Someone posted an article on airliners.net this week about a bogus British government memo being handed out to KLM customers boarding planes in Glasgow. It claims that all British subjects traveling abroad are required to carry on their person at least 700 pounds sterling to pay fees in case their return trip is cancelled. Speculation is that the memo was prepared by a pickpocketing gang that will be set up at Amsterdam waiting for incoming pax from Glasgow.

Pickpocketers in Amsterdam are serious business. What wasn't in this video is what happened to my friend while we were eating in a Burger King off Dam Square. The pickpocket reached under our restaurant table and cut off the purse that my friend had wound around her leg! Our table was near some stairs, so we think he must've crouched on the stairs and reached through the railing to snag it. I've always wanted to go back to that table and put a decoy purse under that table filled with monopoly money.

Pickpocketers in Amsterdam are serious business.

I'd bet they're an issue in most large European cities. I think the key -- as a tourist anyway -- is to never carry anything in a purse, shoulder bag or daypack that you can't afford to lose. I use a shoulder bag but only have guidebooks and food in it. Cash & plastic are always in a money belt and I've never had a problem (of course, if someone has a weapon, that's a different matter.)

The only close call I had was on my first trip to Europe, when I did have some valuables in a daypack. I was boarding the tube in London and felt a tug at my pack. I turned around to see a guy with his hand just about to go into my pack. I kicked and swore at him and as the doors closed, I could see him smirking on the platform.

One of my favorite memories was when I was in Rome for the first time with a girlfriend. We were heading for an escalator to the subway platform, to take it back to our hotel at night and a police officer stopped us. I couldn't figure out what we might have done wrong and tried to communicate that to him (he didn't speak any English.) Then, he pointed to a guy taking another escalator and, with his hands, made a gesture that I took to mean "bad news." I had no way of knowing if he was familiar with the guy or if he was just acting on a gut feeling but we really appreciated him going out of his way like that.

Just came back from a mission trip to the Philippines. As I couldn't leave anything back at hotel, I had to carry all my camera gear/netbook on me pretty much all the time in a sling pack This one (yes, linked thru Amy's site.)

Walking thru the various shopping malls and markets I had more shifty eyes on me than a Thompson gazelle with a bad hip trying to cross the Serengeti. Got such a bad vibe, I actually stopped at the hardware store in the mall so I could buy cable ties to lock the zippers on the bag.

Of course, this was in the provinces - the doctor we worked with said if tried that in Manila; they wouldn't bother with stealth - just knife me.