Details Matter

January 22, 2008

Photo:Flickr/Yewenyi

I was backpacking Australia in 2005 and stopping a few weeks here and there to work so I could afford to keep going. The most memorable of my working stops was in a little town on the East coast called Airlie Beach. I’ll never forget my adventures there. Particularly not the less pleasant one on the day of my arrival.

After a very long bus ride from Sydney, I checked into the hostel that I had been told was the ‘best in town’ by some other backpackers I met on the road. The place was nice enough, but a little out of the way from the main area of town. Not a perfect place to job-hunt from, but I figured I’d stay put for the night and scout out a better place the next day. Too tired and hungry to change everything now. Besides, there was no one else in this 4 bed share-room yet, and it’s a rarity to get a room to yourself as a backpacker on a budget. I set up my bed with the clean sheets I had been given by the front desk, packed the essentials (passport, wallet, cash, keys) in my purse and went out to have a look about town.

I was gone for maybe two or three hours, having a long leisurely dinner in a pub that I was scouting out to see if I wanted to return with a resume the following day, and checking out the few other pubs around town. It’s usually pretty easy to get bar-tending work in towns that have high tourist traffic, so I was confident I wouldn’t have much trouble.

When I got back to my hostel, I fished out the exceedingly large hostel key ring from my purse hoping that no one had checked into my room and that I’d have the place to myself. No such luck. Two girls lay sleeping in the room, their stuff scattered all over the place already! Sigh. A closer look revealed that not only was I not alone, but one of them was sleeping in the bed that I had set up for myself, and the other beds had no sheets. “Why would a person do that?” I wondered. She would have had no idea that those sheets were fresh and clean. How gross! And where the heck were her sheets? Maybe her friend sneaked her in and they only paid for one person.

Annoyed, I left my bag, grabbed my key and headed for the front desk to get new sheets. When I explained the situation to the clerk, she looked puzzled and told me no-one had checked in since I arrived and there should therefore be no one in my room. “Well, you better check again” I told her (maybe with a little more attitude than was necessary as I was so tired). She looked in the computer and confirmed that there was no one but me checked into the room I was assigned. We both looked at each other in disbelief. “They’re in there sleeping soundly, so they had to have keys to get in”, I told her. “Maybe someone else checked them in and forgot to key it in the computer.”

With a shrug, she gave me new sheets and told me she’d send someone by shortly to check on my room. “I’m certain there should be no one but you in there.” She told me again. I was unfazed. I’d seen this I’d seen this sort of thing a few times before, as hostel staff tends to rotate often and they have been known to get the computer records wrong a time or two.

I walked back to my room and opened the door once again. This time there was no one in the room. What the heck!?! They were sleeping just a few minutes ago, completely undisturbed by my entering the room and now both of them and all their stuff was gone! I turned the lights on and looked around. The first thought I had was that they could have been thieves and they’d run off with what little I had in valuables. I looked in my backpack by the door. iPod still there, emergency extra cash stash still in its hiding spot. Hmm. I glanced at the shelf where I’d dropped my purse. Gone!!

I looked around the room in a panic. How could they have possibly wanted to steal only my purse? There was very little cash in there, and nothing of value but ALL of my identification and bank cards. I cursed myself for being so careless! I looked around the room several more times to make sure I didn’t just forget where I’d put it (I’ve done that before). But it was really gone.

Now in a total panic, I ran back to the front desk. On the way, so many thoughts ran through my head about how I’d go about replacing a Canadian passport in Australia with almost no money, no credit cards, no identification whatsoever. How would I survive the inevitable string of annoying days and maybe weeks filled with paper work and red tape with the small amount of cash stashed away in my backpack? I’d probably have to go back to Sydney, and where would I even stay? Most places require ID when you check in!

Now at the front desk once more, I spilled my story to the clerk, the words spewing out of my mouth so fast she had a hard time understanding me. I was shaking badly and almost in tears. She listened, wide-eyed and promptly called the police and the hostel security guard. God! I just wanted to go to bed so badly, and now I’d be up all night dealing with this bullshit! I couldn’t believe my rotten luck and continued to kick myself for not keeping my bag with me when I had gone for new sheets. The security guard said he’d walk me back to my room and we’d retrace my steps, just to double check.

As we quickly walked back towards my room, I gave the security guard the best description I could of the girls I had found in my room. I didn’t know much, as I hadn’t turned the lights on because they seemed to be sleeping when I came in. I’d seen two heads of long blond hair, one of them in braided pigtails. That’s really all I knew. With so little to go on, I doubted if there was any chance of finding these thieving scumbags and retrieving my bag. Why on Earth would anyone want to go to so much trouble to steal such meager belongings and not even bother to look in the backpack that had so much more in it? I wondered how the police would react to my story and dreaded the inevitable lectures about letting my ID out of my sight.

I opened the door to my room once more and the guard had a look inside with his flashlight on (even though the lights in the room were plenty bright) for any evidence the girls might have left behind. Nothing! Not even the sheets and blankets they had been sleeping in when I last saw them. It was as if they had never been there at all. The guard told me to head back to front desk as he went around to have a look around the area for these girls.

As we both left my room, he flashed his light in the room next to mine (the doors were glass, so he could easily see inside - so much for privacy). The two girls were in there! In the room right next to mine and they looked sound asleep again! “That’s them!” I whispered to him frantically. “Are you sure?” he asked, looking at me sceptically. “YES! I’m sure! I remember those braids!” I tried to keep my voice down so as not to betray our presence. The girls seemed to be sleeping peacefully, completely unaware of me and the security guard outside their door, plotting their arrest.

Gesturing at me to be quiet, the guard opened the girls’ door slowly and I followed him into the room, looking for my bag. I suddenly had hope that I might find it and not have to deal with the nightmare of losing my identity in a foreign country. Then I saw it! It was right there in plain sight on the shelf….

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The same shelf I had left it on myself when I accidentally walked in the wrong room the first time around….

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About the author: Gabby G is a traveler. She loves change and challenges and everything funny.