First Trip - Asia- Thailand and Vietnam

Redundancy, redundancy, and imagine the unimaginable

The loss of my photographs was a real blow to me. I had had the good fortune of being handed some of the best photographic opportunities of my life. each day was better than the one previous. In retrospect I should have regularly downloaded the photos on a daily basis to a site like facebook, photobucket, or flickr, because a failed hard drive could have given me the same loss as the theft did, perhaps in a more emotionally acceptable sense, but the net result would be the same. I would also consider having a external hard drive in a enclosure, so that a image of ones laptop could be regularly backed up onto it, so that a loss of a computer could be addressed by sourcing something locally, and then using the saved computer image to restore data.

OK so you have figured rightly that my window was open, I hate air conditioning. Al my time in Asia was spent in "fan rooms". I simply loved the feeling of being in a enclosure-less sauna, and I gladly basked in the heat both day and night. I took great pains on my trip to be mindful of security, money belts, theft-proof wallets, maintaining control of bags, street awareness, etc. Perhaps I was lulled into complacency by my time in Thailand, where things seemed amazingly safe, where I left my large pack with valuables inside in the care of virtual strangers for over a week while I explored eastern beaches, returning to find it exactly as and where I left it, or where our attempts late one dark night to figure out the ignition key cover lock on our motorbike were interrupted by concerned locals, who thought perhaps we were up to no good, and came to intervene, perceiving a theft in progress. In my wildest imaginings, (and I freely admit to a streak of larceny in my character too!), I never thought that my belongings would be at risk in the situation as it stood. Locked door, barred window, (no screen though), perimeter secured, if you will,
secure ground floor, 4th floor "penthouse" suite, (in retrospect perhaps the cause of my being targeted), and me right there in the room to boot. Items were on a coffee table a good 5 feet from the window, and the shade was drawn. Bottom line, as is the case in life, a fact that we often work hard to deny, ANYTHING is possible! Be aware, be prepared!