Ramblings on these topics in this post:

• flying to Legazpi in the Philippines
• travel budget
• going out to school events in Taipei
• repairing and modifying Arkel pannier bags
• mosquito net, Katadyn water filter, Trangia pot set
• Olympus OM-D EM-5 and lenses

Sunday January 27, 2013

It’s weird. I have to think really hard about what day and what month it is. I looked at my watch this time and saw that it was the 27th and Sunday. But my watch doesn’t tell me the month. I had to sit here for a few seconds and think through what has been going on lately to come up with the month. So, it’s January.

I’m still planning on flying to the Philippines after Chinese New Year, but I’ve changed the date. I’m now flying out at the end of March – on March 31st to be exact. I’ve also changed the city. I was flying into Manila. That’s the cheapest destination, of course, and it doesn’t involve any complicated transfers. However, when I decided to change the date, I rethought landing in Manila and I decided I would rather land somewhere smaller and more pleasant (and cheaper). So I changed my flight to Legazpi. Legazpi is still on the island of Luzon, but it is 500 kilometers south on the long skinny peninsula. Officially, it has a population of around 180,000. From pictures I’ve seen, it looks much smaller than that. It looks pleasant and scenic and friendly. It’s right on the ocean and has a harbor area. It also has the Mayon volcano looming nearby. So it looks like a cool place. The whale shark watching town of Donsol is nearby, so that’s another reason to go there.

When I chose Legazpi – and even when I chose Manila – I had no idea what I would do once I landed or what route I would follow. I had only thought far enough ahead to think of leaving Taiwan and going somewhere else. I still don’t know. I’ll figure that out once I land there. However, a certain mood has started to creep up on me, and this mood is leading me to think about simply cycling through the Philippines relatively quickly and then out the bottom to Indonesia. That was always sort of the plan, of course, but I was thinking about traveling all over the islands – to the northern mountains and everywhere else – essentially spending a lot of time there. Now I’m thinking of shortening my planned stay in the Philippines. There are two reasons for that.

The first is that by delaying my departure again, I’m now starting to leave the good season behind. The best time to be in the Philippines is sort of from December to March and perhaps on into April. Then the summer monsoon season kicks in. I’ve deliberately ignored thoughts of weather as I changed my plans. But now that I know I’m landing there essentially at the beginning of April, it has become more real and spending four months there might not turn out so well. It might be better to use up my original 59-day visa and then scoot out.

The second reason is financial. I recently have been going through the process of opening bank accounts back in Canada. While I was going through the process of opening these accounts, I was suddenly in touch with the “real world” and the money I was putting into these accounts suddenly seemed very important and very valuable. It might have something to do with spending so much time at the banks’ websites and you are bombarded with those scary ads about your future and retirements and savings and dangers and emergencies and all that stuff. Plus, the accounts that I opened have sizeable minimum deposits. After I finished making the necessary deposits, the amount of money I appeared to have available to me in my travel fund as shown on my handy-dandy travel spreadsheet had plummeted. Seriously plummeted.

Anyway, the final result was that I was looking at my little nest egg with a much more critical eye, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend it without getting something valuable in return. Of course, having a great time in the Philippines would be valuable, but more valuable to me might be the opportunity to see a lot more places. So I found when I was talking to people about my plans, I was suddenly talking about a long trip around the world again – finally getting to all these different places I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So I can’t spend too much time in the Philippines – at least not at the expense of new places. The Philippines will be my shakeout destination – a place to get the kinks out of my legs and out of the bicycle. From the Philippines, I can decide if I want to go through the rest of Southeast Asia or suddenly hop a flight over to India. I think I’d still like to go through some of Southeast Asia first, but only if it doesn’t chew up vast amounts of my travel fund. I’ll have to see how that goes.

Life in Taiwan has still been pretty good. Winter weather has reduced the number of scooter trips to practically zero, and my photography adventures with my Olympus have also been reduced. But I’m keeping busy with exploring Taipei as usual.

The months of November and December were actually quite fun. Someone quit suddenly at work, and I had to fill in at the Education Program department, which meant going out to a lot of schools for special events. I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed that. And I also ended up with lots of time off (unpaid, but I was fine with that). If the event was in the afternoon, I’d take the morning off. If it was in the morning or early afternoon, I’d then just go home. That happened enough that it totally affected my mood. I felt almost normal again – non-office Doug. It was great to be out traveling around and meeting new people at the schools. The work itself was hard and challenging, but the rewards were there. And I was able to wake up in the morning and go to a coffee shop first thing and hang out rather than having to go straight to work. That makes a huge difference to my mood. I was even falling back into my habits from Ethiopia and Guinea – getting up at four or five in the morning and heading out into the city before anyone was awake. The 7-11s in my neighborhood are all open 24 hours a day and have lots of public seating and great coffee, so I’m happy as can be.

I was almost hoping that I would continue to go out to schools in January, but it didn’t happen and I’ve turned back into an office drone. I’ve also switched over into some hardcore preparations for leaving Taiwan. I’m getting the money side organized as I mentioned. I’m happy about that. I’m also glad that I have another two months to finish that process. It might take that long with letters going back and forth. I’ve been working on the bike. Luckily, I had the whole thing overhauled when I was in Sarnia, so it is mechanically sound. At least I think it is. There were still some details to fix up, though. I’ve remounted my CatEye cycling computer and gotten it to work. I had some handlebar tape applied to the bar ends. The rubber grips I used to have had split and fallen off. I think I still have to replace the rubber grips on the handlebars. Not sure how to do go about that though.

I’ve also had to do some repairs on the pannier bags. My main pannier bag – the one I carry with me all the time – had some problems. It has an internal aluminum frame, and the pockets in which this frame sits had worn out and torn. I hadn’t done anything about it for a long time because it looked like a very complicated repair job. But when I looked at it closely, I realized it wasn’t as complicated as I thought. I sat down with a needle and threat and my giant bag of old bags and extra stuff and over the course of several movies on my computer, I sewed it all up. It wasn’t easy to do and took careful thought. Even when I had repaired the pockets, I found that I’d had to shorten some of them and that meant the aluminum frame was too large. I had to then use a hacksaw and files to trim down the frame and get it all to fit nicely. I was worried about that because once you cut metal, you’re committed. You can’t easily lengthen it again. So I was nervous, but it all seems to have worked out. I kick myself now that I didn’t do it earlier. I had lived with the pannier bag like that for a long time. Now that it is repaired, it is much better.

My current project is to add knapsack straps to that pannier bag. The Arkel company started adding straps to some of their pannier bags. I bought one of the models, and I have it here – the Bug. However, it isn’t suitable for me. It’s that bag that can also hold a helmet and a U-lock. It doesn’t suit my purposes. Arkel also added knapsack straps to their front pannier bags. I bought one of those when I was in Sarnia, but I ended up sending it back. It was too small overall to be used as my main pannier bag, so the shoulder straps would have been worthless to me. Plus, the front pocket turned out to be slightly narrower than the main compartment, so my NEO actually didn’t fit in it. That made it useless for me.

So I’ve been trying to come up with a way to add shoulder straps to my big rear pannier bags, and this weekend, I think I’ve settled on how to do it. It won’t be perfect, but it should work. The method I’ve settled on requires hardly any work. I already have the straps I’m going to use. They are old straps that came with old camera bags that I had in years past and they have clips on either end. That means I don’t have to sew on clips or anything like that or add straps. The pannier bag already has D-hooks on the top, so I can just attach the straps to those D-hooks. And now I plan to drill holes in the base of the main plate and put in a couple of bolts. I figured out a way to attach large zipper pulls to these bolts. The zipper pulls are perfect in that they are small yet have a nice hole that the clips can fit into. There are a couple of problems. The main one is that there seems to be no way to remove the main structural plate. It slides into a pocket, but it looks like they slid the plate into that pocket and then sewed up the bag around it. There is a bit of give but not nearly enough to be able to bend the plate and slide it back out of the slot. It’s puzzling. This means it will take some fancy footwork to drill through the plate at the bottom without going through the material on the inside. Then it will really take some magic to be able to get down there and hold the nut in place while I screw in the bolt and tighten it up. It won’t be impossible by any means, but it won’t be easy. And since I’m drilling holes, it is a permanent change. If I screw up, it will be a big problem.

I’ve done as many tests as I can think of to anticipate any problems, but, it is impossible to tell 100% whether something will work. There are so many unintended consequences to things like this. And even if it works perfectly as I envision it, it won’t be that comfortable. The pannier bag was never meant to be worn as a knapsack, so bits of sharp metal might be digging into my back. The straps might also cut into my shoulders heavily. I tried it out though as best I could, and it was surprisingly comfortable. It just might work. I’ll have to send Arkel some pictures to show them my modifications when I’m done.

I’ve been going over all my other travel gear and getting it ready. I took a chance and washed my big mosquito net. It was VERY dirty. And it came out nice and clean and fresh and it hadn’t torn to pieces or anything. I thought about getting a smaller mosquito net, but I’ve tried that in the past and never been happy. I looked at some nets that were smaller but gave a lot of room by virtue of having a square boxy shape. However, that probably wouldn’t work since you then need four attachment points to hold out the four corners of the square. I had enough trouble just finding one attachment point let alone four sometimes. If it was for a permanent spot, it would be okay. But if you’re sleeping in lots of different places, then it would be impossible to use realistically. While considering that design, though, I realized that my net could be improved considerably by adding some corner attachment points. I could just sew some material onto the net and then put a loop on it. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, I could attach cords to those attachment points and pull the net out in a square shape. It works fine with just the single attachment point in the middle, but being able to pull out the sides to a vertical position would be handy sometimes. It would be very difficult to judge where to put those attachment points, though. I might wait on doing that until I am on the road and then I can make the adjustments slowly in actual situations.

I went over my new Trangia stove and my Trangia pots. A problem there was that when my camping gear was shipped to me, one Trangia pot was completely smashed up and dented. It could still work, but it probably won’t. I’m sure it will burn at all those points where it is dented. I also have a set of stainless steel MSR pots, though. And I found that the smallest MSR pot was about the same size as the largest Trangia pot, so I could switch them and they would still nest. They don’t fit 100%, but it’s close enough I think. I’m tempted to get a whole new Trangia set. They have new sets made out of lightweight material. However, I like the idea of using my old Trangia set. I’ve had it for nearly my entire life. It’s beat up and old, but it still works. My kettle in particular is a real mess. But it still works fine. It’s like an old friend by now.

I tend to obsess over stuff and gear. I enjoy it. So I’ve had lots of fun going over all this gear. Nothing I have is perfect, though, and I constantly wish it were smaller and lighter. I’m constantly tempted to dump the stuff I have and go for more sensible stuff – lightweight and small. However, I’ve done that in the past and it has never worked out well. I actually bought a small and lightweight mosquito net for my trips to Cambodia and the Philippines since my big one was in storage in Sarnia. And, sure, it was small and light. But it was also practically useless and made my life miserable. I bought those Ortlieb pannier bags for my trip to Cambodia. My Arkel bags were in Sarnia, too. The Ortlieb bags are simpler and much, much lighter. However, I hated them. They made my life miserable. None of my experiments with small gear has worked out.

What else have I done? Let’s see. I cleaned up my Katadyn water filter. It’s ready to go. I experimented with my new Trangia gas burner, and I’m pretty confident that it will work out. I’m going over all my tools and spare parts to make sure I have what I need.

I’m also in the middle of getting all my vaccinations. That has turned into an expensive little project, especially since I’ve had to also get my original childhood vaccinations updated with boosters. I can’t remember what these things cost in Canada, but they do seem a bit more expensive here. Though I think what pushed the cost over the top was my decision to get the rabies vaccine. The rabies series costs about $175 Canadian. I’m looking at a final bill of $500 for all the vaccines. I have two more trips to the hospital scheduled to get the final shots. I have one trip scheduled for this week on Wednesday. I’m taking the whole day off to do it. I have 8 paid holidays to use up, so it’s no big deal.

The other big, big thing occupying my mind has been photography and the little Olympus. I go back and forth on that camera. For a certain type of photography, I absolutely love it – for close-ups of objects and for portraits. It’s fantastic and I love it for that. But I can’t shake the feeling that there is something lacking when it comes to other types of pictures – mainly landscapes and cityscapes. Also for interiors and for night photography. I can’t make up my mind. I’m absolutely going to keep the camera and take it with me. So that’s not an issue. The issue is whether I supplement it with a second camera – a regular SLR. Of course, I won’t buy an SLR before I leave Taiwan. I’ll leave Taiwan with just my Olympus and see how it goes. However, I am thinking of selling a couple of lenses. I bought a total of six lenses for the camera, and it seemed reasonable at the time. I love all the lenses. But as I started packing, I’ve realized that there is a big difference between photography when you are staying in one place and photography when you are traveling. Basically, I don’t know if I have enough room for all those lenses! And it is such a hassle changing lenses that I might end up barely using some of them. No point lugging them around the world if they’re just going to sit in my pannier bags untouched. It would be no problem selling them. It’s just that if I wanted to sell them, now is the time to do it. It would be next to impossible to sell them while traveling.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I think it is a good idea to sell a couple of the lenses. Unfortunately, when I start going over them in my head, I find I want all of them. And it’s difficult to predict how things will be once I’ve left Taiwan. Right now, for example, I find I’m least happy with my 12mm lens (24mm in film terms) and my 9-18mm zoom (18-36 in film terms). Wide angle lenses seem like a good idea in theory and when I take the picture, it looks good on my camera. But once I have it on my computer, it doesn’t seem so great. It’s just a big picture with lots of stuff in it. The tighter I get on a subject, the better I like the picture. The wider I go, the less I like it. However, I’m concerned that if I didn’t have a wide angle lens, I’d wish I had one – particularly for landscapes.

In any event, I probably don’t need both the 12mm and the 9-18 zoom. The focal lengths overlap.

I have two other lenses that kind of overlap. I have a 75mm and a 60mm. I like them both, though. They both bring different things to the table. The 75mm has awesome picture quality. It is razor sharp. The problem with it is that it is by far the heaviest lens. It’s still light in terms of regular SLR lenses, but it is quite heavy when compared to the other Olympus lenses. The 60mm doesn’t have the same image quality as the 75mm, but it is a macro lens. And I love having the macro. Basically, I have to keep the 60mm for that reason. The question is whether I should sell the 75mm and use just the 60mm for portrait shots.

My last two lenses are a 25mm Panasonic (50mm in film terms) and a 45mm Olympus (90mm in film terms). If I were living in one place, it would be a no-brainer. I’d keep both. They each do different things. However, when you’re traveling, they might be too close in focal length to make sense having both. If I had to choose just one, I’d keep the 25mm Panasonic. It is my workhorse lens and the one I perhaps like the best. It is super sharp and very fast. It’s a great lens. The 45mm is also a great lens, but I probably don’t actually NEED it for traveling if I already have the 25mm.

A logical person would probably sell the 45mm, the 75mm and the 9-18mm zoom. Then I’d have these 3:

12mm (24mm)

25mm (50mm)

60mm macro (120mm)

That’s a nice range for travel I think. It’s reasonable. But I love that 75mm lens so much. And the 45mm lens is very small. And the 9-18mm zoom is also quite handy. The 9mm end is quite dramatic – much more so than the 12mm. And it’s nice to be able to tighten up to the 18mm end (36mm). With the 12mm, I’m stuck with wide. With the 9-18, I can do both. It’s handy. I have some time still to figure this out. March will be my big month for selling everything. If I decide to sell the lens, I can put them on eBay in March.

Later:

I’ve left my coffee hangout and I’m back at my apartment. I got hold of my landlord’s drill, and I’m about to drill holes in my beloved Arkel pannier bag. Wish me luck.

I also tracked down a couple of websites comparing the Olympus 75mm and the Olympus 60mm macro. One guy in particular did a series of identical shots using the two lenses. His conclusion was that the 75mm was slightly better than the 60mm but that you’d have to “pixel peep” to see the difference. I disagree. I thought his shots with the 75 were significantly crisper and sharper with more detail than the shots with the 60mm. I also forgot to mention that the 75mm is a f/1.8. The 60mm is an f/2.8. So that’s another advantage. Guess I have to keep both of them.

Well, time to start drilling those holes. Yikes. Hope I don’t blow it.

 

Tags: Arkel pannier bags, SLR, Taiwan, Trangia