specialized items in your kit

butterball

- SW Radio

- 1 ltr bottle whiskey ( bought from duty free - now in handy plastic bottles ! )

- A digital minidisc player with binaural microphone

- Photocopies of passport, insurance docs & credit card numbers , air tickets etc

- Cameras of course !

volga_volga

cyber, where do you get it from? what's the name?

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Tibetan Orphanage School in China
My other favourite place is Pakistan Travel Forum

cyberhippie

Here in Holland I buy it in the chemists/drug store and it's made by Hansaplast, literal translation spray on wound plaster!.
Try boots
It contains an antiseptic as well.
Mrs cyberhippie assures me you can get cheaper makes!

Bryan

Not sure how unique it is but a pocket world atlas
a Petzl head torch
and strangely the front door key to a flat ive not lived in since 1993 ...its been in my pack all that time and now its like got to be there or somethings wrong ...bizarre but there you go hahahaha

__________________
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that),
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world, o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.
- Burns

dreamsyndicate

Once bought a 'Magic Rupee' from a magic-shop in Manali .
It looked like a real one on first inspection, but could be folded in three parts, hold together by elastics (on the inside) .
This way you could get it in & out of a limca-botlle, by shaking the bottle (but covering the top with your hand - to not give away the trick).
This was a guarantee to change a dull moment in any 'chai-shop/restaurant/bus/train' in any 'town/village' into an act with lots of spectators .

Did hold on to it for three trips to India, incidently used it to pay for a chai, and it was gone ...

Arun

Low-denomination stamps from home to provide interested teenagers with a cheap thrill.

One group I met in the Golden Temple was so excited with their stamps that they gave ME a pen - "This is from our side"!

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Jai Hind.

openair

I take two packs of coffee, a big glass and an electric element you can boil water with. I love making my own coffee in the morning.

timmy

I think I'll be doing that this time. A half kilo of coffee and my plunger, plus the clip-on electric element I bought last time.

Life's too short for bad coffee.

vistet

Specialised winter kit :

1 short root brush
1 plastic flower pot tray
1 dedicated plastic grocery bag

In my teens we used a pyramid tent (type shown below) for winter treks. The items above were essential : after digging the tent recess the tent was raised (one ski or ski pole peg in each corner) and the center pole was positioned on the flower pot tray so as not to burrow down. A line was stretched against the wind to the grocery bag , filled with topside snow and buried one to two feet below the surface.
The rootbrush will never come out of style to brush off snow on clothes and boots while entering the tent .

Attached Thumbnails

 

Samsara

The only time I ever went camping in actual tents it was a big shock. But I was very popular because the others discovered during the trip that I was the only person who had brought along a giant Cadbury fruit and nut chocolate bar. We were on really boring short rations. I had hysterics when I found out there wasn't going to be a cup of coffee in the morning. So I was the first ever for the guide to make cups of coffee for in the morning. He had to boil the water in a pot over a fire made with sticks and rocks. I'm surprised he didn't say to me "tough luck". But it was the only thing that kept me going, that one cup of coffee in the morning. That's why it's really important to take your own coffee making facilities with you, including a mini electric element.

bijapuri

the best part of waking up
is the room boy's finger in your morning cup!

seriously, I never tire of having the boy bring me my morning cuppa. Something I get at home on my birthday ONLY!

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Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
Barack Obama

lookit me!!!: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bijapuri/

Utube fuzzy logic:
http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=bijapuri&p =r

Baisab

- Backpack cover
- Earplugs - great for noisy g.h's and loud music/video bus trips
- Double earphone socket for walkman/discman - this way listening to music on bus/train rides can be made social.
Isolation tape - well I don't know the english term for that. It's the stick tape (usually black) used to put on electric wire. Very good for unsafe/improvised indian electric engineering, and for many other things. I used it to fix mosquito net holes, and even holes in the Dhaba tent in Chander-Tal (Man it was freezing cold!)
- Balloons - instead of handing out ball-pens, I brought balloons with me and gave to cute/friendly/over-freindly children. It does not cost much at home and is very nice. Kids are always happy to get a balloon. Very easy to carry some in your pocket, pouch or wallet.

volga_volga

how do you call it in Israel? isolyatsionnaya lenta, by any chance? (then it should be bright blue). i think it is equivalent of a ducttape in the West.

Baisab

Isoleer band (isolere band?) well... wouldn't know how to spell that either - sounds like: ee-zo-leer band.

timmy

I like the balloons idea, I'll try and remember that.

What Baisab says about the tape being black sounds more like electrical tape, although duct tape/gaffer tape is usually either blue or silver down here.

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Read my India Travel Blog from late 2004, or look at my Photo Gallery from my last two trips.