably one of those ‘teaching your granny to suck eggs’ things, but it’s worth mentioning to choose a number of personal significance, such as part of an address, birthday or phone number. This will prevent horrible memory blocks. Never use 1234.

  Some countries, like the U.S., require you to keep airline baggage unlocked or to use simple locks easily opened by security personnel. In this post 9/11 world they will have no qualms about busting open your case if it is sealed with a combination. If you are traveling from such a country, place a removable sticker next to the lock, which clearly states CODE: 3586, (whatever it is) or place duct tape over a combination lock to keep it from accidentally closing and your lock being smashed open by overzealous baggage inspectors.

  Try not to place your luggage on hotel floors. Pipes can break or leak, leaving floors an inch deep in water. During an exceptional monsoon storm, some areas can also get partially flooded or roofs might develop leaks.

  Furthermore, poisonous bugs might crawl into your baggage. Once in a Public Works Dept. room on North Andaman, I lifted a carelessly discarded shirt, and found, to my horror, a huge centipede napping beneath it. It was probably eight or nine inches long but at the time it appeared to be the size of a small snake - like something out of a horror movie. In an instant I threw the shirt back down again.

   A hundred scaly feet then scurried across the wooden floor towards the bathroom door, where it found a small place to lurk in a crack beneath a small doorstep. I chose to ignore it, as it seemed to be quite content to hide itself. I even went and had a shower.

  Back at Port Blair (South Andaman) my friend Jens and I visited a delightful restaurant called the China Room run by a Burmese couple. I happened to mention the monstrous centipede to the waiter - who doubled as the owner. He told me that if a black one bites your foot or hand, it will swell up to twice its normal size, but if a brown one bites you, you must immediately seek medical attention.

  I thought the creature was black but Jens -who also saw it- swore it was brown. Whatever its race, I realised that I should have forgone my morning ablutions: my bare foot having been but a few feet away from its venomous jaws.

  Aside from giant centipedes, other squatters in your baggage might include an Indian spider closely related to the black widow (Latrodectus hasseltii indicus) which has a neurotoxic poison, or scorpions - someone once compared the sting of a scorpion with the punch of a full-grown man giving it all he had. The smaller scorpions are the most venomous. 

  As an interesting aside, Jens told me that when he was in Borneo, he delved inside his backpack only to be viciously stung and bitten. He retrieved his hand to find a huge beetle-like bug attached to it! Again, this was probably the result of leaving his pack on the floor.

Chains & Security

  Always chain up your bags in hotels and on trains – be paranoid. Getting stuff stolen is of course something that happens to other people – until it happens to you. I too thought I was sufficiently conscientious about chaining up my bag and thought I was quite capable of keeping an eye on things: but the thieves are good – very good. In my case, I had just boarded a train in Madras when there was a minor kafuffle concerning a problem with my ticket. It turned out that I was in the wrong carriage. After just a minute’s unintentional distraction, my bag was gone. I had not even had chance to chain it up! Opportunistic thieves linger around the major stations and they will momentarily board trains for which they have no tickets. As a foreigner, it is likely you will be followed, but the thief will not pounce unless an opportunity presents itself. Be suspicious, and don’t let down your guard until your bags are secured

  As for my own cautionary tale, I arrived in Calcutta a day later and informed the British Consulate that I had lost my passport. Luckily, I had not been travelling on that particular document, but it was still incumbent upon me to report the theft. The staff were most understanding and told me that eighty percent (I repeat, eighty percent) of all reported passport thefts were from trains.

  You can use your smaller bags containing your most treasured possessions and valuables as pillows on trains or busses, but do not lean them too near open barred windows. Beneath the lower benches, trains also have little built-in wires with hooks on the end, so you can even manage with just a padlock.  If you do buy a chain, get a good quality steel one from home rather than buy a tinny Indian one purchased from a railway platform, alternatively buy a bike cable. The thicker the cable width, the harder it is to sever but it will also be less bendable and heavier. Cables should be of the multi-wound multi "braided" type. Long lengths (up to 6 feet or 1.8m) come in a coiled form and are easy to carry in your bag. For hardcore “don’t mess with my stuff” protection, try an armoured lock. These gizmos are essentially a cable lock with a succession of articulated barrels through which the cable passes. The cable itself is not discernible through the armour. The barrels have a propensity to rotate if a thief attempts to saw through one, since they can revolve independently of any other barrel "link". In extreme circumstances, these heavy chains or cables can also be used in self-defence.

   When locking zippers, make sure you thread the padlock through the bases of the tabs, and not through the big loops at the end. It can be a little awkward fitting it through, but it's crucial. If you only lock the two grips together, it's then quite straightforward to put a hand or even an arm through. Give this a go and you will see what I mean.

  One interesting new product is a high-tensile, flexible stainless steel mesh sack, which incorporates a series of slash-proof, stainless-steel cables with an adjustable draw wire and padlock loop. This surrounds your pack/bag like a web, and can lock on to any post, piece of furniture, tree etc. Its best point is that a thief can’t simply cut a strap to bypass a lock. On the down side, this product is heavy and fiddly to get on and off. The holes in the mesh are wide enough to stick a hand through, so the thief can simply open the backpack through the mesh and slide valuables through the gaps. A backpacker can only hope that the extra time needed for this operation would discourage a prospective thief.

  Better still, are suitcases and ergonomic backpacks with hard plastic (polycarbonate) casings. These cannot be slashed with razors, they are lightweight but extremely impact resistant – a definite plus if you are taking a laptop. There are reports in Delhi airport of baggage handlers slashing open fabric suitcases with a razor and stealing items. A polycarbonate case or pack will definitely prevent this.

  When using a shoulder bag, use one with an extra long strap that you can put over your head and wear across the body. This will make it difficult for thieves on motorbikes to snatch it off your person.