Thursday October 4, 2014
8:00 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The argument grows stronger for buying a computer. I went to the Internet café to download the latest installment of my shopping adventures in Kuala Lumpur, and it took an hour and fifteen minutes just to download one file from the NEO. I had a second file partially filled up, and the total download time came to about an hour and forty minutes. That’s too long. I imagine I’ll do some shopping while I wait for the tent and sleeping pad to arrive.

I went back to the camping store yesterday to check out the stove I’ve become interested in – the MSR Whisperlite Universal. I imagined that I would end up buying it in Canada and having it added to the box. The total price is $81 cheaper buying it in Canada as opposed to here. Last night, however, it occurred to me that the stove could cause problems. I’m 97% sure that the Canadian Post Office would refuse to ship a camp stove. It’s always possible to lie to the post office and not tell them about the contents of the box. (I’ve done that multiple times in my life.) But there is the chance that they would X-ray the package and see the metal outline and the parcel would get stopped. It’s also possible that the Malaysians would do the same. So if I want this stove, I’ll probably buy it here despite the added cost.

I was somewhat pleased when I saw the stove in person. I won’t go into the long, boring details about what is good and bad about the stove’s design and construction. I’ll just say that overall I gave it a positive assessment. Assuming it works well and burns properly and without a huge hassle, it would be a good purchase for the long-term. The main things that bothered me a little bit were that it was a bit heavier than I expected and a bit bulkier. The fuel line is incredibly stiff, which makes it nearly impossible to wrap around the stove tightly. People rave about the stove online and people have been using MSR Whisperlite stoves on bike tours for decades. So it’s hard to see how I can go wrong buying one. I particularly like the fact that it isn’t a typical “blast” stove. By that, I mean that it doesn’t have the flame spreader typical of stoves like the Trangia X2, the Primus Omnifuel, the XKG, and the MSR Dragonfly. In those stoves, a jet of fuel is blasted in a very thin stream up against the base of a thick piece of steel. This steel deflects the resulting flame and spreads it around. The result is a very loud stove – like a jet engine. And I find them difficult to light and keep lit. The Whisperlite has a totally different design. I’m not sure what to call it, but it doesn’t have a flame spreader. It uses a long, looped tube to preheat the fuel and a series of baffles to spread the flame over a wide base. This type of stove is very quiet – hence the name Whisperlite. The Whisperlite Universal apparently has an improved fuel preheating tube. It is designed in such a way that it curves further out and thus deeper into the flame of the stove. This keeps the tube a bit hotter and it more efficiently vaporizes the fuel. It continues to vaporize the fuel even at lower temperatures, which allows you to turn down the flame and reduce the heat output. The Trangia X2 fails miserably on this count. On those rare occasions when I got the stove to fire up, I learned never to turn the fuel knob and adjust the flow of fuel – particularly downward. The slightest adjustment and change of the fuel flow and the stove would just go out. This happened all the time. Based on reviews, I understand that the Whisperlite Universal is exceptionally stable once lit and you can adjust the flame as much as you like without worrying about the stove going out.

I’m not sure if I wrote about this before, but in my research, I came across the surprising and possibly pleasing fact that the MSR Whisperlite Universal can be attached to the Primus Omnifuel pump. They call this the Ergopump and it is the same as the pump that comes with the Trangia X2. It is supposed to be far superior to the Whisperlite’s pump. The Ergopump is almost all metal while the Whisperlite pump is plastic. For a little while, I was excited about this and I was once again dreaming of ways to combine things to produce the “best of all worlds” effect. However, it is this line of thinking that constantly gets me in trouble. It is how I ended up with the Trangia alcohol burner and the Trangia X2. It was an attempt to use the Trangia system (which I love) and have a multifuel stove. It’s how I ended up with most of the things I’ve owned over the years that end up not really working well. It also ends up isolating me because I’m doing something that no one else is doing. I’m thinking that this time I should keep things simple and just do the normal thing. If I buy the Whisperlite Universal, I should just use the Whisperlite Universal pump. Don’t try to mix and match with the Whisperlite Universal burner and the Trangia X2 pump. I’ve read online that it works fine, but that now introduces tons of new variables for things to go wrong. Besides, my Trangia X2 isn’t working at all, and it’s possible that the problem lies with the pump. I don’t think the pump is at fault, but who knows? It could be. And I’ve had the X2 for several years now. Perhaps the various seals and O-rings and gaskets are degrading. Even if they aren’t, I’d be faced with having to carry two servicing kits – the Whisperlite Universal kit and the Trangia X2 kit. It would be like mixing two cars together with bits and pieces from both of them. It would be possible, but probably not wise.

As you can tell, ridiculous as it might be, I am talking myself into buying the stove. I want to buy it. I’m sick of this Trangia X2. In an ironic twist (is it really irony?), what kept me from buying a stove like the Whisperlite Universal was that it is a separate stove entirely with its own legs and supports and therefore cannot be used with the Trangia windscreen. And even I’m not dumb enough to carry a full Trangia windscreen and base PLUS the base and legs of a multifuel stove. But in my attempt to reduce the weight of my load, I purchased the ultra-lightweight titanium Clikstand for the Trangia. I’m now free of the Trangia windscreen. The Clikstand weighs practically nothing and it is no problem to carry a stove like the Whisperlite Universal. Ideally, I should carry only the Trangia alcohol burner and the Clikstand. THAT would be the lightest and most efficient route to follow. But that restricts me to using only alcohol, and this is not readily available worldwide. I was never able to find it in Ethiopia, for example. Nor in Guinea or Cambodia. The only places I’ve been able to buy it without a problem have been Canada and the Philippines. Gasoline, on the other hand, is available everywhere. Anyway, enough about that.

I guess I’ve concluded that I won’t be buying the stove from MEC and having it shipped to Sarnia. I’ll be buying it here, if at all. It’ll cost more, but what’s money? No, seriously. What’s money? I don’t have any left. I will soon have a newly refurbished bike and perhaps a reasonable cycling load with a lightweight tent and other camping gear. But no money. Oh, well. That’s life.

I don’t think I have any other news or any other thoughts.

Tags: Canada, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, MSR Whisperlite Universal, Primus Omnifuel, Trangia X2, Whisperlite Universal