The Beginning pt. 3

If you've been to any of the backpacker capitals of the world you might have seen travellers lugging around backpacks half their size and probably, especially if it's a woman, half their weight.
Hell, maybe you've been one of those guys, just off the bus from the airport after 10+ hours of trying to catch sleep on the plane, that iced coffee barely keeping you sane while taxi drivers and hotel/guesthouse/travel agency touts go for you like swine to fodder while you try to make sense of your surroundings.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

On my first ever trip to Southeast Asia my backpack weighed well over 20 kilos, and I soon found I'd packed a lot of unnecessary stuff and ended up carrying all that excess gear around for three months. The second time I did little better, but this time opted to mail the junk home.

So nowadays I try to travel as light as possible. Depending on your destination, you can get by with surprisingly little. Sure, if you're planning to summit Everest, boarding the plane with carry-on only might not get you far, but a three month escape to the beaches of Southeast Asia requires little more than flip flops, shorts, a t-shirt or two and a change of underwear.

Although I'm packing for a year I'm trying to keep to bare essentials. Should the need arise for additional gear, I'm sure I can buy what I need on the road.

Singapore, summer 2011.
The equatorial heat was too much for my girlfriend, so I had to help her out a little.

The Beginning pt. 2

I went to my travel agents' after gym yesterday to pick up my passport and joy of joys, I've been granted a 30-day visa to Russia! That and the train ticket to Moscow I picked up last week mean it's on like Donkey Kong. The plan is to spend a week or so in the capital before catching a train to Siberia to check out Lake Baikal.

I'm still missing some gear I need, but as I still have a few weeks untill blastoff, procuring them shouldn't be a problem.
Only problem is weight. My backpack is the Eberlestock Halftrack, which weighs 3,5 kilos when empty and I'm trying to keep my gear under 10 kgs, so packing for what's potentially going to be a year on the road, and doing it in 6,5 kgs is going to be a tough nut to crack.

Beverly Hills Cop is on. Gotta go.

The Beginning pt. 1

Today I threw my visa-application at the Russian authorities, and the girl behind the desk at my travel agency told me I could expect to get my passport, with proper stamps granting me access to the largest country on the planet, back in about ten days, weekends included.

For some reason I thought there'd be much more red tape involved, not that I've ever had to provide proof of insurance for a visa before, but somehow this seems too easy. Maybe I've just been reading too many horror stories about the Russian immigration machine that chews you up and spits you out for any minor glitch in your application or travel-history or this or that.

We'll know more in ten or so days.

I also visited the library and borrowed a bunch of Lonely Planets on some of the places I've planned to visit. I'm trying not to read too much into this trip, and I'm going to try and find local contacts to guide me. Not necessarily to actually act as guides, but to tell me what I should probably do and see, what to avoid and so on.

Nevertheless skimming the LP's gives me some idea of where I'm going and what there is to do and see. On my previous trips I've learned that following the guidebook can, and most likely will keep you firmly inside the so-called travellers' bubble, a state in which travellers only visit the same places, eat and sleep at the same places and only really come in contact with other travellers.

I'm not saying the bubble is something to avoid at all costs. Travelling in the bubble is still fun and productive and will most likely result in great memories of awesome places and lifelong friendships with people from all over the world.

I just think that sometimes it's good to get a bit out of your comfort-zone. You can always return to the ease of bubble-travel if the going gets too tough.

We'll see how well I'll manage to break my bubble...