Backpackering

As I am a backpacker, I packed my backpack. Ideally, I will travel only with one smallish backpack, a 32 L (ca. 12 kg). Never quite understood this backpack thing of measuring things in litres, as if I were to pack liquids. I choose seven t-shirts, 3 long sleeved shirts, 2 pairs of pants and 7 pairs of underwear and socks. One pair of shoes, my Salomon®, with which I could walk to the end of Earth, if it were to be flat. I got thermal layers from the op-shop[1] as will be going into the northern hemisphere in autumn and winter, with a tropical stop over in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. My smaller backpack held my computer, two reading books, four writing books and pencil case with markers and coloured pencils, my headphones and my faithful green scarf. All was set for a trip of a lifetime.

As a someone with prescription medicines I had to ask the pharmacy to dispense my four months of medications. Anti-depressants for the serotonin, anti-histaminic for the allergies, anti-menopause for the hot flushes and night sweats, anti-biotics for a possible infection. About two kilos of anti-things, which seems like an anti-thesis for a small backpack and my whims of traveling light. Plus, the medicated shampoos and creams, bandaids and Voltaren® for the faulty knee. Another kilo of that, which left my 12 kg backpack beyond its capacity, and I had to take a small 30 L duffel bag with my tropical clothes for Bali and Sri Lanka, my winter polka dot coat, my towel and a sample of my medications. Loosely packed but still another bag.

I had heard that packing is easier with packing cubes, and Cassie who travels with a backpack all over the Kimberley (WA) confirmed that. I got two cubes and four rectangular cuboids and then try to squeeze them into my cylindrical backpack. It felt like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Didn’t make sense and I only kept the two cubes with undies and t-shirts and all the rest went into the backpack, loose and squashed against the walls and against the cubes. The cuboids went in too, but one that held my 2 kg of medication went outside of the backpack, tightly anchored with the given straps. All covered with a waterproof cover that barely fit the backpack, and no locks. 

Upon getting to the Darwin airport, I experienced for the first time what is like to travel with a blue passport. I settled in pre-boarding, picked up my book and waited. My whim is to become a travel writer, and for that I am taking guidance from one of my favourite writers: Bill Bryson. In his book “neither here nor there” he wrote about going from Paris to Istanbul, I was going the other way around, so at least I got something sort of in common with him. 

Landing in Bali and getting around was smooth as I had my driver friend, iMade, pick me up and take me to my hotel at the west side of the island. I kept my 30 L duffel bag while he took my backpack and my polka dot coat. We met iMade when we went to Bali for the first time in 2016, he has taken care of me, my friends and family when going to Bali, and now he was the guardian of my backpacker backpack. About 2 hours later he dropped me off in Padang Bai where I will be catching the fast ferry to the Gili islands. I was going to Gili Air, the smallest of them all, where there are no cars but only bikes and the sea is clear of rubbish and gunk, unlike ‘mainland’ Bali. Rubbish is a permanent sight in Bali. And every tourist contributes to it, whether we want it or not.

 

[written in Sighisoara, Romania - the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, who gave origin to Bram Stoker's Dracula] 

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[1] Op-shop stands for opportunity shop, where all second-hand stuff gets donated and sold for little money. Op-shops are amazing in Australia, and Frilly’s (ran by the Nightcliff Uniting Church) is the bestest of them all. Most of my clothes are sourced in op-shops. I volunteered at Frilly’s from March 2016 to September 2026 that I left backpacking.

Las reglas del juego (or "Off to see the world")

Tblisi international airport, 22 October 2026 

Con mi facilidad de hacer nido y conexiones decidí que debía poner reglas a mis ínfulas de viajera internacional. O quién sabe si me iría una vez que llegue. Ahora, mi pasaporte azul me da ingreso a 168 países, 108 de los cuales puedo ingresar sin visa. Sin papeleo, sin trámites logísticos y administrativos. Sin plata y sin hospedaje confirmado. Sin visas – ciudadana del mundo, casi. 

Green: No visa; Red: Visa (Source: https://www.passportindex.org/passport/australia/)

 

Nasi Goreng upon arrival in Bali, 27sep26

I knew I had to be in Ecuador in late December, so I decided that I will embark on a journey with that semi-final destination. I wanted to travel with a one-way ticket until then, but for insurance purposes I had to put an end date to my world wandering and have a designated arrival date in Australia. Taking the long way back to Ecuador, I decided to travel west until reaching Ecuador by the 15^th of December. In my paper map of the world, with eyes-wide-open I checked all what was available now.

I settled for Indonesia as my first stop. I needed someplace known, where I knew my way around, and Bali fitted the bill. I have been to Bali many times. It is cheaper and closer to travel there than to visit any other Australian capital city. I bought my plane ticket to Bali before I got my passport, to ensure I was doing what I said I was going to do. And there is Nasi Goreng.

Traveling on a whim meant that I could just go anywhere, yet my first rule was that I was to only travel west. West is where most of the world is in relation to Australia, or at least that is what the normal maps show, as most of them are printed with the Atlantic Ocean as the centre. As I had bought my ticket to Bali already, I decided that I could only go where I have not been before, and of course that had a no-visa regulation for my blue passport. Ironically, I had to pay for a visa upon entering Indonesia with either passport. A drastic change from pre-Covid time when Ecuadorians did have access to Indonesia visa-free. Now only Peru and Colombia have that. Tsk Tsk Tsk Ecuadorian diplomats!

The third rule came because of my limited funds. I had to find the next destination, going west that was the cheapest from my last destination. After Bali, luckily my next adventure became Sri Lanka. My dear friend Kamy, back from PhD days, lived there and Sri Lanka has been in my top 5 countries to visit. Ever. After Sri Lanka, traveling west was a bit of a complicated matter if I were to choose the cheapest flight. All cheap flights were bound east: Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia; or, to the middle east[1]. Neither of those choices fitted my current agenda nor the geopolitical one with wars sprouting by tantrums.

My cheapest flight going west became Georgia. The tiny nation in the Caucasus. Next to Azerbaijan. Between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Luckily, I loved geography in school, and now I was living the dream of exploring this places that I had only seen in my schoolbooks. And finally, after Georgia, my next cheap destination was Istanbul. In the past two years, I – along with friends and family, had tried to make it there. Now was my time.

Once in Istanbul, which lies in both Europe and Asia, I decided I will go overland (i.e. train, bus, donkey) until reaching a big international airport in western Europe so I could go to Ecuador.  I wanted to spend most of my time in eastern Europe, and my first fancy went to Romania. The land of Count Dracula and Transylvania. Another of my childhood dreams to come true. A once-friend told me that it was childish to want to go to Transylvania; little she knew that I am indeed a child. After Romania, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen, Bern, Amsterdam and ending my pursuit of happiness in Paris on December 15^th. I had organised myself 79 days of pure traveling bliss. With more, to be defined, after Ecuador. 

My first time ever as a backpacker, and I am “Off to see the World” as the poster of Garfield® in my bedroom at home had been announcing every morning when I woke up. The poster is long gone as I left my hometown in 1994. I asked ChatGPT to find me a Garfield® all geared up with backpack, hiking boots and compass and ready to travel to see the world, ‘it’ laughed at me saying that it was unlikely that the fat-lasagna-loving feline would ever be doing that. Little did ‘it’ know, as I am Garfield and I am indeed “Off to see the World”.

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[1] Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt, 1931-2021) criticized the use of the term ‘middle east’ as a colonial construct reflecting the European worldview. She once asked: “Middle to what?” as the region is in the middle only in relationship to London. London had positioned themselves as the centre of the world when organising the global geography (i.e. printed maps with the Atlantic Ocean as the centre).  Nawal El Saadawi preferred using west Asia.