Police Scam Tourists in Asia

The challenge for overseas travelers is to plan their vacations in a manner that provides flexibility in their travel, but at the same insures personal safety and security.
Travelers have enough information flowing through on the web to equip themselves with a knowledge base that will guard them against generic tourist scams.
In practice however, the ability to prevail against certain unexpected scams will boil down to resolution, courage and vigilance.
Here are some of the annoying and slightly scary things that have happened to me in my ten years of traveling in Thailand and The Philippines.
The most recent caught me completely off guard. I was arriving in Manila from an inbound flight from Bangkok. After clearing immigration and collecting my luggage, I made my way to the taxi rank situated in the international departures area. I deliberately avoid the International arrivals area because there is a mafia style operation there, where only airport taxis are allowed to collect customers, The prices they charge are about four times the real meter fare.
If you use the International arrivals taxis, you can pick up a standard meter fare. When you see the taxi drop off the the departing passengers you just ask the driver for a meter ride to your hotel.

On this occasion, I had experienced a particularly hectic day, and I did not notice that the markings on the car in the taxi rank were actually a police car. I opened the door and the diver said he would take me to my hotel for slightly above the standard meter rate.
I agreed to the price, threw my luggage in the boot and sat in the car. It was then that I realized I was sitting next to a Manila police officer. He noticed my surprise and with a silly smile on his face, told me not to worry because I was in safe hands and would deliver me to my hotel.

I was not sure what my next move should be. Cursing myself, for my lack of observation, I decided not to make a fuss and let the policeman take me to my hotel.
After a short way into the trip, he started to hassle me about the amount I should be paying for a personal escort to the hotel. I stood my ground and said I would only pay him the agreed amount.
He soon pulled into a gas station and while filling the tank, he told me that his friend would be taking me the rest of the way.
This really wasn’t getting any better. His friend got in and as soon as he was back on the highway, he started hassling me for extra money for the ride. I refused and he kept hassling all the way to the hotel.
It was an uncomfortable experience.

A week later, I was coming back from a club at about two in the morning, and the taxi I was traveling in was hailed down by a group of Quezon City Policemen.
They shone their flashlight into the cab, checked the taxi driver’s id and asked me to get out of the taxi. I was frisked and then the police asked me to produce my passport.
I had planned to photocopy my passport but never got around to it and now I found myself in a position where I had no id on me. My driver’s license was locked away in the hotel along with my passport.
I apologized to the police for my oversight but they were most unsympathetic and declared that I would have to pay a penalty.
Maybe having a couple beers in me gave me some extra courage and I knew that the police were trying to pick up some extra pocket money for the weekend, so I decided to call their bluff. I told them that they were welcome to come to my hotel, whereupon I would produce my passport for them.
When I told the head cop that I only kept the cash I would need for the night plus one credit card, he replied to me that they did not accept credit cards.
At that point, the four police seemed to lose interest and they let me go with a warning.
It is hard to believe that these things can happen, but they do.
There are plenty of fine police officers in The Philippines but when you are a white skinned foreigner, you have to accept that you may be targeted.

Using Your PDA to Blog and fight Blog Fade

Blog fade is a condition where our dedication to blogging gradually erodes to the point where we finally throw in the towel.

This unhappy situation is caused by two main factors.

The inability to plan upcoming posts.
The lack of time available to the blogger.

I have found a very productive piece of hardware that I use to fight the negative forces of blog fade.

The tool I am talking about is my PDA and my choice of PDA is The Ipaq classic 112 made by HP.
How does this help me produce a quality blog?
Firstly, one of the secrets of creative writing is to be able to capture the ideas and story outlines for your blog, as soon as they are formed in your mind.
I keep my PDA in with me at all times. The model I have is slim and light so it fits snugly in any pocket.
Whenever I come up with an idea for a post, I immediately make a note of it on the Ipaq. And I do that by either using the QWERTY keyboard overerlay or by using the voice recorder function.
The voice recorder comes in handy when I am walking or doing something that demands attention and is preventing me from taking the time to whip out the stylus.
Later when I have more time, I play back the voice files and begin outlining the major points in my notes file.
If I have sufficient time before I get back to my home office, I start to detail the points into a full post.
Productivity is maximized in situations like train journeys or the idle minutes while you wait for a client to show up.

When the day’s work is done and you are back in front of your computer, you Bluetooth your notes over to the pc and instead of being faced with writers block and a blank page, you are presented with a rough draft of your post.

Using your Asus and cellphone for internet connectivity.

The thought of not having a twenty four hour internet connection available when you are traveling can be a frightening thought for some.
Different time zones may mean the weary business traveler setting the alarm clock for three in the morning, in order to communicate with his associates in another part of the world.
These differing time zones, rule out the total reliance on internet cafés, whose trading hours do not necessarily coincide with those of time strapped business traveler.

In some countries modems are standard in many hotels, but this is not the norm and the traveler is left to traverse the nocturnal streets of a strange city looking to connect.

There is a better way.

When I travel to Thailand with my Asus eee, I pack my Nokia E61 which has a modem built into its hardware.
I have the Asus bluetoothed to the Nokia and this gives me a GPRS connection to the Web.
It may not be the fastest connection but it does the job when there is no hotel modem or WIFI available. The good part is that there is no other hardware to buy. All you need is your modem equipped cell phone.

One of the smartest things I did was visiting the head office of the phone company whose sim card I use when in Thailand. In my case it was Dtac and their representative installed the dial up configuration for me and also put me on a user friendly internet plan that didn’t break the bank.
I would recommend that anyone trying to set up a connection such as this should visit their sim card provider’s head office for personalized configuration.