The Journey Begins

This morning at 7:30, I set out to the airport to begin the long trek to India.  If I were just going directly to India, this would be difficult, but I am going to Hong Kong and China first, so we have overcomplicated an already complicated process.

I consider myself a good packer.  Actually truth be told, I consider myself amongst the elite packers of the world.  I am able to get 1 weeks worth of business clothes and all the business accessories into one carry on bag and arrive in Asia 16 hours later with nary a wrinkle. And it typically takes me about 15 minutes to do it.

So last night, understanding that packing for a month would be slightly more significant, I allocated myself a larger portion of time.  I started at 7:00pm with the plans of being completed in time to spare for a reasonable bedtime.  I began with the concept of packing one bag for my business in Hong Kong and  China and another with the items that I would use in my "normal" day to day life in India.  I laid out the all the items in their proper pre-pack pile and set to work loaded them into their proper valise.  The items for China were easy. I have done this a million times and in no time that one was nearing completion.  The other pile, thought, ran into some complications.

I few weeks ago, I, strategically thinking ahead, had bought a monster sized duffle from REI.  I am pretty sure your could cram a medium size adult in this thing.  It was made from Urethane-coated 1000 denier (that must be good) and the tag said "10,700 cu inches of gear swallowing capacity." I was going to need that .... right?   So I bought it!

Over the course an hour, I methodically filled this mother-of-all- duffles with all the things I thought I would need for my new life in India -  shorts, shoes, causal clothes, etc.  Pretty soon, everything was off the bed and in the bag.  Done! ...... then I went to lift it..... and couldn't!  It was not as if it was just heavy, I actually could not get the thing off the bed without significantly lifting with my legs which is a serious problem, because this is an old fashion duffle bag - no wheels, no frame,  just two handles and a completely unpadded strap.

So I unpacked it and, after great deliberation and maybe more than a few cursings,  I repacked it with a reduced wardrobe.  This time I could lift it, but as anyone who has ever had a duffle knows, a 3/4 empty ginormous duffle is a limp, saggy and unwieldy ginormous duffle.  Once I had decided to downsize, the duffle option was gone. So I unpacked again!

The issue was that I really had no large bag that could fill the void, so more deliberation, more swearing, and more down-sizing.  There were also several pauses for self-pity and the pre-requisite "all-is-lost" rant.  Eventually, my patient wife brought up a bag that, although was much smaller than I would have liked, was the only viable option.  I crammed what I could in the bag (which was actually more than I thought - as I am an elite packer), zipped it up and went to bed.

It was 1:00am!