A Snails Life

25May07

The flights are booked, the route (somewhat) planned and your intentions of abandoning loved ones has been widely broadcast. This is about the time that the pressing concern of that magical word “Gear” begins to raise it’s head. You stand in front of your backpack; an indubitable requirement, it having even lent it’s name to the throngs of travellers you intend to join. Somewhere in the back of your head is the need for underpants and a spare pair of socks. But what other essential padding do you use to fill that gaping canvas and nylon void?

We opted for the ever-popular Bring-As-Much-Useful-Looking-Stuff-Possible school of thought. This had several advantages, the biggest one being the avoidance of those niggling feelings about your choice between ball-point Biro’s and pencils. We brought both! After all, when we stood in that pensive stance facing our bags, we came upon two conclusions. The first being that our bags were huge. One of them aggressively leaning it’s 110 litre bulk against the wall. They had that hungry look of a bag that could happily swallow several people’s gear, never again to be found within the zippered twilight zone within. The second, and most deciding, conclusion is that we really had no idea what we needed. Where shorts or pants better for 40 degree heat? How long would the wait for a laundry service be Nepal? Are fourteen hour bus trips more bearable in sandals or runners?

So we answered all our disconcerting questions with one haughty answer. Pack for wilderness survival, and everything more hospitable that we find will just be a bonus!

So that’s what we did, we brought our bags up to the budget airline’s max weight, and then carried all the really heavy stuff in our deceptively large day bags. We flung ourselves through the airport doors with the unstoppable momentum normally associated with meteors. The heavy clunk of our hiking boots (had to wear this heavy piece of kit, the hope of that passing the weight test would have been blind) sounded military of the shiny floors of the check-in queue. Our encouraging smiles to the airline staff, our quick jokes to the bored over-sized luggage clerk and our cover-all yellow bags (gifts to travellers of a voyage long ago) all helped us to make it on board with more than the regulation amount of weight. Once in foreign lands, we reasoned, all this kit will be worth it!

I didn’t mind carrying the pack, although it was admittedly was somewhat difficult to navigate narrow corridors, and I did occasionally need rescuing from tight doorways. The constant comments on the size of my bag, and it’s possible contents of a stowaway girlfriend, made for an interesting ice-breaker with the locals. The only thing that started to bug me, was the idea that I might have to throw some of it, possibly unused, into an Asian trash-can. That erked me so much, in fact, that I have doggedly refused all the sensible options of leaving unnecessary gear behind. Save for maybe a drum…

My companion has maintained a far more mercenary approach to his kit. Constantly resorting his pack, clearing his stockpiles of new clothes when even his pack couldn’t sustain the pressure. T-shirts, the trademark of his purchasing power, go through a constant revolving door in the bottom of his bag. Unneeded gear made way for more useful local produce. Eventually even his beautiful dream of the guitar-playing backpacker took too much strain, and it was offloaded to another dreamer along the way. Too bulky, too delicate, to prone to going out of tune and too time-consuming to put back in tune. Always the pragmatist of the due!

Now we’re a little wiser. A little better travelled. A little more sensible. We can now afford to look back on the fears of finding a place to stay and laugh. We can now look on over-sized packs and head-nets and roll our eyes. We remember buying new clothes for the trip the way that some people remember themselves fretting over how straight their tie looks the morning of the first day of school. When you get here, it stops mattering. You find, to either your dismay or relief, that even in Jaisalmer they sell deodorant, or that next to the the open-air market in Krabi they have a 7-11. So now, in the hope of passing on some of our learnings to those of you who want to take that step out the door and worry what you should have on your back, I’ll give a quick run-through of what we’ve had on ours.

Quite possible would have died without

Money Belt – Containing everything we needed to get our sorry asses pretty much everywhere we wanted to go. Passports, insurance details, credit cards, ATM cards, bulk cash, spare cash, flight details, keys to our locks. Maybe even a photo of our loved ones. Most useful when; Freaking out that you might have left something important behind, and you can just tap your waist-band and breath out in relief!

Sandals - The King of all footwear, can be worn with socks (don’t care what anyone says!!) or without depending on climate. Allow the foot access to air while protecting it from any unwholesome debris on ground level. Most useful when; needing to dash out of your bedroom with haste when your fellow travellers are threatening to douse you with water because you’re already late for a bus. Also for showering in Indian communal bathrooms, where the difference between the toilet and the shower hole may prove too confusing for some of it’s previous occupants.

Headlamp – Small, battery powered LED headlamps are the king of all illumination devices! Long-lasting and incredibly bright, these little puppies can be used for everything from reading to replacing a motorbike’s broken headlamp. Most useful when; One of the frequent power shortages plunges the city into blackness, and you have a dangerous route to navigate to get to the toilet. Also useful for evil monkeys away from you as you sit huddled under a tarp in a jungle.

Sunglasses – Let’s face it, we hail from the lands of overcast skies and depressingly weak natural light. Our corneas’ are not used to the punishing effects of direct sunlight, and we spend a great deal of our time squinting through the hydrogen bomb-glare of the Asian sun. This leads to migraines, distorted vision and looking like a pedophilic gremlin. A simply fixed with a pair of corrected lens sunglasses! Most useful when; Trekking the Himalayas, walking around at midday, and combining with shorts, high-ankle white socks and sandals to become the cutting edge of style.

Antibacterial Hand-wash – OK, this is one that gets some abuse, slandered for being the tool of westerners to keep their little bubble of protection from the world they’re visiting. But we will stand and defend this little bottle of green gunk! Without it’s sanitising effects, we quite litter-ally could have died in India. After stooping to tie a shoelace while standing in a river of filth and having to push scuzzy dogs away with one hand while receiving your Thali plate with the other you begin to appreciate the miracle that is us surviving India without a single dose of diarrhea! Most useful when; The water isn’t clean, it would be vain hope to imagine the cook washed this week and you yourself are covered with a thin scraping of smoggy slime. In other words, India!

Things that make living that little bit easier

Travel towel – This light, compact and easily dried little gem is top of travelling essentials. The alternative is being laden down with stinking, stinking bulk that a normal normal towel becomes after three days of living in your bag after hastily rubbings yourself dry the morning before you left. Wouldn’t trade this for; a pair of fluffy bunny slippers.

Aloe vera – All purpose, making-that-discomfort-go-away liquid! Useful for soothing insect bites, crotch-rash from hiking and sunburn. Also good as a quick first aid for minor cuts and blisters, as it has mild antibacterial properties. Wouldn’t trade this for; A big bowl of strawberries with sugar and cream.

Face cloth – It’s name makes it sound single-purpose, when it is anything but! This little puppy becomes a miniature towel, a cooling rag for fevers and sunburn, an exfoliating pad to scrub the grime from your feet, a little storage pouch for your still-wet soap, and many more necessary pieces of kit! Wouldn’t trade this for; Two bottles of eye-drops, a pez-dispenser and one of those hypnotising Waving Cats.

Things that became our best friends

Sun hat – Similar to the fishing hats sported by old men, this may be an uncool addition to our attire. But what this baby lacks in style, it more than makes up for in value when faced with an unrelenting sun that threatens to burn your skull through your scalp. Also adds an extra layer of insulation from the biting wind on those barren mountainsides. Number of times hugged; Three, the desert, the mountain, and the time it became an impromptu Frisbee!

Long-sleeved shirt – Front line defence from heat, cold and the evil mosquito! Also can be rolled up to become a short-sleeved shirt! Magic! Also, the very act of rolling it up makes you feel like you’re about to get down to some serious business. Number of times hugged; Two. When it made me “blend in” with the jerky, shirt wearing local party-goers and when it allowed me to laugh at other travellers swatting at the swarms of mossies buzzing about.

Books – These really do have the sole right to claim the ability to turn an otherwise mind-numbing wait for a bus into an entertaining three hours. Makes filling the gaps in your journey a cinch. Easily and cheaply replaced at the omnipresent second-hand book stores all across Asia, we never seem to be without at least two each. Number of times hugged; About three-hundred and fifty or so. Hard to keep track of the number of times you nearly cried with relief at the sight of that paper-back when you’re trapped in your hostel with nothing to do.

Notepad – Diary, account book, memory replacement and entertainment all rolled into this wire-bound (or leather bound in the case of our posher half) stack of pages. It’s amazing how many idea’s and insights you have when travelling, and it’s a real bonus to be able to jot some down. Number of times hugged; Eh, none. Coz hugging your diary would just be sad. Even if it’s sometimes the only friend you have in the world… sniff…

Panadol – The ability to turn an unbearable journey into an enjoyable exploration, in handy tablet form! Everyone knows that even a small headache can make a stressful time a real nightmare, it really is a mega relief to enjoy seeing day-light and hearing people talk again! Number of times hugged; As it turns out, it’s pretty hard to hug a panadol. Once it’s done it’s magic, it’s been dissolved in your stomach acid. But the freedom from pain does tend to make you run around hugging everyone else!

Things that we should have left behind

Clothes – This is a big one, everything you could possibly want to wear is readily available over here for a fraction of the price. The very idea of going out “shopping for travel” is twatish in itself. Practically every destination is cheaper that Dublin! Time it took to wake up to reality; about a week. When we saw how easy it is to get clothes much more suitable to our new environment.

Hammock – God. This was a real daft thing to bring. It remained unused in the bottom of our bags until I took mine out for a night and then ditched the hated thing the next morning. THESE ARE THE DAEMON BEDS! Time it took to wake up to reality; Mainly due to an insistant rocking back and forth with our hands over our ears repeating “we WILL need our hammocks. We WILL need our hammocks…” it actually took us quite a while to admit the truth.

Head-net – I have no idea what we envisioned when we got these. Even in the highly unlikely situation of us hacking our way through a forest of insects with a machete, we still wouldn’t wear these things. I did use mine once though, when I was too lazy to get out of bed and put up my fly netting and couldn’t sleep with all the little gits going for my ears. Time it took to wake up to reality; About two months. When we found them in the depths of our packs and it took a few minutes to figure out what they were.

Sleeping Mats – Aside from their occasional use, these things just aren’t worth lugging around. We used them about five or six times, normally on the floor of our hostel floor to pad the concrete a bit. When trekking we were able to stop at rustic accommodation the whole way, so we didn’t need these for the purpose they were brought. Time it took to wake up to reality; Three months. After the trek. But they were expensive and useful for trekking another time. We hope.

Things of debatable value

Deet (insect repellent) – This is a brilliant idea! No-more-mossies, in a spray! Skrrrst skrrrst, mozzies begone! Unfortunately I can’t shake the unnerving feeling that the mossies watch us doing this, take a second to realise that those big, spongy food-bags now think they’re safe?! Score!! And then, when they’ve finished dining for the evening, promptly go off to the pub to laugh with their mates about their easies meal yet. Cheeky gits. Pros; Quick spray on exposed skin creates a chemical barrier that even the hungriest gits detest. Cons; We have never yet managed to get all the exposed skin, the stuff lasts less than an hour for even the most modest sweaters (which some of us are certainly not) and the stuff is pretty much as toxic to you as it is to the critters. So unless you plan on spraying yourself like someone with excessive compulsive disorder, constantly complaining about missing the backs of your ears punctuated with infrequent trips to your exasperated dermatologist… long sleeve shirts and incense coils work too.

Malaria Tablets – Long, long hours have we antagonised over this one. We gathered information from multiple physicians, researched on every website we could think of and took advice from every traveller who had their two cents to offer. Turns out most information conflicted, most local doctors didn’t know much, and the travellers swore against while the pharmaceutical companies, governments and medical boards screamed wide usage. Ah, easy choice so. The option we finally chose was to take the pills until we decided that our travels in danger zones had passed. Keeping your eye on the web for updates is a must for this option! Pros; Peace of mind. Avoiding the skip-a-heartbeat sensation when the word Malaria crops up in conversation. Not getting throttled by your fearful loved-ones. Cons; Pumping your body with unnecessary antibiotics for long periods of time (in our case months). All that cash you spent on them in the first place. And with many, unhappy side effects.

Sun cream – This is one that we still packed, and were thankful for it, but actually used very little of. A high-factor sun cream can be the difference between a good night’s sleep after a full day of hiking, or pain, blisters, peeling and possibly skin cancer. Although it really is no substitute for a hat, long sleeves and sensibly hiding away when the sun is at it’s worst, leaving midday to Charles and his frothy poodle. Pros; Protection for those times that you need to brave the desert sun to make it back to civilization before the scorpions get you, or if you want to go shopping in the markets all day with your flip-flops on. Cons; Horrible sticky stuff this. Unpleasant as a greasy film on your skin, worse when a greasy film all over your wash-bag. Plus it smells like your mother has been chasing you around the beach and humiliating you in front of your mates.

*DISCLAIMER*

The information contained within this post is merely that of two somewhat lucid, though often departed from normally excepted sanity boundaries, hardcore backpackers. When reading through the advice contained in this, or any, post you must keep in mind that it was developed by legends, for legends. We therefore except no responsibility for the damaged caused to persons/property/nations when attempting to utilise such information while being outside the ideal disposition of legendness.

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