Kit - brought, bought, ditched, or dreamed of

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This entry is intended to list exactly what I took with me on my trip, together with comments about each item. This includes things I bought along the way, as well as items I discarded. It's a testament to the accuracy of the various packing-related websites that I consulted that the things I took with me tallied almost exactly with the things that I needed, with few redundant or omitted items, meaning my rucksack was light (9.8 kg at the beginning) and there were no crisis moments due to not having some critical item.

Essentials
Passport (containing Indian visa) - got my visa via The Visa Service in London, for which I had to fill in a couple of forms from online then send them my passport by post. They charged just under 75 quid (30 of which was for the visa itself), so their admin costs (plus time queuing at the Indian Embassy) were a lot less than if I'd had to get a train down from the North-East of England and stay in a hotel.
Print-outs of e-tickets/insurance details - had these in my e-mail account, but figured the print-outs might be handy.
Some US dollars and sterling - converted some US dollars when I arrived in Delhi, but after that used my ATM card (paying 1%!c(MISSING)ommission, I think).
2 credit cards (1 Visa sterling, 1 Mastercard US dollar) - used these purely for buying plane tickets and for my luxury hotel at the end of the stay. Usually pay 3%!c(MISSING)ommission for foreign transactions.
2 ATM cards (1 HSBC sterling, 1 Citibank US dollar) - used all over India with no problems. 1%!c(MISSING)ommission, as mentioned above.
2003 Rough Guide to India - OK. This was the most recent Rough Guide when I started planning my trip in Summer 2005, however a new one came out in November 2005 just before I left. Given how quickly things change, not only in the field of hotels, restaurants, and bars, but also for things like phone numbers, it really is worthwhile buying the latest guide, even if all your planning has been done using an older one - having out-of-date information was a constant irritant on this trip. The things you'll want to see such as monuments are unlikely to have changed location, however opening times and entry fees may be different. There may also be more fundamental changes, e.g. tiger sanctuaries that have lost all their tigers (see - Sariska).
1 notepad - to keep a journal, or make any other notes. Ended up writing 3 journals.
2 pens - to write with ...

Luggage
1 Osprey Atmos 50 rucksack - excellent. Just the right size, comfortable to wear, and hardy.
1 Victorinox shoulder bag - excellent. This was my day bag, and could hold everything I needed for a day of sightseeing.

Clothes
1 Patagonia R2 fleece - excellent. Lightweight, quick-drying, and felt great. By no means windproof, however.
1 Marmot waterproof - didn't wear it, due to lack of rain.
1 Maine long-sleeved shirt - originally purchased as a mossie-beating item of clothing, but my hatred of long-sleeved shirts prevailed and I used repellent for that instead. Worn just a couple of times when temperatures had plummeted. Being white with a light blue/black pattern, showed dirt like nobody's business.
1 North Face long-sleeved T-shirt - excellent. Lightweight, quick-drying, and surprisingly warm (no doubt due to being made of the same material as the average plastic bag).
4 T-shirts (Cal, Victorinox, Verona Opera Festival, Quiksilver) - only wore the Quiksilver a couple of times for added warmth, as it was predominantly white and showed dirt like crazy. The others caused people to think I respectively had attended Berkeley, was from Switzerland, or was from Italy. Note that T-shirts with patterns are not common in India, hence make the wearer stand out even more than if they were, say, a 6'3" white person.
1 pair Craghoppers Kiwi zip-off trousers inc. belt - excellent. Lightweight and surprisingly comfortable, due to being made from a cotton mixture rather than straight polyester. Had zip pockets inside the normal pockets, which was a good security feature.
1 pair Ralph Lauren chinos - comfortable, but heavy (by comparison with the Craghoppers). Open pockets liable to spill contents when, say, lying down on a sleeper berth in a train. Showed dirt much too easily.
1 pair Hurley shorts - bit too baggy, resulting in 35 year old man looking like wannabe skate punk.
5 pairs Jockey underpants - generally comfortable, but not in humid environments where their cotton construction was a liability. Would be interested to try some wicking undies next time.
1 pair SmartWool hiking socks - excellent. Supremely comfortable, and the right length to not leave calves exposed if sitting down and trousers ride up.
2 pairs Peter Storm hiking socks - too thin for comfort, and too short to protect skin against mossies when seated. Not recommended.
1 pair Speedo swimming trunks (not microbriefs) - only worn once, but performed to expectations. Have a waterproof pouch (for valuables, not the crown jewels).
1 Maui Built sunhat - only worn once (during camel safari) then disappeared (either lost or stolen) some time around Chennai. Not sadly missed. Logo was too conspicuous, and brim too narrow for efficient sun-shading. Another hat will be purchased in its stead.
1 handkerchief - used variously as hand towel, cleaning cloth, bottle lip wiper, and sometimes even as a handkerchief. White colour perhaps not the greatest.
1 pair Reef flipflops - good. Used mainly for pottering around bedroom and approaching bathroom. Used in shower for some especially grotty places. Toe-band made of cloth rather than plastic, so occasionally managed to flatten it and hence not be able to slide feet in gracefully.
1 pair Lowa GTX-Mid hiking boots - excellent. Amazingly comfortable lightweight boots that required no breaking-in, and despite being Goretex-lined were wearable in high temperatures and humidity. Could not recommend these highly enough. Only downer is if you're constantly going in and out of temples that have a non-shoe policy then the lacing (like with any boot) might be a bit tedious, however in that situation you can simply tuck the laces inside them and then step into them without lacing - voila, slip-on boots.

Health and hygiene
1 fcuk toilet bag - did its job.
50 Boots disinfectant wipes - hardly used. Must admit that constantly worrying about the cleanliness of everything eventually took its toll, and I adopted a more fatalistic approach.
1 Lifesystems Micro mosquito net - never used. The places I stayed that had an appreciable mosquito presence generally had their own nets. However it's not much fun sleeping under one - I usually tried to just put on repellent and keep my fingers crossed.
1 Sainsbury's bog roll - excellent. 4-ply does not appear to exist in India, and using the final sheet of this roll was a sad moment indeed. I was on 2-ply for the rest of the trip - unfortunately I never achieved proficiency with a cup of water and my left hand.
130 Doxycycline - did not suffer any of the side-effects commonly mentioned (i.e. increased sensitivity to sunlight, and stomach aches). Did not follow the instructions entirely to the letter, due to sometimes either simply forgetting to take one or having the squits hence it being pointless taking one.
12 Imodium - never used, but needed just in case.
12 Ibuprofen - never used, but needed just in case.
24 Boots indigestion tablets - never used, but needed just in case.
1 tube Boots antiseptic cream - hardly used, just for a couple of bites that I accidentally scratched open.
75 Lifesystems chlorine tablets - never used. Bottled water was available everywhere, so unless you're going really off-road these tablets should never be needed. The more ecologically-minded, worried about generating mountains of plastic waste from their bottled water, might want to use them though.
75 Lifesystems neutralising tablets - never used (see above - these are supposed to remove the chlorine taste from chlorinated water).
1 stretch bandage - never used, but needed just in case.
20 Boots fabric plasters - hardly used, just for the occasional blister (which I will blame on the Peter Storm socks).
1 Boots bite and sting relief pen - used occasionally, but certainly did not have miraculous results.
1 Lifesystems Expedition Plus insect repellent - used occasionally, but too erratically to really know if it worked.
12 Boots rehydration sachets - never used, but should have done when I had the squits.
1 Boots toothbrush - absolutely appalling, losing its bristles within seconds of starting the trip. Not recommended.
1 Gillette disposable razor - excellent. Just not intended to be used for 2 months straight. Decent disposables were not available in India, and I eventually had to throw myself on the tender mercies of a 2-blade non-lubrastrip monstrosity.
1 King of Shaves shaving oil - awful, being unable to cope satisfactorily with 3 or more days stubble. Threw out after a couple of weeks. Not recommended.
1 50ml Hackett "Event" hair and body wash - OK, but not a good substitute for shampoo, and too small for a long trip. With only a small selection of shower gel-type products available in India, might be best to take a larger size.
1 bottle Boston gas permeable contact lens cleaning solution - did its job, but unfortunately was not large enough to last for 4 months and there is no good cleaning solution available in India for gas permeable lenses. The best (only?) one is GP+, however (unlike Boston) this is NOT suitable to be put in your eye, as it stings like a b@stard. This means you need to find clean water every time you want to take your lenses out of the solution, which is tiresome.
1 bottle Boston gas permeable contact lens conditioning solution - as for the cleaning solution above. There are all-in-ones available in the UK - I don't actually know why I didn't take one.
1 bottle Boots Smile toothpaste/mouthwash - OK, but using a tube of toothpaste is actually more convenient.
1 75ml Aveeno hand cream - used mainly for dry skin on my face, and worked well (have been using this for years ...)
3 Oral-B Brush Always disposable teeth wipes - never used. Might be handy as an interim measure if your toothbrush broke down.
1 Mitchum deoderant/anti-perspirant spray - couldn't find any anti-perspirants in India (funny that, given the heat and humidity), so when this had run out I was forced to buy some Axe (aka Lynx), which made me feel (and smell) like a teenager again.
1 box Oral-B dental floss - hardly used.
1 pair nail scissors - used both for their primary function as well as any other scissor-related tasks.
1 pair nail clippers - used both for their primary function as well as any tasks requiring severing of a thin cord.
1 SPF30 Coppertone Sport suntan lotion - excellent. Doesn't feel oily and works well. The susceptibility of my nose to going pink is something I should blame my genes, rather than Coppertone, for.
1 contact lens case - did its job.
1 tube Chapstick lip balm - did its job.
1 spare pair contact lenses in case - never used.

Technology
1 Panasonic Lumix FZ20 camera, case and battery charger - excellent. A great compromise between the lack of versatility of a point-and-shoot, and the bagsful of lenses needed for a decent SLR. Not exactly pocket-sized, but it does have a x12 zoom.
3 1GB SanDisk SD cards - excellent. Took about 6,000 photos in 4 months, so every so often I had to get these burned to CDs.
1 256MB Lexar SD card - excellent. Only took this along because I already had it, it was small, and I figured the more cards the better.
1 1GB Kodak CF card - dodgy. Used this to store my music for the trip (to be played on the MP3 player on my Dell X50v Pocket PC) but there must have been something wrong with the formatting, as I could only get about 0.6GB of files onto it.
1 Iogear USB flash adaptor - excellent. Used to upload photos to a computer. Appears as another drive to/from which you can drag/drop. Requires no drivers on Windows XP (unlike if you simply take the cable that links your computer to a USB port). Neat, and cheap, little gadget.
1 Dell X50v Pocket PC, battery charger and headphones - OK. I took this mainly to give me wireless access to my e-mail, and also as an MP3 player. With hardly any wireless access points in the whole of India, I ended up using it mainly for MP3s (and Solitaire). Battery life is way too short for this purpose (5 hours max - most of my bus/train journeys were 7 hours minimum).
1 Motorola v300 phone and battery charger - excellent. Had the phone unlocked in Paharganj and bought a local SIM card. Note that BSNL may have the best coverage in India, but you can only recharge in Delhi/Mumbai/Calcutta/Chennai. Ended up with an Airtel SIM, which was fairly good coveragewise all over the country, and could be topped up anywhere.

Miscellaneous
1 Lifeventure Trek towel - lightweight and quick-drying, but didn't dry you off very well and soon acquired a distinctive odour. Since most hotels in India don't provide a towel, you need to have something of your own - am still undecided whether a small normal towel would have been better.
1 small travel towel - went into hibernation at the bottom of my rucksack and was only rediscovered when I unpacked at the end of the trip.
1 Jagbags silk sleep-sheet - excellent. With many hotels not providing sheets, or providing ones that you'd rather not sleep on, this was essential. It's like a sleeping bag but made out of a silk sheet. It's not warm, but I found that you were much more likely to be provided with blankets than a pair of (clean) sheets.
1 Lifeventure money belt - never used, which was perhaps foolish of me but I figured it was rather uncomfortable. Carried my essentials either in my shoulder bag, which was always with me, or in my pockets (the Craghoppers, as mentioned, had zipped pockets inside the normal ones). This will definitely be used on my next trip.
1 Pacsafe chain and lock - never used. Was never in a situation where I needed to attach my rucksack to anything (hotels always had locks on the doors or a padlock), and I was sufficiently trusting of my neighbours on the trains that they would neither steal my rucksack nor allow someone else to filch it.
1 1l Top waterbottle - OK. Generally decanted my bottled water into this, as the bottles were nowhere near as sturdy. Unfortunately the screw-top on this didn't seem to be 100%!w(MISSING)atertight, leading to the occasional leakage (though never enough to soak my bag).
1 JAL eyeshade - only used near the beginning of my trip, when I stayed in a room where the overhead light could only be switched off by getting out of bed, and sometimes I couldn't be bothered.
1 pair earplugs - never used.
3 carabinieres - never used, they just hung on the outside of my rucksack.
1 Superdrug compact mirror - useful if applying suncream in the middle of nowhere. I'd originally brought this more for the situation dreaded by all gas permeable contact lens wearers, when you accidentally rub your eye and the lens shifts off the centre. I've never been able to retrieve this without the aid of a mirror, but fortunately it didn't happen.
1 Victorinox Swiss Army knife - never used.
1 pair glasses and case - did their job.
1 pair RayBan sunglasses and case - excellent. Did their job and looked good while doing it.
1 Maglite torch - hardly used, but I'd have been kicking myself if I hadn't had one during occasional power cuts at night.
1 compass - last minute purchase, on the recommendation of a friend, but proved its worth time and again. With many streets in India not having signs in English to tell you their name, it's very easy for your map to be useless unless you know what direction is north.
10 postcards of North-East of England - intended giving these out to interested children along the way, but unfortunately they were more interested in money and pens so I only got rid of one.
1 Learn Spanish in 15 minutes per day book - tengo una reserva para cuatro. Useless student.
4 passport-sized photos - needed 2 or 3 of these when purchasing my phone SIM card.
UK driving licence - never needed.
Vaccination book - never needed.

Bought along the way
1 North Face knock-off sleeveless down vest - due to the chill in Dharamsala, I bought this little beauty, which was not only cheap and extremely warm, but could be crushed into a very small package when jammed in the bottom of my rucksack.
1 glue stick - to stick stamps onto envelopes, as Indian stamps don't have adhesive and the Post Office pot of glue is often surrounded by a crowd of thousands.
1 plug adaptor - Indian sockets accept 2 (or 3) round pins, so I needed to buy an adaptor for all my appliances (which inconveniently had all been bought in America, so I couldn't find an adaptor in the UK). The first one broke (I think the internal wiring wasn't very robust) but the second worked fine.
1 roll Sellotape - to hold plug adaptor into wall. The pins on the adaptor weren't the thickest, so I needed to sellotape it in place occasionally in order to get a contact.
1 copy "The Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler - I realised I needed more reading matter than just my guidebook and a Learn Spanish primer that had further confirmed how linguistically challenged I was.

Things I wished I'd had
MP3 player with long battery life.

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