Our 60 Litre Life

So here we are......4 days until we leave and we need to start packing and I have a small scale Mount Everst of discarded clothes on the floor by my bed!

I have had a "we might need this" collecting vessel...a.k.a. laundry basket for a few months now. When we thought of something or read a packing list on a blog, we tossed it in there for future consideration. As the heap in the basket grew bigger and bigger, reality set in........no room for "just in case or but it's small" items......it was time to purge!!!

Everything we need will have to fit in our Osprey backpacks and Pacsafe day packs. The rule here is pack light!! Okay, now "pack light" can mean a whole different thing to different people. Some veteran travellers head out for months on end with a backpack half the size of ours and some with a backpack that is more along the 80 litre size. We opted to go somewhere in between and purchased two 60 litre packs. Now...60 litres might sound like a lot but when you start mumbling to yourself about where to stuff another pair of underwear because your malaria pills took up the room.....60 litres turns out to be smaller than you think!

Lots of people who travel to Southeast Asia suggest to pack little clothing and just buy what you need there. This sounds like the perfect thing to do, but me being on the full figure curvy side and Rick's six foot-four giant height, could pose a problem when trying to purchase clothing in country! We will still pack light and hope for the best.

Now packing for an adventure such as ours does require a few special items that are not on the normal travel list. Quick drying items are key.  Here is a rundown on what we have managed to stuff into our packs for three months of adventure travel.

3-4 light, airy, baggy short sleeve shirts (temps can be pretty high, so air flow is key!)

1 light long sleeve shirt

1 pair of shorts

1 pair of light long pants

1 pair of capris (temples require you to have your knees and shoulders covered)

1 knee-length skirt (not sure if Rick is packing one....lol)

3 quick dry underwear

1 sarong (many uses)

1 bathing suit

2 pairs of socks

1 bandana

Hat

Sandals

Bikini top for when bra is being washed (again....not sure about Rick!)

Down sweater (great for when we are on the plane and in San Fran and the cooler nights in the north)

Travel towel and wet bag

Silk sleeping sheet (this is for using in hostels that are a little more questionable)

Neck pillow (a must for the 18 hour flight)

Light Touque (I like to wear one one the plane when the AC is a little high)

Waterproof cover for backpack

Toiletries (the basics)

Small first aid kit

Things to help with stomach issues, jet lag, and of course traveler's diarrhea 

Malaria pills and antibiotics 

Toilet paper, wipes, hand sanitizer ( I will master the squat toilet!)

Headlamp

Journal and traveler watercolour set

Mesh pack safe

iPad, iPod, GoPro (GoPro mounts - head, chest, and selfi-stick)

Camera

SD cards

Travel documents (Nexus card, passport, Thai Visa, Vietnam Visa, extra passport photos)

Means to get money out of the bank....a.k.a. Debit and Visa cards

Earplugs (planes, trains, buses, boats, dorm rooms are always filled with nighttime music)

Book to read that can be left at a hostel for others to enjoy

Cheap reading glasses

Sunglasses

Whew! To help keep things organized in our packs, we are using packing cubes and compression bags. Add some carabiners to the outside will make it easier to carry shoes or a grocery bag filled with yummy treats. 

Wondering how much this all weighs? When I first put it on I thought, "why is there an elephant riding on my back!!" No seriously, the pack itself weighs 7lbs 11oz (internal frame and wheels add to this), and when packed with the above items, it comes in at a easy to manage 29 lbs. Of course, ask me how light that is after lugging it around for three months......thank goodness for the wheels and handle features! 

Thank goodness my curvey bootie isn't any wider or it wouldn't fit between the wheels!! 

Having always been a traditional 80 litre backpacker, I am looking forward to trying out this backpack. It opens like a suitcase instead of top loading and has a mesh ventilation system so your back isn't right up against the pack. 

So there you have it.....my home for the next three months. I will let you know how our 60 litre life works out 😃

http://www.ospreypacks.com/en/product/wheeled_bags/sojourn_2560l

Planning Part Two - Throw Out The Rule Book

un·con·ven·tion·al

not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed.

1. "her unconventional approach to life"

The older I get the more unconventional I become. My favourite comeback is "who wrote that rule book?". Believe me, we do need some rules or expectations to follow as members of society....like, it might not be the wisest thing to do your grocery shopping in the nude or not show up to work because you decide a Big Bang Theory marathon is a better way to spend your day. My favourite college course was called "Deviant Behaviour in Society". It taught me to question the norms that we follow, including everyday stuff. I remember one classmate decided to go shirtless at a restaurant that did not advertise "no shirt, no service". The reactions of the owner and patrons were pretty much what you guessed. Now how does this all tie into my trip planning?


I am now past the age of fifty and a nana. When you are over fifty, society has certain expectations of how you must act. I ask you.....who wrote that book?! When I think of what I want to do when I go traveling, my age is the last thing I think of. I want to do what all the young backpackers are doing.....okay maybe not everything but they are the ones I turn to when wanting to find the unconventional. Don't worry.....you won't find pictures of this old dame at a Full Moon Party!!!

After leaving San Francisco, we will arrive in Bangkok.....ok, ok.....feel free to sing the song, I'll wait

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster

    The bars are temples but their pearls ain't free

We are actually spending three nights in Bangkok at a pretty nice hotel that costs $25/night. Arriving by Saturday was very important to us. Why you ask? To experience the madness of the Chatuchak Weekend Market. Take a moment and check out this link ,http://www.chatuchak.org/ and imagine yourself in the world's largest weekend market with 200 000 other people!!! 

We will spend the rest of our time in Bangkok eating where the locals eat and placing our footsteps on the sacred ground of temples such as What Phra Kaew, home to the Emerald Buddha.

From Bangkok we will be traveling to Chiang Mia in Northern Thailand. Now, we could travel by bus like so many backpackers do, but after hearing many, many horror stories of eighteen to twenty-four hour rides from hell, we decided to take the overnight train.....a trip of 12 hours or so. I found a great website created by an English bloke who use to work for the railway in the United Kingdom. The Man in Seat 61 made booking our tickets easy peasy. A berth is now booked with me on the top bunk and my six foot four husband sleeping diagonally on the bottom bunk!!! 

A few things are booked, using Chiang Mia as our base.....no hostel booked yet. The next few days will be filled with questionable modes of transportation as we make our way to our farm homestay......that's right.....a farm, and not just any farm, a farm run by a monk who became an abbot and is the son of the local medicine man! We will be volunteering on his farm for a few days, learning how to cook and tend to the animals and crops....maybe even build a straw hut! Check out this excerpt from their welcome page and tell me that this isn't the coolest thing for a couple of Canadian homesteaders to do. 

The Happy Healing Home.....found by reading a post a backpacker wrote on one of the Facebook 

groups I am in.

"BAAN RAKSA means Healing Home in Thai. We aim to teach the world about sustainable living and meditation!
Here you can learn about sustainable agriculture, organic farming, forest survival, meditation, medicinal plants, Lanna cooking and so much more. And the best bit is that, WE ACCEPT VOLUNTEERS ALL YEAR LONG!
Our organic farm is a Sustainable Living Project initiated by a small group of people in Thailand. It is run by Jim (who was a Buddhist Monk for 16 years) and his wife Tea Kumsrisom who own the 10 acres where the project take place. This is a relaxed and caring environment where we invite enthusiastic volunteers of all ages to stay on the farm, living together as family to work toward a common goal - where we can all learn together and from each other.
Happy Healing Home is 2-3 hours ride into the ever-green mountains of Chiang Mai, just past the small town of Samoeng. The farm is surrounded by constellations of small villages and fields of peanuts, garlic and marigolds. There are flowing rivers near by, and in the rainy season waterfalls cascade into the river on the property. The land in which we grow our crops, has been split into several sections -  the majority of our vegetable crops are planted in the front gardens, including Mustard, Coriander, Papaya, Bananas, Peppers, Sweet Potatoes, Eggplants and more. There are sticky rice fields and coffee slopes planted towards the back of the property, and we now have additional crops in the back fields which can be reached through beautiful hiking trails".

Back to Chiang Mai.....not sure what hostel or guesthouse yet, there are so many to choose from....but we will spend a few days roaming around eating and being in total awe of the beauty that surrounds us. A massage might be in order since Chiang Mai has many, many Thai massage schools!!

Time to jump on a bus and head to an experience that I did a lot of research about before finding exactly what I was looking for.... The Elephant Nature Park.

It was important to me to find a place that did not offer "for the tourists" type of elephant tours that promoted such things as riding. I searched for "ethical elephant tourism in asia" and read many articles such as this one featured on Backpackers Travel Magazine. From there I found The Elephant Nature Park. Rick and I will be spending two days helping out at the sanctuary. Mind you....it is not a budget type of activity, but one that I am sure will live in my heart and soul for ever. 

Back to Chaing Mai for a couple more days of eating and exploring including the famous Night Bazaar.....a great opportunity to join in the national Thai sport of bargaining!

"As the sun sets over Chiang Mai all the street vendors turn up and load their goods for sale into their stalls. The Lights, fans and portable TVs (Thais love their TV soapies) are plugged in and turned on and the tourists start arriving in numbers."

The city is also well known for it's cooking classes. You can pick from hundreds of cooking classes priced from budget to "you want me to pay how much?!!". Being the type of foodies where the experience is half the fun, we went searching for a unique adventure at a reasonable price, that would satisfy all our senses. 

Welcome to Thai Farm Cooking.....found by searching for "cooking classes on a farm in Chiang Mai". 

"LEARN TO COOK THAI FOOD AT OUR ORGANIC FARM PICK FRESH INGREDIENTS AND COOK HEALTHY FOOD EVERY DAY!"

We will be spending one glorious day in foodie utopia....harvesting, cooking, and eating organic food. Give me a minute....I am dreaming of mangoes and lemongrass...ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

And that folks is as far as we have planned. 

map found at: http://www.cartographik.com/thailand-39-work-1.html

Planning Part One - Leap....don't jump...out of the Box!

You can pretty much find out anything via the internet when planning a trip. Where to stay. What to see. How to get there.

When we first started talking about going on this epic adventure, we knew that we wanted to keep an open mind when it came to planning, not wanting to plan too much, just tap into our wandering spirit and see where the twisty, exotic road would take us.We did hand over the "oh my goodness...what flights to take, there are so many!" task a professional, (we highly recommend Becky Madsen of Fight Centre Waterloo) since we wanted to have a stopover in San Francisco on the way to Thailand and then Vancouver on the way back home. After that, it was just me and the search engine spending hours fueled by coffee or wine, ( depending on the time of day) and "oh wow....check this out!" moments.

What is the best way to find out "off the beaten path" or "out of the box" places to stay and things to do? Talk to the people that have done or are currently experiencing it.....and the best ones are the backpacking/budget/adventure traveler's....if a tour operator can offer it, a budget traveler will find a way to do it on their own and cheaper. Not to say there in't s a time and a place for using a tour operator, which we will probably do sometime during our trip.

Social media is a great thing and has added a whole new way of travel planning. Whether it be Facebook groups, blogs, or forums, you can ask anything and get a straight answer....this is really important when booking accommodations and things to do. You can ask a question and immediately someone gives you an answer....from wherever they are, including the place you are asking about without receiving anything but a grateful "thanks for the info, mate". If they had a crappy stay at a hostel that is highly rated....they will tell you.

So began my quest to experience the "out of the box", "off the beaten path" and "be a local, not a tourist" Southeast Asia.

So what are some of the things we have booked or will being doing? Grab a coffee or pour a glass of wine and join me on a mini adventure.

After arriving in San Francisco, jumping into our rented car, we will head up the coast for two days to visit the majestic Redwoods. Now Rick was lucky enough to motorcycle through the Redwoods last year on his way home from his epic eight week motorcycle trip to Alaska and back. I on the other hand haven't experience the feeling of being surrounded by these ancient giants. Rick and I are tree people, living on a homestead that has around one hundred and forty acres of trees. So, what better way to start off our journey than to feel the energy of these giants.

I love to use airbnd and agoda to book accommodations.....extra points for being "off the wall" unique.

Our first stop is in a little town called Redwood Valley....here is a little snippet about the India Room.

     "We are a small biodynamic farm, located within an organic vineyard and winery. We grow much of our own food and raise animals. Your room has a king size bed with the option of an another small mattress. Try our family wines!" 

Convinced that I am a "farmer" and a "partaker of fermented juice"...this place has my name written all over it!! Take a moment and just take in the beauty of this place, watch the deep red of the organic wine as it swirls in your glass as you listen to the barnyard choir. Paradise.

Next it is on to the town of Arcata........check out this description! It had me at "...unconventional"

     "There is not a house, quite like ours (anywhere!) We do not offer an ordinary experience. So please read our listing carefully. We are not for everyone. Our house is unconventional and contains global art, such as mosaic Day of the Dead decorated skulls, mannequins, sarcophagus, etc. (however strange, most kids and visitors love it!)"

I mean....what can I say? I love the unconventional!!!!!

After our two days of living among the Redwoods, we head back to San Francisco for two nights. Now San Francisco has the most restaurants per capita than any other city in the U.S. as quoted in this article by Huffington Post,

    "Not only did San Francisco come in as number one with the most restaurants per capita, no other city even came close. At 39.3 restaurants per 10,000 households, San Francisco has nearly 50 percent more relative restaurants than the second place city.

New York City didn't even come in until number four."

For those of you who know me and my husband Rick, we are guided by the grumble of our belly's....food is art to us! We will be tourists for two days, eating our way through restaurants, markets, and food trucks (give me a second to wipe of the drool before I can continue to write!). Using the mobile app Roaming Hunger, we will find the perfect food truck experiences while enjoying the city and all it has to offer. I mean, who wouldn't want to eat at the Naked Chorizo!!

We opted to stay in a hotel in the Fisherman's Wharf area because of it's easy location to the sites we want to see. If we were staying longer, you can bet I would have found a wonderfully, wacky place to stay.

Rick's trip through the Redwoods

To Wing It or Not to Wing It....that is the question

You are probably wondering what type of planning a trip like this takes. I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to planning any type of trip, whether it be a family RV trip across the country or taking a group of Girl Guides to Europe backpacking for a month. My life has been blessed with many opportunities to travel and learn what is needed and what is not. I remember backpacking with my daughter through Ireland....lugging huge heavy backpacks filled with stuff we never used, leaving a bunch of stuff at our last hostel in Galway so we could fit in all our Irish purchases! With each adventure I become more and more of a "let's just wing it" and less "let's plan every minute" type of traveller. I'm That said, there is a time and place for planning and booking ahead......but not for this trip. We have pre-booked the first seventeen of our ninety-one days, and then the "let's just wing it" will take over.

I have been doing the majority of the research for the trip and Rick has been researching what we need to bring.

Where do we find all the info that we might need for such an epic trip....one that is not organized by a tour company, to a place we have never been? The best source has been chatting with people who have been there, following travel blogs, and Facebook groups. I have found the best people to talk to are the bloggers who make this type of travel their way of life. They are the ones with all the great tips....like how to cross the border into Cambodia with a motorcycle you bought in Thailand. But I would have to say, some of the best advice has been what to pack. Since I don't want a repeat of the headline, "Two Canadian women traveling through Ireland are crushed by their backpacks", we will be traveling with the minimum of stuff!

Rick researched what backpackers or adventure travellers use to carry all their stuff in and came up with the Osprey Sojourn.....a backpack with wheels so that it can also be pulled. The ratings by backpackers on it's ability to withstand three months of travel through Southeast Asia is high. So Rick being the "King of eBay" found us a slightly used one, that has returned from a trip to Southeast Asia, and a new one for me. These two pack will hold all we need for three months....I am excited to live as a minimalist where our motto will be, "don't buy it if you can't carry it!"

Next: Booking some out-of-the box experiences

Until then....

Check out one of my favourite bloggers Nomadic Matt
http://www.nomadicmatt.com/

Two Thousand One Hundred and Eighty Four

What motivates you to travel? Is it the weather? The culture? The attractions? Or just to get away? For my husband Rick and I....it's food!!! Whether we jump in our car to go try out a new restaurant a few hours away or jump on a plane to another country, food has always been a motivator. When people share their travel stories with us, the first question we ask is, "What was the best thing you ate?". Don't get me wrong, we are interested in hearing about all the other cool stuff you did, but it always comes back to food. 

I would call us "adventurous foodies". We have eaten some strange things in our lives.....jellyfish, balut (google that one!), kangaroo, squirrel, and the list goes on. When we travel anywhere, including North America, we always try to eat where the locals eat. If it's a chain restaurant, it's likely you won't find us there. Rick is more adventurous than me, but most times I will try it at least once. Food is art for us, and it doesn't have to be the most expensive dining there is. Some of our favourite spots have been places most people wouldn't look twice at. 

When we stay at a resort to get away from the Canadian winter, we eat off the resort as much as possible. Whether it be sitting in a park, licking our lips after having the best "pit-chicken" in a Mexican village or washing down the heat of a fresh fish taco with the local beer, the best food is always the local small time vendor.

That brings us to what has motivated me to write this blog.......food and travel. 

What better place to experience first hand one of our favourite cuisines than to eat our way around Southeast Asia. The thought of being surrounded with the aromas of the freshest ingredients like limes, chilies, ginger, curry, lemongrass, seafood, cilantro, rice noodles, and yes.....fish sauce. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! Come away with me for a moment. Envision being in a open food market. Everywhere you look there is a vendor selling brightly coloured spices, soups, and yes....weird looking stuff too. Your nose twitches with delight as you breathe in the smells....okay, some of the smells might be new and a little overpowering. Keep your eyes closed. Listen to the sounds of the different hill tribe dialects, vendors yelling about how wonderful their wares are. Now pick something up...like a fresh ripe mango. The skin is smooth and yellow. You can't help but put it up near your nose to smell the sweetness of it. The vendor next to the fruit stand is ladling up hot bowls of delicious Pho, the aroma of the broth is what makes you stand in line. If you have never tasted the national dish of Vietnam....go now and find some! Stand there a moment and just take it all in. Your five senses are tingling so much that every cell in your body is vibrating. This is what living is all about!! Now slowly open your eyes but feel free to return anytime. 

It is these images that are making our love for Southeast Asian food a reality. Our tickets are booked and we will be backpacking around the markets and sites of Southeast Asia for three months this winter. Other than our first three nights upon arrival in Bangkok, we are just going to wing it! Visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam will be an adventure and learning curve for both of us. With no concrete itinerary and traveling with just ourselves, we can decide to stay longer in a spot or move onto the next destination. 

Planning such a trip takes a lot of time and thought....sometimes overwhelmingly so. Follow us as we prepare to leave our home for three months....so many things to do before getting on the plane. 

We hope our stories will encourage others, no matter what your age, to just leave it behind for awhile and know that you too can plan an adventure of a lifetime....one that goes beyond the confines and comforts of a five star resort, one that pushes you to believe in yourself, and one that reminds you to take a risk. We will be sharing the highs and the lows, knowing that we will be faced with some tough realities that will have us miles out of our comfort zone. Since we are traveling light with just a backpack each, we will also be sharing reviews on items we are taking with us. Loads of tips, info, and pictures along the way will hopefully inspire you to plan a similar trip.

So please join us, as we throw on our flip flops and experience Southeast Asia (SEA).....I guarantee it will be 2184 hours of epicness! (yes, that's a word...the urban dictionary says so!)