I jerked awake a few moments later when I heard Jay shout. I leapt to my feet and tumbled down the hill in time to see a small black head and fleet bare feet disappear into the almost impenetrable undergrowth below us. The youngster had apparently crept close enough to grab my camera bag and was slipping away with it when Jay woke up. The shock of discovery made the boy drop it before darting down the mountainside. I sat and cradled the bag with a pounding heart. My camera, money, airplane ticket, and passport were all inside.

The valley spread out before me; rolling, terraced fields, a gemlike pond or two. In the valley below a small cluster of thatched huts nestled among stands of fluffy bamboo and buffalo wallows. What was wrong with this picture? The pint-sized thief couldn't have been more than eight years old. His mother, like the women whose house I had stayed at the night before wouldn't have recognized the Vietnamese equivalent of a five-dollar bill. What would the little boy have done with five thousand dollars' worth of cameras and cash?