the things i carry

My money is distributed among my possessions. 500 RMB tucked into a flap in my journal, another 1500 RMB and a passport and an ATM card in the pouch I tuck into my waistband, pocket change and a California driver’s license and a Chinese ATM card that doesn’t work in the wallet I keep buttoned in the back of my chinos. This way something gets nabbed and I’m not stranded.

This is a travel habit I developed a long time ago. When I traveled in Nepal – for seven weeks, on assignment to rewrite the Kathmandu and eastern Nepal sections of a budget travel guide – I kept 200 rupees between the insole and sole of my left boot.

The monarchy had just collapsed. A few hours before I arrived, the prince massacred his family. With an assault rifle. Or a pistol. Because he was crazy, drunk, or in love with a woman. Any which way, the banks were closed at the airport. Most of the airport was closed. I tried to pay for my bus ride to Thamel with an American dime. There were noon curfews for the next three days. A guesthouse accepted my residency and fed me on the promise of future payment. When I finally got my hands on Nepali money, I stuffed some into my shoe.

The last ten days I was there, I rode buses an average of thirteen hours a day, moving between towns in a hurry to get the last of my itinerary researched: Ilam, Shivagunj, Biratnagar. Usually it was four or five hours on a bus in the morning, two hours investigating sleeping and eating and transport options at the first stop (“How much for a single room? A double? A dorm? What time do you open? Close? How much for dahl bhat? How many buses leave per day for Dakshinkali? How long does it take? How much? Danyabad, namaste.”), then another few hours on a bus to the next stop, where I’d eat and find a hotel for the night.

Sometimes I called my parents and savored every second we talked. Sometimes my editor called, sometimes to say, We lost a researcher, Peru, overnight bus, cliff, launched through the window. Reception was sometimes awful but what came through was enough to get the picture.

The longest bus ride was 19 hours. My strategy was to remain dehydrated and almost motionless on the bus so that I would not need to pee, and then chug a few liters of water at night, when I knew I had consistent access to a bathroom. For the most part it worked, except it failed on the longest ride, and I found myself frantic during a five minute pit stop, unable to locate a bathroom, desperately needing to pee. I ran around a corner and pulled down my pants in the weeds beside a building, sprayed my boots, and then ran back to the street to see my bus pulling away. I sprinted after it screaming. It stopped after a block.

So I kept money in my boot. Just enough to get a hotel room for a night and a bus ticket back to a place I could get help. I never had to use it, but it was reassuring to know it was there.

By then I had dumped most of my possessions except a slim shoulder bag in which I kept my necessities: (1) the 100 pages of copy I was to research and rewrite to send back to my editor and the scissors and gluesticks I used to prepare my edits (such were the primitive ways of 2001), (2) photocopied pages of the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet for cross-reference, (3) my journal, (4) a pair of underwear rolled into a knot, (5) a toothbrush rolled into a bandana, (6) bug spray, (7) a golf pencil with four feet of duct tape wound around it, (8) a yard of 3mm rope, (9) hand sanitizer, (10) an umbrella, (11) a long-sleeved shirt, (12) a plastic water bottle crushed to the size of the water level within, (13) a cassette player, and bootleg tapes of the Rolling Stones, Everything But the Girl, and Massive Attack, and (14) a novel – probably Virginia Woolf also, as it was in Nepal that I learned to love reading her writing when traveling.

Other necessities I kept closer to my body. I wore extra-large convertible pants that happened to be on 90% discount at an outdoor outfitter store (the hem dragged under my heels; the waistband pleated when I drew my belt tight); a sports bra, and a bright yellow t-shirt with cat’s paw prints and English words across the chest. My right front pocket was for tissues, right rear was for a gaffer tape wallet containing only cash, left rear was for a small spiral bound notebook and mini pen which I used to sketch, record stray thoughts and document the items I spent money on each day. It was about $6 a day on food, travel and accommodations, slightly more if I bought batteries or novels – Nepal is a very poor country. I kept a debit card and cash and my passport in a waistband pouch. I also in the pouch was a slip of paper on which I had written my parents’ phone numbers, my passport number, and my own name. In addition to the shoulder bag, I had a handbag in which I kept an extra t-shirt, extra pairs of underwear and socks, flip-flops, three extra novels, and my Larium pills. I kept the second bag mostly to have something to leave on bus seats when I needed to designate a spot, since it was filled with worthless things and I would not be devastated if it were to be stolen or left behind.

I could pack light because I was not in the habit then of showering or changing my clothes. I washed myself fewer than ten times in the 51 days I was in Nepal, and was perfectly unable to understand why dirt and dead skin rolled up in little tapered lines when I drew a finger across my neck. Some of the people who knew me in those days still think I have this attitude toward personal hygiene, but it feels like a very long time ago.