Packing Post Mortem
When planning my southeast Asia trip I spent a lot of time researching how and what to pack. I then wrote in exhaustive detail about every one of my possessions during this long trip. At the time this was mainly theoretical: my longest trip prior to that 3 months on the road was 3 weeks.
So naturally I was curious to see how my choices worked out in practice.
Pretty well as it turns out. If `pretty well’ is not detailed enough, I promise that the following contains far too much detail.
Bags
The most important decision was the bags. Too small and I’d be unable pack things I really needed. Too big and it might get too heavy, or, heaven forbid, require checking on flights. A poor choice of bags could mean discomfort and continual annoyance.
When traveling, I adopted the front-back/back-pack configuration. Through this looks a bit awkward, it’s quite comfortable. This setup involves a larger back pack with a smaller backpack worn around the front. The larger pack gets stowed in the overhead bins on flights and stashed at the lodging on arrival, which the smaller pack becomes a purse while wandering locally and fits under the airplane seats in front of you. A neat arrangement which worked well for me.
My back pack was the Tortuga Travel and by front pack was the Osprey Daylight. How’d they work?
My Tortuga Backpack was perfect. Just the right size for airlines, incredibly comfortable to wear (those beefy padded hip straps were ideal!) It was easily one of the best purchases I made.
The Osprey Daylight pack was good. It wasn’t ideal however: a few more liters would have let me get my laptop in and out with greater ease. Also, the straps had a cross-piece near the top. When worn on the front they often choked me. Finally, more pockets would have been handy. As a day pack it carries a lot of random small items and it would have been nicer to have those fixed in pockets rather than stuffing the single top pocket or floating in the central compartment.
So perhaps a bigger pack would have been better. And maybe one meant for a laptop, since that’s what was in it most of the time. I’m considering the following:
- Osprey Ellipse Daypack is a laptop-oriented pack with lots of internal structure.
- Osprey Talon 33 would useful more for hiking and other outdoor adventures.
- Tortuga daypack is new and I’ve got it on pre-order. I’ve a good feeling about the brand given my experience.
Organization
The Sea To Summit Ultra SIL compression sack were a big win; these were great at storing all my clothes in a tiny volume. The Eagle Creek Travel Gear Pack-It Compression Sacs — the big zip-lock-were less useful since you need to compress them externally which means stuffing your bag overfull and then sitting on it. Supposedly you can just burp the air out of the bags and compress them, but I never found that to be very effective.
Clothing
I brought too many clothes. Not by a wide margin though. And there were a few things I missed.
- Fancy Gore-Tex rain jacket was almost useless. It rarely rained in Thailand when and where I went. I was rarely out in the rain in Bali. A plastic poncho would have been much less costly and more portable. EBay’ed!
- Too many trousers how many is too many? Two. I donated my second pair in Pai. Eventually I ended up getting some ubiquitous lighter fisherman pants to replace them.
- Too few tops somehow I thought two short-sleeved t-shirts and a tank top would be enough. But a top is essentially underwear in these hot humid climates, so they don’t last more than a few days without becoming embarrassingly gross (though that number of days had been steadily increasing the longer I was on the road). Fortunately t-shirts are everywhere and cheap. Despite this, was hard to get good — i.e. technical 1 — fabrics, so it would have been better to pack them.
- Too few underwear 4 was very much on the edge for me. It meant frequent washing in the hot climates, especially when I did any kind of exercise. In addition, I bought my ex officio pairs off the Internet and the medium turned out to be too big. Granny panties big. It’s a trope of travel writing that you can get by on a couple of pairs, but my experience says that comfort and convenience is worth the tiny extra weight.
Electronics
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Kindle I rarely used my Kindle Voyage. Surprisingly I used my phone for most of my reading. The main advantage of the e-ink technology is being able to read it in sunlight, but I rarely did this. Also — and this may seem trivial — typing in a new WiFi password for every random cafe and hostel I visited got really annoying with the e-ink touch interface. Perhaps a small tablet would have been the better option after all…
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iPhone USB card reader the one time I tried to get photos off my SD card and onto my phone I learned that the iPhone can’t power the card reader I bought through the lightning-to-USB connection. D’oh.
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Battery pack this was a huge win. Helped me out many times. Helped my traveling companions out even more. It was my equivalent of offering a lighter to smokers. My little Anker battery was small enough to go in my day pack and so went with me everywhere. Perfect.
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Earphones As one of my consumerist addictions, I brought 3 of these. I listen to some music, but mostly they’re for audio books and podcasts. There also useful as a sort of leash, my phone can’t easily be lifted from my pocket without me noticing when the Earphones are in my ears or around my neck.
I used my Bose Quiet Comfort 20i only on the long haul airplanes and my Shure SE215-Ks
not at all. When I did allow myself to listen to podcasts (a big, attractive, distraction for me) it was mostly on battered earpods. When those finally devolved into mono earphones without in-line remote, I replaced them with copy earpods (yellow!) in Siem Reap. Those lasted a day before beginning to fall apart. Even at $3, they were a waste.
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Plug converter Mixed feelings about this. My huge all-in-one converter/USB power converter was useful outside of Thailand (where US plugs can be used), but probably not worth its size to just convert one kind of plug to another.
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USB Ethernet dongle Utterly useless: WiFi was ubiquitous where there was any Internet at all.
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Camera My Sony DSC-HDX100V lasted the whole trip, like a trooper. This was good. It was also annoying. The little frustrations of this device keep nagging me every time I used it: the slow zoom and autofocus speeds prevented possibly-awesome snapshots, its habit of popping the lens cap off when I turn it on is poor design and the way it will simply die when the battery runs down with the zoom extended so I can’t out the cap back on. It’s very much a love-hate relationship.
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Speaker It was nice on occasion to have a little bluetooth speaker to play music. I bought a Beats knock-off in Bangkok and promptly lost it. Then M gave me one in Bali which I’ve used since.
Toiletries
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Toenail clippers surprisingly I forgot my toenail clippers. Since I’m stubborn and couldn’t stop thinking of the half dozen I have stored back home, I made do with the fingernail clippers. That kind of sucked.
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Drugs It was easy to find (OTC!) drugs: a Neosporin equivalent in Thailand. Sudafed clones in Bali. Watch out for European names for things: American coinages like ‘Tylenol’ require research to turn into ‘paracetemol’. There were some that were harder though. Ibuprofen or any other NSAID was impossible to get when I wanted it in Amed, Bali (though aspirin and paracetemol were easy).
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Charcoal My Yoga retreat instruction in Pai, Bhud, extolled the use of activated charcoal for all sorts of uses, from digestion to open wounds. I’ll need to try that out…
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Soaps There was almost no point to packing any kind of soap, shampoo or toothpaste. All were available. The only advantage is having one fewer thing to do when you arrive, which is a nice luxury.
Unfortunately, if you have particular requirements for product, like sunblock which doesn’t contain skin whiteners (!) and shampoos without alcohol (I didn’t even know this was a thing, never mind a think to be wary of), you’ll have a much harder time finding things. This seemed to be a big problem for the ladies I talked with.
Next time around, I think I will bring the GoToobes. The problem with buying as you need is you end up with non-travel-sized tubes, which need to be tossed when flying. So my idea is that I’ll keep the original bottles, fill up the travel size goo-tube, then just toss the remainder if I take a flight.
Miscellaneous
- Yoga Mat The Yoga in Bangkok was outrageous expensive — 400 or 500 Bhat per class. Though it got less costly in Chiang Mai and Ubud, it’s still an extra expense. With my own mat I can at least do a little practice on my own. After buying an inexpensive mat in Bangkok I ended up using it a small but significant number of times. It just attached to the back of my pack and added no weight. Airplanes weren’t a problem either.
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Sweat rag/mini towel I had been warned I’d need one and brought a couple of buffs thinking they’d work. They did — and had many uses besides — but were too small for an intense yoga class or the typical daily heat in Bali. A bandana would have come in handy.
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Neti pot After my time at the yoga retreat I tried in and off to find a neti pot like the inexpensive plastic ones we used. In Pai, Chiang Mai and Ubud I found neti pots, but they weren’t suitable. Why? In my backpack I’m concerned about robustness to breaking and weight. These beautiful ceramic pots for tourists failed both those criterions. This plastic travel model seems much better.
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Knives and Scissors I often found myself wanting something sharp. To cut a fruit, to snip some string or something. Next time around I think it’d be worth taking a small Leatherman or pair of nail scissors or something for such purposes. Of course, I’d need to prepare myself to get them confiscated by airport security (carry on only!) but I actually think the risk of that is surprisingly low.
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Face Mask The streets of Southeast Asia are polluted. On a scooter you’re breathing noxious fumes all the time. Locals wear masks to filter the worst of it; I think I should too.
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Swim Goggles or Diving Facemask Salt water stings! And rental masks may not fit well. So it’s worth considering bringing some along. As a bonus, at the risk of looking insane, goggles could be used Mad Max style on a scooter or bike…
Security, Currency & Documents
- Money belt My money belt (Eagle Creek Travel Gear Silk Undercover Money Belt (Black)) worked great, as did my document carrier.
Lost Along the Way
Here’s everything I lost along the way.
- Lacross Ball Given away to a friend with more tense muscles to massage.
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Titanium Bowl A rather silly object, my Snow Peak titanium camping bowl was left by accident at the AirBnB in Chiang Mai.
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Earplugs My foam earplugs got lost in the wash. The gel ones were useless and got smeared in their ziploc bag and I tossed the gross mess.
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Filson Shirt This shirt didn’t fit and I was happy to donate it to the Hill Tribes in Pai
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Patagonia Stretch Pants I didn’t need two pants. Also donated.
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Eyemask Dropped off my bag somewhere between Otres Beach and Phnom Penh. No big deal; the buff was better to keep out the light. And anyway, Thai airways gave me a free one on the way back.
- Shure Earphone Case Lost in the streets of Phnom Penh…
Progress, not Perfection
All in all, these are very picky concerns. Mostly I was very happy with my packing. Still, it’s hard to shut up that voice in my head that thinks it could be better…