The Tao of Packing

I have spent my fair share of time living out of bags; in fact for a period of over seven years I didn't spend more than six months in any one place, living on one-way tickets with nothing more than I could stuff into my rucksack and boardbag.  I got pretty good at packing.

This past month I've packed bags for two trips that had quite specific constrictions:  a bicycle camping trip where everything that I took had to be carried on my bike, and a small boat expedition that necessitated me putting everything into a limited number of dry bags to be strapped down in the boat.  I like these sorts of packing puzzles just as much as I like writing lists of what I can pack for a flight that can be carried on my back and on the ends of my two arms without incurring excess baggage fees.
At the end of last year the patagonia cleanest line blog featured a post about packing by one of their climbing ambassadors Brittany Griffith, who uses a "room" system which I really like and isn't too dissimilar to my own technique.  

Here's how it works:  you probably only need things from three of the rooms in your house (bedroom, bathroom and garage), five maximum (kitchen and office).  Each one is it's own bag or sub-bag.

A washbag covers your bathroom packing and really all you need from there is your toothbrush because you can buy toothpaste, soap and deodorant in most places on this planet.  My first aid kit is kept in my bathroom, ready to go in there too.  Bedroom is clothing so is destination dependant but normally includes a few t-shirts, boardshorts, underwear, and I always pack my finisterre etobicoke insulation layer for cool evenings, air-conditioned airports and to use as a pillow.  Garage is for all of the fun stuff like surfboards.  Additional "rooms" are the kitchen if you're camping (and need to take a camp stove, mess tins and provisions) and the office if you need to take work stuff. 

Surfboards get dewaxed so that the wax doesn't melt all over everything else if my boardbag ends up sitting on the tarmac of a hot-as-hell hub airport during a transfer.  If I'm taking a wetsuit then that protects the bottom of my board/s (zip away from the board) and if I'm taking a sleeping bag then one surfboard goes inside that for extra protection.  I pack my towel at the nose end and then roll up all of my clothes, secure them individually with rubber bands and pack these around the rails, particularly at the tail end.  Fins, fin keys, wax and pocket knife all go in here too.
My "backpack" is a normal (carry-on) size Gravis metro bag, with a laptop pocket (I also chuck a magazine in there so that I don't have to dig around in my bag once in my seat), main pocket and three external smaller ones. The smaller pockets are what's important.  Stash passport and boarding documents in one for easy access, and toiletries in the little ziplock bag that they make you go through security with in the other.  Nobody wants to be stuck in the queue behind the person who has to dig around and unpack/repack their bag at every stop on their way through departures.  I normally stick a bodysurfing handplane in my backpack because if my boardbag goes missing in transit then at least I can still get in the sea whilst I wait for it to catch up with me.  I only take a carry-on bag because I'm a pretty firm believer in the "take half as much stuff and a bit more money" rule, although I tend to not take the bit more money because that normally went towards the price of the flight.
All of my work gear is camera kit that gets packed into a pelicase ("have you got any pppelicans in there??!") so that it's safe from water and dust and so that I can carry it onto planes rather than put it at the mercy of baggage handlers because it looks all important, electronic and expensive.
Backpack on back, pelicase in one hand and boardbag in the other (or being dragged along the shiny airport floor).  Sorted, and still moveable once beyond the boundaries of the airport trolleys and out into the real world.  Oh, and don't forget to pack a good book in there somewhere.

H2O2

I've had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in my small but functional first-aid kit for years now, right at the top with an elastic band around the middle holding a bunch of cotton-buds alongside it.  It's been in there for so long, in fact, that the label's faded out so that only I know what it is.  Everything else in my first-aid kit comes and goes; sticking plasters and surgical tape gets used and replaced, whilst I soon ditched things like slings when I realised that they were bulky and that if I needed one then it would probably be enough of an emergency to warrant tearing up a t-shirt.  But the little bottle of hydrogen peroxide has seen a lot of use; nightly on some surf trips.  

It is a strong oxidiser, with a weak bond between one of the oxygen and hydrogen molecules which breaks to produce water and hydrogen (chemistry details here).  When diluted (the stuff you can buy from the pharmacist) it can be used to sterilise and clean skin abrasions, however as it turns out, whilst it cleans small surface wounds it can inhibit healing and cause scarring by killing newly formed skin cells.  That'd explain the state of my feet then.  When you've got reef cuts that might have little bits of living coral embedded in them though, it's just the ticket and more appealing than lime juice or the resultant brown scars of iodine.  Just don't forget the cotton buds, or you'll end up doing what I once witnessed an Aussie surfer doing, and cleaning your reef cuts with an old toothbrush.  Ouch.

My first introduction to the fizzing sting of cleaning cuts came when I kicked a rock walking across a Cornish beach (tough talk for stubbing my toe) and a friend told me he'd clean the sand out.  He dipped a cotton bud in a medicinal-looking bottle and applied it to my bleeding toe.  It fizzed white, I winced, and it felt as though my toe was being tattooed but it did the job.  A few weeks later I was packing my bag for Indonesia, and remembered the advice that I'd been given on cleaning the unavoidable reef cuts that I was about to enjoy.  But before too long, the nightly ritual of cleaning new cuts and keeping healing on track by removing the resultant dust and dirt of so much time spent barefoot became kind of enjoyable in a good-pain kind of way.  And I reckon I've got way less scars than I deserve having kept that old bottle close at hand after days spent trying my luck over shallow, sharp, reefs.

Image above by Mat Arney:
Sunset over the starboard rail of Partarma, Lombok, Indonesia, with my good friends the Williams twins Dyfrig and Cynrig (Cynrig sporting some brutal sunburn) and Ceri Pashley passing around bottles of hydrogen peroxide, coke, and bintang.  The fizzing white pain was a small price to pay each evening for getting such good waves to ourselves.

Universal Currency

Smiles:  Internationally accepted and recognised the world over, regardless of language barriers and the availability of a working ATM or Western Union branch.  The value of a smile will not fluctuate at the mercy of global economic scares or due to changes in the price of a barrel of oil.  You don't need to stash a smile in your socks or even consider wearing one of those highly questionable money belts, in fact they weigh nothing and take up no space in your bag.  Smile and at the very least you will get a smile back in return, and probably a great deal of goodwill and kindness to boot.  A smile won't buy you material trappings beyond your immediate needs, but they are solid currency for a more worthwhile experience.  Always pack a smile.

• Top image:  Exchanging meticals for a bunch of bananas and a smile for a smile, Mozambique.
• Middle image:  When shooting portraits of people in traditional dress, particularly if you can't speak the language, I find that a smile will often be of great help.  Asakusa Temple, Tokyo.
• Bottom image:  Kids seem to have few opinions and preconceptions about other people and will usually react to a smile, a wave and a toot of the car horn with laughter and big friendly waves.  If I remember rightly these kids persuaded their Dad to do a lap of the block to come around for a second round.  Al Ashkharah, Oman.  Used previously to demonstrate the benefits of smiling in the Ten Tips To Take With You post.

  

The Golden Rule Is The Golden Hour

Following on from last week's stunning set of images by Chris Burkard by going back to the An Tor Orth An Mor's default setting of my own photography strikes me as setting myself a pretty tall order. Big shoes to fill huh. So what I'm going to do is try to transition back to standard service by picking up on one of the points that I mentioned last week and running with it.

If you pick up any "how to" photography book you'll be bombarded with hints and tips about composition ratios, f-stops and light temperature. But the one that has always stuck with me is about the "Golden Hour"; that hour or so at the start of the day and again at the end when the sun is rising or setting. The rule goes as follows:

"Get up early. Stay out late."

The light just after dawn and just before dusk, especially in the mid-latitudes, is soft, warm and golden and casts long shadows. It's the best light to take photographs with. It's also the time of day when the most interesting stuff happens like animals feeding, market stalls opening up for the day and people taking a deep breath before or after a busy rotation of planet earth. Make sure you're there to capture it by setting an alarm and going out with your camera, then take the middle of the day to go surf or do whatever it is that you do before getting your camera out again in time for the sun to say so-long and sink into the horizon.

A Word Before You Go...

Teak Bridge, Myanmar (formerly Burma)

Zanzibar

Packing antique heat, Ethiopia

Colonial Hangover, Sri Lanka

Samoa

Gorilla, Rwanda

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Ethiopian Highland Kids

African Sunset

You're in for a treat. A little while back I posted a blog with the ten top travel tips that I've accumulated and have served me well over years of hauling my sorry ass and a surfboard all over this big blue and green marble. I thought that this list was pretty concise and comprehensive, and then I got an e-mail from my friend Yvette which blew my list out of the water. Yvette is one well travelled lady who works in International Development, most recently for the UNHCR in East Africa but before then in South East Asia, and in between travelling for work her hobby is collecting cool passport stamps. In the past she's gifted me with solid gold nuggets of travel wisdom like this:

"Coconuts - the elixir of life, the saviour, the hangover cure, the life-giver. Any time you feel crap, drink a coconut and it will save your life. It's chemically akin to plasma and absorbs faster than h2o. If you need a blood transfusion and you have no blood - hook an IV up to a coconut, I'm 100% serious."

So here I've pulled together a selection of her photos and below for you to log away ready for next time you're getting ready to head off are her additions to the list. I strongly suggest that you take some notes:

"My tips are a bag for your cords and cables. A bag for your bras, undies and socks. Roll. Pillow case for laundry bag. Crappy phone (some countries won't let in smart phones). SARONG. Hard drive or iPad full of movies. EAR PLUGS. Steal the eye mask while you're stealing the blanket - you'll never sleep more soundly. Condoms. Stick your condoms and meds in the fridge. Don't fill your bag, 17kg max. Clothes that make you happy - you'll feel better if you look like yourself. No dark clothes - mozzies breed inside them. Toenail clippers. Notepad and pen fo sho. Board games for those days with no electricity (there will be many) ... backgammon? Social responsibility and a sense of the two way obligations and duties of the traveller. The Do No Harm principle. Norfloxacin - when it hits, you won't want to go to the chemist. A vocabulary that doesn't include the word 'do', or any variation on this, as in: "I did Thailand." A basic history. Courage."