Asian island hopping adventures #2 - What to pack..?

How much is too much? Usually, travelling by air in economy/coach, the amount of stuff you can pack is determined by your airline luggage allowance rather than your length of trip. 

Some airlines offer a generous 30kg plus hand luggage in economy while with others it’s a measly 20kg. When you are backpacking however, it’s a different story – it’s how much you are prepared to carry that is the deciding factor – and 20kg is too *blinking* heavy!

So what do we pack for our four-month back-packing trip to S.E. Asia?

For Trav it is easy: He packs - all his dive gear excluding lead weights and air-tank. 3 pair shorts. 3 short-sleeved shirts. 3 vests/t-shirts. 1 x long trousers and a long sleeved shirt. Undies. Swim shorts. A lightweight rain jacket. Toothbrush. Aftershave (Armani, of course). A torch.

Weight of backpack = 15kg.

For me: Well, I gave up high maintenance a while ago, but I do need stuff!

I pack: My full face snorkel mask. Two dresses – 1 knee length cotton day dress and 1 longer length shift dress for evening wear. 3 pair shorts. 2 shorts-style playsuits. 2 cropped linen trousers and 2 ‘nice’ tops. 3 x vest/t-shirts. 4 bikinis. 1 sarong. 2 yoga shorts. Undies - to include 6 bandeau style bra tops in assorted colours (Primark sports section £1 each) A lightweight rain jacket. An umbrella.

That is probably all I need for Asia – but we are travelling back through the USA and to Scotland, where we will stay for 48hrs and plan to do stuff including meeting up with our sons for a meal - and it is the end of October – and it will be cold!

I add: 1 pair of jeans. A fleecy hoodie top. 2 x fleecy patterned leggings. My very favourite 100% cashmere v-neck sweater (an Edinburgh charity shop find). A scarf/shawl/pashmina.

Then….. of course there are the products I simply cannot live without:

My Kindle. Walkman. Noise reducing earphones. Small boombox/speaker. Notebook computer. Camera. GHD hair straighteners (yes, really, I have to have these in case I go somewhere and don’t want to look like a frizzy head!) All the cables for the above. Power battery back-up pack. Power-Surge adapter. Plug adapter. Actual paper notebook. Pen. Hair conditioners. Shampoo. Soap. Face cream. Body cream. Nail polish and remover. Scissors/nail-clippers/tweezers/nail-files. Hair removal cream. Sunlotion. Aftersun. Cottonwool. Makeup bag. Makeup remover (yes, sometimes – although hardly ever – I wear a bit of eyeliner and mascara and then I’ll certainly need something to remove it!) Coconut oil (works when everything else fails/runs out). Deodorant. Perfume (Chanel, of course). Anti-frizz hair products. Toothbrush. Toothpaste. Tooth polish. Tooth floss. Hairbrushes. Hair ties. Hair clips and accessories. Bug spray. Bug bite treatments. First-aid kit including painkillers and every kind of discomfort tablets, band-aid plasters, and anti-biotics (you never know!)

Weight of backpack: too heavy.

I need to downscale, I know, but I neeeeeed all that stuff! Wail!!!!

Trav’s response. ‘That’s fine. But you have to carry it…’

And that is from the man who cleverly bought me my first Kindle ereader as a direct response to my luggage being overweight on an Emirates flight. My allowance on that trip was a generous 30kg but my case weighed in at 36kg. I refused to dump anything, saying I needed everything I had packed for our two week holiday. As it was our wedding anniversary, Trav took pity on me and agreed to pay out the $240 in overweight charges. He wasn’t so impressed however, when we reached our destination, and I opened my case to reveal a dozen or so hardback books in among my stuff. Hence the gift of a Kindle – on which I now have stored over a thousand books! Yay!!

So come on lovely peeps, tell me, what do you pack for your trips away? Are you a lightweight or do you, like me, need your stuff?

All comments gratefully received and I promise to reply as soon as I have an internet connection.

Love, Janice xx

The planes kept getting smaller!

We flew to the island of Utila, the smaller of the Bay Islands just off the coast of Honduras, from London via Miami and via San Pedro Sula in Honduras with American Airlines. We started off on a huge long range triple seven aircraft and then we connected to a slightly smaller one to San Pedro Sula. From there we flew along the coastline in a twelve-seater airplane to a place called La Ceiba - and on this flight I sat right at the front and found I had no choice but to put my feet in the cockpit between the two pilots!

Our twelve-seater airplane to La Ceiba Honduras

We landed in La Ceiba and had to wait for half an hour for our connecting flight for the final leg of our long journey. We saw a couple of planes land and take off again - going to the Cayman Islands and other exotic sounding places - then a tiny little Cessna airplane approached. We thought it looked rather old and battered. In fact, Trav quipped that he ‘pitied the poor buggers who had to get in that plane’.

As it turned out, we were those poor buggers. I’ve been in a small plane once before, a sea plane flying over the Maldives, but never anything like this - as it didn’t even have seat belts. However, you can see by our smiling faces as we were boarding that we were feeling rather excited by the adventure of it all. We landed at the airstrip on Utila safely, having experienced an exhilarating flight and having seen the outstanding beauty of the island by air. It was all simply breathtaking!

My next post is coming soon and I have a lot to tell you about what happened once we arrived on the island!