Every Friday afternoon as Hanoi’s Dong Xuan evening market begins to get set up those weekend-night-market-pickpockets start getting excited. This weekend lets ‘fight’ back.

Hanoi is one of the safest places to travel to on your Vietnam tour – if not for those pesky pickpockets that seem to only come out during the night market. Really, they are not even real pickpockets, but they have devised a way of getting to your cash, credit cards, and sadly, sometimes your passport. What they do is, unexpectedly cut a hole in your bag and get everything out that way.

So here’s what we all need to do:

– When we leave our hotels bring only what we need. 500,000 VND is about $25. That should do anybody for a cell phone case and a scarf, and probably a quick bite to eat, and still a little left over for a few bia hoi’s.

– Leave everything else in your hotel room or in the hotel safe. Do NOT bring your passport, wallet, purse, or camera (if it is in a bag).

– No purses, no back packs, no bags, no sashes, what ever you might call them – leave them at the hotel.

– If you want to take a camera, wear the camera’s strap around your wrist or neck so that you can always feel it on your person.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will be ok; and, those pesky pickpockets, will go home empty handed!