Saturday, January 06, 2007

What to Pack for Southeast Asia

Before I close the door on my travels in Southeast Asia, I have one pragmatic entry. This I wrote on my last day in Bangkok and while it may be like a Tarantino movie where they do things in backwards order, I think it is worth submitting.

So, you’re going to Southeast Asia. What should you bring? Nothing! It is very true that you can go to Thailand with only a passport, an ATM card and the clothes you are wearing. Although that would be a bit extreme, lean towards this truism while you pack. You can live without much more than you think. Even the electric toothbrush is unnecessary.

Do not bring anything like this (or at least make sure you really want to carry it around with you):

• A wool cardigan sweater
• Long pants
• Designer Jeans
• An ash tray
• Your favorite incense
• An 800 page hardcover novel
• An electric toothbrush charger (for the toothbrush you’re not bringing)
• A long sleeve shirt
• A mosquito net - Many people will disagree here, but for me, a mosquito net is a luxury. Trade your mosquito net for the ability to speak one sentence such as “I am hungry”. You can’t eat a mosquito net. Besides, there’s this stuff called mosquito repellant and other stuff called doxycycline
• A big plush Garfield beach towel!
• A big box of embossed linen stationary
• A big anything. No. Big. No. No. No. Small is good.
• Shoes – dancing shoes, combat boots, platform shoes, anything called a shoe. I wore $0.80 flip-flops for nearly 3 months. On travel days I wore $6 trekking sandals. Once I became a better flip-flop’er, I tossed the trekking sandals.
• A micro cassette recorder with a wireless microphone.
• Water bottle. In Asia each water purchase comes with a free bottle.

Finally, even more important than the cardigan, only under very unusual circumstances should you bring a Barbie doll. This is called “bringing sand to the beach”. I suggest having a long talk with your Barbie to explain why she would be much happier at home. If you are foolish (or foolish in love), you may find yourself run ragged in a Bangkok mall looking for super-petites, annoyed the whole time because you got a $30 ticket for snuffing a cigarette on the sidewalk. (Bangkok is a filthy city, but you can, and will, be fined for throwing cigarette butts out in certain areas. To be safe, always always always use an ash tray.)

Now, let’s get to what you should bring. These first 3 items are essential:

A map. A good current map. Hardly anyone in Thailand can read a map (in Laos, most people can), but it draws lots of attention and is a great conversation starter.

A bilingual dictionary. You are traveling in a foreign land, carry a dictionary. Carry it until you can speak the language. Consider this... If someone were to come into your day-to-day life and repeat the exact same incomprehensible phrase over and over, becoming louder and more frustrated with each iteration, wouldn't you eventually think to hand them a translation dictionary? They're bi-directional you know.

A small compass. Get a very inexpensive one (approx. $1USD). Attach this to the outside of your bag.

Here’s the rub… The compass, the map and the dictionary all work together. It’s sort of like pretending you’re exploring a place you’ve never been before.

Other things you might consider bringing.

A GSM cell phone (unlocked) A SIM card in Laos or Thailand costs about $10USD. Calling home from a local SIM card is only slightly higher than using the internet cafe phones. (My other option was to let Cingular GOUGE me at the insulting rate of $0.79/min - Hey, Cingular! Stop ripping off your customers, we don't all spend the whole year in Kansas).

So... Why have a cell phone in Southeast Asia? Here is some very smart advice, especially for the solo traveler. Arrange with a reliable friend or family member back home that you will text message them each time you change locations. This way if you disappear and you have been chopped into little bits in the jungle, someone has a way of knowing where to start looking for you.

It pains me to write this… consider bringing a guide book. A guidebook tells you a million things. Over 900,000 of those things are superfluous and/or outdated. To pass through a country, especially in SEA, you only need the names of towns, a map of the country and towns along the way and border crossing information. Having some suggestions for guesthouses is sometimes good, but I stopped reading them because they are riddled with inaccuracies. After that, you can figure it out.

Here is my advice on guidebooks. Get a compilation guidebook (Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, for example). Cut out the pages you need, bring them to a binder and have them soft cover spiral bound. All of a sudden, that two inch thick, space-gobbling, anchor of a book is now one centimeter thick. Whatever you are missing from your self-abridged guidebook, you can look up in any of the numerous bookshelves you will encounter.

More things you should bring…

Rubber bands. How do I sing thee praise, oh rubber-band.

Ziplock bags. Soap, passport, cell phone, receipts... (separate bags, right?)

Medium-sized, nylon, drawstring sacks to hold: toiletries in one and clothes in another (ok, I use one for shirts, one for underwear) If you can't stand the though of your dirty clothes fraternizing with your clean clothes, get another bag for the dirties. Make sure you have the kind of drawstring witha plastic clamp so you can cinch it down and secure it.

Smaller drawstring bags. Mesh is good because you can see through it. Sometimes, mesh is bad because you can see through it.

A flashlight … or a torch … or whatever else it’s called. Whatever your nomenclature, I suggest you bring a thingamajig which makes a bright light in the dark so you can find your way. (Favourite feature on my Thai cell phone… a flashlight)

Dental Floss. I kissed a pack of dental floss once. Do not underestimate the power of this lightweight travel and hygiene esssential.

Toothpaste. I specify "paste" and not "gel". If you prefer gel, or don't care, skip this part. Otherwise, know that there is no paste in Southeast Asia. You may find children's bubblegum flavoured past, but no mint paste except I did find some "night time" toothpaste where the label clearly explains how it is to be used... in Thai.

One pair of shorts.

Another pair of shorts. - Unless you can figure out how to get the first pair of shorts washed and still get around with causing a scandal, you will need the second pair.
However… A note on men’s shorts (which may apply to women too, but I don’t wear women’s clothing when I travel). I have a pair of mountain climbing type pants where there is a mesh lining, like a bathing suit liner. They have zip-off legs which are ideal for showing respect at wats (temples). When you roll up the legs they’re the size of a cigar and easy to store. The shorts dry really fast so you can feasibly wash them before bed and they will be dry when you wake up. Why do I not wear these shorts all the time? The mesh built-in underwear thing irritates my bum. Otherwise, this could solve the one short / two short problem and reduce the underwear quotient.

T-shirts. Yes, you can get t-shirts in Asia. DO NOT BRING YOUR FAVOURITE t-shirt, it will be ruined. Also, don't bring thick t-shirts; they're too bulky and take too long to dry. The thinner the material the better.

iPod/mp3 player. This could be your link to sanity on some endurance travel routes where the piece de resistance at the end of a 10 hour bus journey is a 45 minute long song on the karaoke TV where an effeminate redheaded man in a yellow jumpsuit sings (whines, actually) in a falsetto voice in a language you will never understand. Naturally, your seat mate will be singing along. I am not exaggerating - this happens more often than you would think. ... or you could leave the iPod at home and remove your ears en route with a carrot peeler.

Camera. I could nix the camera but my brother asked me to take lots of pictures. Personally, I prefer to look at things for as long as it takes to remember them.

USB Flash card. Forget about carrying blank CD's. Flash cards are more durable (they meay even survive the washing machine) and they are far more compact than CD's. One card is good for off-loading your photos from your camera (so figure 1gb to 2gb). Use another one to store scans of your passport, credit cards, driver's license, etc (250mb will more than suffice) NOTE: make sure you zip and password protect the second one. Use a password with a combination of numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters and do not use words found in the dictionary. Make sure the password is at least 12 characters long. The longer the better.
The price of these cards is very reasonable. I just picked up a 1GB card for $10USD. You can also pick them up in Bangkok, but don't expect them to be sold in Vieng Vang.

Single US dollar bills. These are extremely handy anywhere in the world. I never travel without a wad of singles. Don't expect a favorable exchange when you hand the customs officer two US twenties and he's stuffing kip or baht back through the window. Bind your singles in stacks of $20 (rubber bands?). Spread the bound stacks of bills 4 separate money envelopes and conceal them in different parts of your bag (bottom of a tightly cinched dirty underwear sack?). If you have some sort of dementia, bring a magic marker and you can keep a running balance on each envelope, using special color coded rubber bands to indicate which packet is less than $20.

INCLUDING everything listed, there are things you should not buy for your trip. If you already have them, bring them along. But if you don’t, you can get it when you need it:

• Mosquito Repellant
• Passport photos (wildly popular at border crossings and nightclubs).
• Re-hydration powder (the stuff in Laos tastes terrible so stock up in Thailand before crossing the Mekong)

Are you starting to get the idea?
Passport, ATM card, the clothes you are wearing. That’s it!

Maybe this helps someone out. Maybe it is dismissed. I dismissed a similar article not long ago and paid dearly for it with a torn shoulder ligament. Assuming you read this and think I am some crackpot with a 500 cubic inch pack of smelly clothes and you decide to ignore my advice, I have one more piece of practical information.

When you discover you are stuck in Asia with all the stuff I told you not to bring, and you also added a guitar, a rabbit skin beret, a three piece suit, extra socks, scuba diving equipment, Barbie’s dream beach house, a big bottle of mouthwash, a case of 35mm film, your own complete set of golf clubs, blank CD’s, a practice amp for the guitar and a curling iron, here is how to handle the situation.

Mailing these lovely possessions home or anywhere else will cost more than a month of expenses. Forget the idea of mailing anything other than a postcard or a letter. Get to Bangkok (or whatever city is your final departure) and store it at your guesthouse. Even with the additional travel expenses, this is still a fraction of the cost of mailing. Buy a smaller bag to hold what is absolutely necessary. Be prepared to carry this bag on your lap for 10 hours (remember the guy in the yellow jumpsuit?) You won’t always need to do so, but if you can, you have the option to never let your possessions out of your site.

“Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.”
John Ruskin

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