Packing for travel

Traveling out of a bag for several months is challenging. Deciding what to take along took some thought.

I guess to start, I decided to take two Olympus E-P1s on this trip with me. I have the 17mm pancake lens which I use the most. I also have the 14-55mm kit lens. I also got a Panasonic 40mm portrait lens. After shooting day in and day out on a Canon 5D and 5D mk II, I find that the E-P1s do not capture as much detail, especially in the shadow areas. That being said, I once went to Europe carrying just a Canon 350d, and the entry level of the Canon cameras also had a less than superb dynamic range. However, by shooting in raw and working on the files, I get pretty decent results. I think carrying a 5D and lenses would leave me too tired to enjoy the trip. And for me, the experience of traveling is more important than carrying all that weight. I am just happy that the E-P1 came out last year. It is just the correct compromise for the trip. I could have bought something like the Canon powershot G11, which would have worked for the day photos. But the E-P1s come into their own at night, in street scenes. Even with less than perfect autofocus, I find the E-P1s good in low light. A lot of people have complained about the focus performance of the E-P1s in low light, comparing it to DSLRs… compared to the G10, it is pretty darn good.

To process files and make blog posts like this one, I brought along a Mac Book Pro 13". I really needed something with some processing power, the Air would just not have cut it for me. The other option is the entry level Mac Book, but the 13" Mac Book Pro is actually lighter than the plastic Mac Book. Once in a while our eyes fool us. I got a portable firewire housing for an external 500gig drive. I use carbon copy cloner and back up my entire Mac Book Pro drive to this external drive. The best thing is something happens to the main drive, I can still boot from the firewire drive.

I bought 'Surge' by Novothink for my iphone. It is an extra battery pack with a solar panel. So far, the solar panel does not seem that effective. But the battery pack works well. I have enough juice in my iphone for two days. But I am careful, switching off 3G and wifi when I am not using them.

With the suggestion of Wan Sheng, I subscribed to Bridge, a data roaming service for Singtel. I bought the 15mb package and it is not really enough for extensive use. Finding wifi hotspots is much more effective. However, there are times when I am lost, having a data link is useful to get map info.

It is funny, but the clothes actually do not take up much space. It could have been even lighter, but I have a very warm sweater, a pair of gloves and a woolen cap for Mongolia. It is cold there throughout the year. Perhaps I should have left this with my friend in Hong Kong. Ah well.

I am caterpillar boots. The boots have ankle support, which is important, but have quick release. I toyed with the idea of wearing the new Gortex army boots for this trip, but tying and untying shoelaces would be such a pain in ass. And considering the number of Buddhist countries I am passing through, where I have to take off shoes to get into temples, this is unthinkable.

I think that the star find for me though is walking trousers from Marks and Spencers. They have a line of outdoor clothing called Blue Harbour. They have many pockets and some of them with zips. Very useful for passports and money. Honestly, I know about neck safes and wallet pouches, but they both make me feel uncomfortable. These walking trousers rock!!

So I packed everything into a High Sierra backpack. I do not know anything about backpacks but this works for me. For security I bought a pacsafe. It is a wire mesh which covers the bag and allows me to tie my bag to a pole or something solid.

It amuses me, but I lined my back pack with a black trash bag. A throw back from my army days. I guess I learnt something there.