Steve Bougerolle - Travels 1992-1996 (Dates & Details)

Practical Details

What practical preparations did I make?

I started reading up on travel health very early on, learning all about malaria drugs and antibiotics and local diseases and culture shock. I fixed my teeth and got prescriptions and immunizations (Polio, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Yellow Fever, Hepatitis A & B, Japanese Encephalitis, and Meningitis). For malaria, my doctor recommended I stick with chloroquine as I was travelling too long for Lariam, which was only recommended for something like three months maximum then. Since that time I have gaped in amazement at the sight of people taking this for as long as two years but have been less amazed at the problems many of them have suffered.
I used the rec.travel newsgroup (now re-organized) to collect information and a few addresses. The soc.culture.* groups should have been helpful also but in fact were even more disappointing and of even less use then than now.
Travel insurance for a very long trip proved remarkably difficult to get (medical especially). I finally joined WEXAS in the UK to get their insurance. It was a good deal but I later realized didn’t cover me completely so I dumped it in favor of expatriate health insurance (from BUPA, also in the UK).
Before leaving I got a new 48-page passport; a normal 24-page would have been too small.
I didn’t want to carry around $10,000 in cash or cheques so arranged a couple of time deposits to pay money automatically into my account, figuring I could then write cheques on it using my American Express card. The bank end of this worked just fine but I got stuck two ways; first, because I didn’t save my money in US dollars I lost a thousand Canadian dollars when our exchange rate dropped and second, American Express was a lot of trouble to deal with. Towards the end of my trip I got my cash in a similar way using my chequebook to cover Visa cash advances, with much less hassle.

What did I read?

My plans began with the Lonely Planet Shoestring guides for Africa, West Asia, South-East Asia and North-East Asia. Although they did a good job of enthusing me for travel I found them too large in scope to be really useful. I later collected Travel Survival Kits which varied in quality. Some of their Asian guides I quite appreciated, particularly Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Their African guides I quickly gave up on, however. They seemed to be unreliable at best and dangerously wrong at worst, often perpetuating old impressions and myths.

As my travels progressed I used Rough Guides at times, and generally preferred them to the Lonely Planet books.

Coffee-table books kept my enthusiasm up while I planned and finished my studies simultaneously, but I can’t remember any names that stand out. History books were sometimes better. Two must-reads are Alan Moorehead’s books The White Nile and The Blue Nile. A most interesting book I found later in Hong Kong has two titles; The Barbarians of Central Asia and The Heartland. It’s by Stuart Legg and well worth chasing down. In Africa I read The Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham. I highly recommend this as well.

Travelogues didn’t interest me much at first. Later I ran across Danziger’s Travels, and Running With The Moon by Jonny Bealby, and my opinion of the genre improved.

Novels I generally liked more. I often carried one of James Michener’s monster tomes while travelling. Others I have enjoyed and found insightful were The Year of Living Dangerously and (surprisingly?) James Clavell’s Noble House.

I particularly like maps and atlases so piled them up. A French historical atlas made a useful summary and reference while I read up on different parts of the world (it’s available in English as the Penguin Atlas of World History). I didn’t take an Atlas of the Bible/Holy Land but would have appreciated it very much in Syria and Jordan. When writing the first version of this travelogue this year I also made heavy use of the Encarta computerized world atlas. On the road, by far the best maps I used were the Michelin series for Africa. Other famous-name maps rarelyimpressed me but I often found quite useful local ones.

What did I take with me? (and where did it go?)

Baggage: a Lowe Cerro Torre I backpack (finally sold in HK). It was good quality but way more than I needed to travel by bus and hitch-hiking. Also, it was heavy. On short trips I take a light day pack now and find it completely adequate.
Footwear: I first took Dolomite Trek-king boots (too damned heavy and stiff), and sandals. The sandals wore out soon and the boots I eventually sold, to my great relief. Although I’ve never solved the footwear problem completely my optimal solution now is a pair of ultra-light Kung Fu shoes and lightweight hiking boots or cycling shoes. I sometimes add a cheap pair of thongs as well.
Sleeping Bag: a cheap Dodo Safari (a rare whole-trip survivor), thoroughly satisfactory and perfectly suited for the sort of tropical backpacking I did at first (as well as the cycling I later did). I also used a foam pad, which was difficult to carry but handy.
Insect protection: I took a net at first and it was stolen before I could use it. I never needed it; if rooms didn’t come with a net or (better) a fan, I could buy coils or electronic mosquito mats or use repellent.
Clothes: I took too many and most of them got stolen early on. Some people like jeans but I can’t stand to wear them in the heat. When cycling later I reached my optimum clothing load; one pair of trousers, one pair of shorts, one pair of cycling shorts and two pairs of underwear, two t-shirts, one good shirt and two pairs of socks (used exclusively for cycling).
Books: too many guidebooks (which got stolen), Work Your Way Around the World book (good to read but useless to carry so I sold it), and various language books which I condensed to Berlitz phrasebooks and finally did without completely, plus one or two novels. My ideal mix now is a maximum of one guidebook plus one or two novels depending on their thickness.
Large hard-cover purple notebook (torn apart in Thailand) To write my diary I now buy cheap thin school exercise books. These are available just about anywhere you might go and make nice souvenirs as well as serving their purpose.
Water purifiers: I started with Iodine crystals but my bottle got smashed early on. In Asia I managed with tea, soft drinks and bottled water so never needed any tablets or treatment. In Africa I tried Iodine drops, Chlorine, filters and boiling and found them all ultimately ineffective for different reasons (usually that they were too much trouble after a long and exhausting day’s cycling) so I carried along a big bag of de-worming and anti-parasite drugs.
Sunglasses (smashed on my first flight to Asia). For cycling I got a pair of wrap-around mirror shades and found them invaluable. For the city I later bought a cheap pair of Polaroids, which later still were stolen.
Camera: a Canon AE-1 with 24, 50 and 70-210 mm lenses. The zoom lens wasn’t really adequate for game watching and I later replaced it with a 60-300, which was enough of an improvement to keep me happy. The 50 mm lens was stolen and my first 24 mm lens died of fungus so I had to buy a second.
Realistic DX-380 short-wave radio (used then upgraded in HK), nice but too big. I replaced it with a wallet-size Sony ICF SW-100E, which was perfect. Both had to be protected from humidity or would quickly die.
Lots of film (used and used and used and used). I favour Fuji Velvia but had to settle for Sensia 100 on my last trip. I started with print film and later changed to slides with no regrets whatsoever.
Documents: my 48-page passport filled quickly so I got another one. My vaccination card has been checked three times in five years. Still, one must have one by law in some places. Insurance I did need, when my wallet was stolen in Bangkok, and WEXAS paid with no trouble. Photos from home went over quite well in many parts of the world but a picture of my girlfriend was a hit everywhere, with just about every single person I met. Various sorts of fake and contrived papers were useful at different times but I hesitate to recommend them as attitudes to these things change very widely from place to place. In Egypt people will be surprised if you don’t have a fake student card (and you’ll pay more as a result). In some parts of Asia a fake student card can get you months or years in jail. Generally, I don’t like the inherent dishonesty in these tricks and avoid them as much as possible. Very often there are legitimate ways to get the same sorts of discounts or solve the same sorts of problems, if you do the work to find them.
Money: I took Amex (moderately useful) and Visa (not quite as useful) traveller’s cheques, plus a Visa card (very useful) and an American Express card (which was a constant annoyance).
Odd bits of paper & stationery (all used at some point or other). Airmail paper was handy not only for letters but also for lightweight condensed notes about many things. I also liked aerogrammes.
Games: one deck of cards (given away), dice (sent home), pocket Scrabble (sent home) and 10-in-1 game (sent home). If you have a bit of spare space the 10-in-1 set can be fun to carry and a good way to make friends.
Medical box: I took ordinary things such as band-aids and moleskin (very useful) plus antibiotics (ciprofloxacine, which I eventually used for an ear infection), chloroquine, Paludrine, mefloquine, Fansidar and Quinimax for malaria, headache pills (often used), Imodium (almost never used), Eno (an antacid which I didn’t need often but sure appreciated the two or three times I did), Iodine (heavily used), antibiotic ointment (moderate use) and odds and ends. Malaria prescriptions change depending on where you’re going, when you’re going and who you are, so what I took is not at all a recommendation for anyone on what to take.
Extra medical supplies for cycling: gauze (never used) and zinc oxide ointment (handy) plus extra bandages and moleskin (which got used up quickly). Later I added Ibuprofen to my bag of pain-killers and found it useful.
Watch: a Casio world-time watch (another rare whole-trip survivor), an excellent buy and particularly useful due to its five programmable alarms and countdown timer. I did get through several watch straps, though.
Security devices: chain for backpack (too heavy so dumped), leg safe (never used, sent home), neck safe (too much trouble, exchanged for money belt)
Small gifts (a waste of space; after four years I still haven’t managed to give them all away, because I got tired of beggars and one-pen kids).
Tents: first a Trigano three-man dome tent (sold in HK), a good buy but a bit heavy so I traded it in for a Eureka Gossamer ultra-small (sold in Harare later), which was much lighter but not as weatherproof.
Cooking gear: an MSR XGK-II camp stove and cheap pots and pans (still in use, satisfactory)
Binoculars: a small pair of Pentax 10x24 CF-III binoculars. I quite missed these after they were stolen in Harare.
Bicycle: A KHS Montana Pro-FZ racing mountain bike. TrueTemper OX tubing with Deore XT groupset and Dia-Compe 989 brakes. I had it modified with an extra-strong back wheel (36-spoke XTR hub and Araya rim), touring saddle and higher stem. I began with normal pedals and changed to Onza clipless pedals later. The bike performed very well.
Bicycle accessories: Cannondale Mountain rear panniers and Bardale front bag. Both were satisfactory but I didn’t like the cumbersome locking system on the back panniers so sawed it off in Uganda. On the front I had Karrimor Korniche panniers, which were good bags but had a completely inadequate mounting system. In addition to these things I had a Cateye cycling computer and Vista-lite headlight, both of which proved very useful until they were stolen. My spares and tools included several dozen patches (needed), three spare tubes and a set of dirt tires, odd nuts and bolts, spokes (never needed), a chain breaker which broke and which I replaced with another one which also broke, plus an all-in one tool and a few wrenches to fit every nut on my bicycle.

How much did it cost?

From 1992-1994 cost me about US$10,000. The second leg 1995-1996 was much more expensive at about US$15,000. The difference comes from the amount of time I spent in Africa, where the level of food and lodging I like cost much more than in Asia.