4. Packing

The one and only useful thing I learned in the army, besides digging trenches, was how to pack a bag. You’d think you would learn more than that in ten months, but apparently not.

I always travel light and I am usually the one with weight to spare, something my fellow travellers quickly abuses. You wouldn’t believe what I have hauled over the Atlantic Ocean (including a porcelain dinner set). Nothing illegal though.

This trip requires lighter packing than ever, yet this is my first trip carrying a computer. My constant need for attention is really going to get challenged on an adventure like this and the least I can do is to post long and numerous videos of myself on YouTube. On a typical vacation I shoot about 1000 pictures every week, and that is going to add up to an enormous amount of images unless I sort them and, more importantly, delete the bad two thirds before I return home. Now that I think about it, it is still going to be an enormous amount of images.

Unfortunately my camera bag is just too small, it doesn’t even come close to fitting my new and very tiny laptop, and my other backpack is way too big to haul around on a bike. Obviously I had to get a new awesome backpack; the backpack that will carry all my belongings, yet be small enough to fit on a bike rack and light enough to pass as a carry on luggage. Such a backpack is probably quite hard to find, so I did what I always do when I go shopping; I went to the nearest store and bought the first item I could find.

An HP NC2230S laptop and a lot of cables.

A Nikon D200 with an 18-200 VR and a Phottix GPS tagger and a lot of cables.
A Panasonic FT1 on a Gorillapod and a lot of cables.
An mp3-player / alarm clock, a.k.a. Nokia E51 cell phone and a lot of cables.

Lonely Planet South-East Asia On A Shoestring.

Some clothes.

Some pills.

Not too bad if I may say so. Total weight 8 kg (17.5 lb).