Over many years of traveling together, Kenny and I have highly (overly?) engineered our packing and our travel gear collection. Packing for the fall actually involved very little new gear acquisition – we’re at the point now where we walk around REI and can’t find anything that we need (a true sign that we’ve lived in Seattle too long?) But one of the items we did pick up, and which I now cannot live without, was the Kindle 2.
The most obvious reason that I love the Kindle is the space that it saves– it’s much easier to slide a Kindle into my bag than trying to cram in 10 or more books. And now that all of the Lonely Planets are available on the Kindle, we don’t even need to carry bulky guide books (and while we were on the fence before, this move puts us firmly on the LP side of the Lonely Planet v. Rough Guide debate). It’s also much easier to find the books that we want in the Kindle Store than it was in Indian bookstores. And of course purchasing and then downloading a book instantly certainly beats waiting two days for it to arrive in the mail.
I also love the huge selection of public domain books, which is still most of what I’m reading on the Kindle. I feel like I’ve been reading The Count of Monte Cristo for months… I was also able to purchase much of our recommended reading list for our AJWS assignments in Thailand.
I have only a couple of complaints:
- While the battery life is really quite good, I never have any idea how much battery I have left. The battery meter seems to jump from 50% down to empty quite suddenly.
- Availability of books is still not as good as it could be (although of course much better than availability of non-best-seller English books in Indian bookstores).
So far, sharing one Kindle has worked out pretty well; we’ll see how we do in Thailand…
Overall, I think we did well with our packing for this fall. We packed very light in the clothing department, assuming we would shop. We have purchased a few things, although not nearly as many as I thought we would, which means we’re cycling through the same clothing every few days. But we still have time to remedy that. :)
There are a few things we brought with us that we haven’t used at all:
- Binoculars
- Headset (in my defense, I had argued against packing this, as our laptop has a microphone anyway)
- Long underwear (would’ve been useful for a longer trek in Nepal)
- Wall adapters for various electronics
- Spare bottles of sunscreen (why am I carrying four bottles of sunscreen?)
The one thing I don’t have that I really really wish I had is a pair of jeans. I brought a pair of convertibles and a pair of cargos and that’s it (great for hiking in Nepal, not so great for going out to restaurants and bars in Bangalore). I asked Archana where she usually buys jeans and her answer was, “not in India.” Sigh.
One thing that takes up space (and weight) in the pack are guidebooks. Before we left the states, we searched for Kindle versions of any guidebook for India/Nepal to no avail. Tonight when we were online waiting for today’s torrential downpour to end we noticed that Lonely Planet has just published Kindle versions of most (all?) of their guidebooks, including the new version of Nepal that was published a few weeks ago (after we had already left the States; we have the previous version from 2006). It looks like our local travel guru Rick Steves is starting to Kindle-ize his catalog as well.
Of course, the Kindle version may be of limited use in the field – a paperback LP may mark you as a tourist, but it certainly doesn’t attract any extra attention…
Kenny and I both received emails from American Jewish World Service today – we’ve been accepted to their Volunteer Corps program, and will be placed on a volunteer project with one of their partner NGOs in Thailand or Cambodia. The project will start on February 22, with an in-country orientation on February 15.
Of course we had originally hoped to be placed in Africa, but Southeast Asia was our second choice, and we’re very excited! It will be a few more weeks before we get details about our placement (city, NGO, project, etc.).
From the beginning of the year until the program begins, we may look for a shorter-term volunteer project, or we may do some travel around Southeast Asia (we’ve already been to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, but we loved them all and would certainly visit again; we’d also love to see Burma if time and the political situation allow).
Our goal is to pack as little as possible, but of course we need (and want) a lot of stuff:
- Documentation: passports, flight confirmations, immunization records
- Drugs, vitamins, first aid: antibiotics, anti-malarial, anti-virus, ibuprofen, Imodium, Neosporin, Band-Aids, bug repellent, sunscreen, supplements, etc., etc.
- Toiletries: In some cases (i.e. things we can’t buy in Asia), we need enough to last through December. Which takes up a lot of space.
- Minimal clothing: a few shirts, two pairs of pants, a skirt, a bathing suit, etc. A hat and a light jacket. We’re expecting to buy clothes along the way (I am especially excited to buy a saree in India).
- Cameras: Nikon DSLR + 2 lenses (18-200mm zoom and 35mm fixed, good thing I don’t own a wide-angle or I’d bring a third); Canon point and shoot; chargers and extra batteries for both cameras
- Computer: Laptop, power adapter, external hard drive. I’m busy installing essential software (Office, Lightroom, Live Writer, AcrossLite, Live Mesh) on the new laptop.
- Entertainment: Zune and cable, Kindle and cable, travel Scrabble, travel guides, old New Yorkers and Atlantics to read and ditch along the way
- Footwear: I had planned to bring two pairs of shoes, but I’m now at three – running shoes, everyday “walking around” shoes, and flip-flops. My justification is that my shoes don’t take up much space. Kenny is disciplined and has kept it at two pairs for himself.
- The gift of sight: glasses, contacts, solution, sunglasses
- Can’t live without: headlamps, sporks, ear plugs, eye shades, toilet paper, luggage lock, hostel sheet, compass
- Recreation: Kenny found some really neat water weights called “AquaBells.” I’m leaving my yoga mat at home because it’s bulky. I hope I don’t regret this, but I’m assuming I can get one in India (if yogis in India even use mats?)
I’m sure we’re forgetting something. But supposedly you can get just about anything in Shanghai.
I was pointed to a list of useful travel gadgets, which is primarily interesting for the comment stream. In particular, I thought this was an inventive way of storing some extra cash or passports:
It’s not exactly a gadget, but whenever I trek-travel, I wear a low-profile sports kneepad: cut a slit at the top, remove the foam insert, and what’s left is a pouch that’s just the right size to hold my passport, immunization docs, a list of emergency contacts and emergency cash. Check out the Tachikara TK-2000 Volleyball Knee Pads ($17.99) or the Wilson Flex Senior ($12.99), both avail on Amazon
Of all the books I read (or in many cases scanned due to vacuous content), the one worthwhile title was How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas. Rather than just a dump of organizations, it has some deeper thoughts on philosophy and different alternatives to giving back. Also downloadable to the Kindle!
We are still working out the details, but here are our current ideas for the fall:
- 1 week in Shanghai – this is a work trip for Kenny. He’ll be in the office during business hours, and we think we’ll have social engagements with his co-workers in the evenings. I’m just going along for the ride. I’ll probably do some sightseeing on my own, and may spend some of my free time trying to flesh out some details for the fall (like finding places to stay).
- ~2 weeks in Nepal (with a 3-day layover in Delhi) – this is our “vacation” – since we haven’t taken one since December, and we’re both currently wound up like tops, we thought it would be nice to take some time without any responsibilities to do some trekking and unwinding. And we’ve heard that Nepal is a really beautiful place to do this.
- ~2 months in India – we expect to spend most of this time volunteering (probably in Bangalore with our friend Sean, but this isn’t set in stone yet). On the weekends, we may make some short trips to other cities in the south – we definitely want to visit my former boss Vivek in Hyderabad. We’ll probably spend the final week or two touring in the north.
- ~2 weeks in the US – we’ll be back in the US late December-early January, starting in Seattle, then a few days in Los Angeles followed by a few days in Miami.
After that, we’ll head out to the next destination. We think this will be somewhere in Africa, and we have various feelers out for NGO work in a few different countries. Some of those feelers may actually materialize as volunteer opportunities in Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, even back in India), so we’re keeping open minds.
I haven’t written here in quite some time because our lives have been crazy and completely disorganized as we try to sell our condo and figure out where the heck we’re going this year. But we’ve made quite a few developments:
- We’ve officially arranged for time off with our employer. Kenny is “out” to everyone at work, but I’ve only started telling my co-workers.
- We have dates worked out – our last day in the office is September 18.
- We have plane tickets for the first leg of our journey – which is actually a work trip for Kenny – a week in Shanghai, flying out on September 19.
- We have some rough ideas of what we might do this fall – more about this later, but we’ll most likely be in Nepal for a couple of weeks followed by India for a couple of months.
- We are contacting NGOs and filling out applications for opportunities in Africa starting in January. We have nothing solid worked out at this point.
Kenny and I checked out a few books from the library about overseas volunteering opportunities. I just finished skimming The Give-Back Solution. While I found the book mostly useless, I did grab some links that might be helpful: