Packing

2025-08-02 21:36

I fly to Vietnam tomorrow for a 2 week tour, southbound from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh. Here are some things that are kind of specific to me that I plan to take with.

• A book - Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin - It's not as chunky as Harari's Nexus that I'm currently reading, and I was inspired to finally pick it up off my shelf by Cameron's post My favourite aliens.

• Music - There's a 10+ hour flight each way, plus shorter domestic flights, so I downloaded a few of my mp3s into my Finamp offline album. I also acquired some more - Went down the atmospheric path with Chelsea Wolfe, VV & The Void and King Dude. Other artists there are UNKLE, The Verve, Faithless, Sun Araw, Truckfighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Tropical F*ck Storm, Cattle Decapitation, Origin, Regular John, Aldous Harding. In other words, eclectic. Like my brain?

• Headphones - Has both bluetooth and 3.5mm jack.

• Offline digital books - I had a couple geekery books saved earlier - Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy in markdown format. I've added it to my Obsidian vault to read which is pretty cool. Also The Art of Unix Programming as a HTML file. Surprisingly I can't load saved HTML files easily in Firefox on my phone. Ummm isn't that the whole point of browsers??? Load HTML files? What the hell have I missed? Anyway I found a plugin to open it. I'm also bringing some PDF study notes for an online exam I have coming up. I can't imagine I'll get the energy for that though.

• Mobile only - leaving laptop at home.

• A4 notebook - Inspired by Rust in True Detective, I've opted for the bigger A4 notebook. I've printed off a whole lotta stuff too, so the notebook doubles up as a carrier for those. Bringing blue and black ballpoint pens. I'm not one to journal on paper, but maybe this will be the start?

• Printed reading material - Just because I like reading off pieces of paper - Thinking of Stonehenge in Manhattan by Andrea at Comma Directory, The Loss of Creature by Walker Percy, Ctrl-ZINE Issue 21

• Dry bags - I had a couple of these already because they're super handy with my long distance running and overnighters, but I bought a couple extras for this trip to separate a few things out.

• Sleeping bag liner - In case there is some iffy linen along the way.

• Bags - I'm borrowing a 60L backpack with detachable day pack from a workmate. It is a perfect size for this kind of trip, and being a back pack it will be easier to lug around. Access from the side and top as well.

• Shoes - I don't really have any decent casual shoes. I spend my weekdays in my workboots, and afternoons and weekends in my trail runners or jandals. I've bought another pair of cheaper trail runners that look kind of casual so I'll take them for every day use, plus a pair of actual trail runners if I get a chance to do some hikes or runs, and my jandals.

• Wise card - I've topped this up ready to go. Wise seems to have pretty low fees, and is relatively easy to transfer money to. I'll be able to use at ATMs and card eftpos machines.

Everything else is pretty standard - Essentially clothes and toiletries.. also rain jacket, headtorch, drink bottle, vitamins, chargers, passport... I've got a feeling I've missed something. Time will tell.