Robbed (Skillfully) in Vietnam
I’ve only been robbed twice in my many years of travel. The first time was while I was writing in my journal while sitting under the huge picture of Mao in Tiananmen Square. The other time was in Saigon in 1998.
Feb. 15, 1998
I had two big surprises today. While I was sitting in a ritzy hotel one evening sipping iced coffee and enjoying potato skins, my peripheral vision caught either a large mouse or a small rat leaping onto a nearby column and then into a large planter nearby. I felt somewhat sorry for it, and didn’t report it.
As I was crossing the street on my way back to my hotel, I “sensed, ” rather than “felt” something. A thief on the back of a motorbike had snatched my bag slung over my head and across my chest. In the darkness, I could see my bag dangling from his hands as they sped away. It happened so quickly, and so gently, that I didn’t react immediately. When I understood I’d been robbed, I started running after the thieves, but soon realized that was not only futile, but also dangerous on the dark road.
The staff at my hotel had convinced me to place valuables, such as my passport, in a box with them. As usual, the bulk of my money was in a pouch around my waist under my blouse and attached to my pants. There was some money in my purse, but I lost mostly items of no value to thieves and a nuisance to replace, such as my glasses.
I preferred to dwell on the bright side—I was not dragged into the traffic when he tugged on my purse because the strap was hooked, not sewn, onto the bag. That made me aware that wearing a purse around my head and over one shoulder with a securely sewn strap is potentially dangerous. I marveled at how skillful he had been putting a finger under the purse strap on my chest and yanking it off without my really feeling it at all while speeding around the corner on the back of a motorbike. I was told that these motorbike thieves even steal cameras right out of the hands of picture-taking tourists.
The hotel sent a staff member with me to the police station. He also brought a gift of a carton of cigarettes for the police. My young friends who met me that night were very sympathetic. They took me to a modern fashion show with a Vietnamese flavor, which I particularly appreciated because it was for the local people, not tourists.
I asked my companions about the feelings of the southerners toward the northerners in Vietnam. One told me that the northerners still “punished” the southerners whose fathers had fought with the Americans against them. One way was to deny these children higher education and force them into lower level jobs. Northerners were given the better jobs in Saigon. In this young man’s opinion, the northerners were intelligent and hardworking, while the southerners were kind, friendly, and a little lazy. When I asked him why people were so friendly to American tourists, he said they love being open again after years of enforced isolation.
Tags: Thieves in Vietnam;, Travel
