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Published: April 16th 2007
Prepare to jump ship!
This is one of those longtail boats that never seems to pull close enough to shore. Hope your necessaries are all in ziplock bags... One thing I (Leslie) really love about travelling extensively is that you're allowed to abandon all sense of fashion. Occasionally, you see someone who's chosen to travel with their Helen Kaminski visors or their high-heeled Ferragamo sandals and they've immediately made it obvious that their trip will not be including wading through 3 feet of sea water to catch an island ferry or venturing into any questionable bathrooms. Well, where's the fun in that?
Don't get me wrong, when I'm at home I'm quite the style diva. I seek out all the right shapes and colors for my clothes. They have to enhance the positive, downplay the negative and really make the right impression. But here they should just function. They should have enough pockets to hold a passport, a hotel key and a few hundred baht. They should be light enough to dry easily after being washed in the sink. And they should conform to local custom (cover shoulders and knees, as need be.) Basic practicality is now the rule, having replaced the need for v-necks and boot cuts.
Your clothes can free you, allow you to live at a more basic level. If you
Sweaty In Pink!
Hey, my shirt's two sizes too big! But at least it's hardly touching me in this killer heat. suddenly have to hike 3 miles to a great guesthouse, you can! If you get soaked to the skin during a local water-throwing festival, so what? And more importantly, you get a new vibe. Your pace is slower and you're open to new possibilities. You learn more about the strange culture you're visiting. And to what do you owe the thanks? Your clothes.
Although practicality is the goal, there's no perfect formula. Mainly because we all have different interpretations. For this trip, I packed lightly but decided to include a pair of jeans. "They're thin denim" I told myself, "so they'll dry easily." The truth is, I just love jeans. And we're only travelling for 5 weeks. And it's even possible that I might pay to have my laundry done at some point. So I brought them. So there.
Michael packs lighter than anyone I know. He has 2 very small bags that include 2 shirts, 2 shorts, a pair of long pants and a small toiletries bag. He could actually live like this indefinitely in a warm-weather climate. But his weakness is the SmartWool socks. He packed about 7 pairs. But he has his justifications,
Mr. Practical
Wow, this guy knows what he's doing: Respectable-length clothing, shoes ready to slip off when entering a store, important things in plastic bags. And how about that purse? too.
What I really don't get is people who use their travelling as an excuse to completely grunge out. You know who you are, you shirtless, sarong-wearing, deodorant-avoiding dreadlocked lads. Your appearance might be overlooked in a beach town somewhere but it's misplaced in downtown Bangkok.
But what I do get is that they share my sense of letting go. I just have to believe in my heart that no one would ever dress like that while they're at home.
So it seems I fit somewhere comfortably in the middle, between the grunge-meisters and the designer-addicted. I just have to have the right balance, that zen of existing just at the state of being ready to leap into the back of a pickup truck and also ready to meet my mother for tea at the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.
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