How to look after your stuff while travelling in Bali

Travelling in Bali is much like travelling in any other of the world. You are staying in a place that is not your home and living out of a suitcace / backpack. This presents security problems, such as who has access to the room and how secure is the room when you are not in it.

•Hotel security
This question varies tremendously in Bali with the range of accommodation available. Places such as the Four Seasons value their reputation and therefore have hotel security. This ensures random stangers don’t go strolling around the hotel looking for easy pickings. Mid-range hotels have staff keeping an eye on things, but can you trust the staff?

•Hotel safe
The best strategy for visiting Bali is not to bring things with you that you can’t afford to lose. If you do bring jewelry, expensive cameras and large sums of money, store it in the hotel safe / room safe.

•No hotel safe
What happens if you have expensive items and are staying in a place with no safe? Some would say you should re-think your strategy, others that you have to use special tactics.

•Moneybelt
Having travelled all over the world staying in places with scanty security, I’d say there are 3 things you have to guard with extreme caution, your money, passport and air ticket. Losing one of these might mean the end of your trip. The best way to carry these is inside a money belt. When backpacking you should wear your belt all day, when sleeping put in under your pillow, when camping keep it inside your sleeping bag. When showering in a guest house with common bathrooms, pin it to your towel.

•Strangers in the room
For 90% of people travel involves some degree of romance, whether it be with a friend, hotel employee, a person you meet on the beach, your Indonesian language teacher, fellow student, foreign tourist, party girl or beach boy. What do you do with your valuables if someone from this category ends up in your room? The hotel safe is the best option, but what if your hotel has no safe? Best strategy is to take some previous pre-cautions. These can include using a PacSafe to lock your valuables to the bed / sink (hiding the key of course). Good thing about a Pacsafe is it prevents opportunistic theft. Bad thing is it can be accessed because it is a mesh and the lock can be melted with a cigarette lighter because its plastic.

•Photograph the person
If you bring a stranger to your room, stop for a moment and introduce them to the receptionist. Take a happy snap of them in your room, to let them know you have a record of them.

•Dummy container
Failing a PacSafe, you could try using a dummy container. In the US they make Right Guard (deodorant) cans that have a compartment inside. A good place to stash money inside your pack / suitcase.

•Dummy wallet
A dummy wallet could work. Local thieves would rather have 100,000rp in cash than a $2,000 Nikon. A wallet containing a couple of business cards, a phone card and change equalling 100,000rp-200,000rp, placed on the counter, will satisfy your average thief, leaving the really valuable stuff alone.

•Tape it safe
Another strategy is to tape your money belt somewhere hard to access, such as behind / under the wardrobe, which would require someone to use time / effort and make noise to access.

•Hurry up and hide it
What if you have the person already in the room and have taken no previous precautions? If you have a stranger in your room, that you expect might spend the night, you have one window of opportunity to protect yourself. When they go to the bathroom. In this situation the best strategy is to place your valuables closer to you than to them, in a hard to access place, such as onto top of the air conditioner, behind a framed picture. Make sure you take the chair and place it the other side of the room and place something against it, such as a glass / empty drink can / bottle.

•Lights out
When you go to sleep insist on turning all the lights out. If you wake up in the middle of the night to chairs moving, lights going on and glasses breaking, something’s going on.

•Feel the vibe
Having travelled in many countries and having shared rooms with fellow travellers, my nature is generally trusting. I have never had anything stolen from a hotel or guest house. In my time I have shared hotel rooms with people I’ve met on the bus / plane, which include males and females. You have to be able to read people for sure, but being a little street-wise doesn’t hurt. My motto is ‘if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t’. You’ll get a clue real quick if someone intends to rip you off. If you do, tell them straight you’re moving on, and don’t worry about the consequences.

Lastly, the safest way to travel is to travel with friends, don’t carry expensive items and never let strangers into your room.