The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road

7. The Things That They Carried

TRAVEL MAGAZINES ALWAYS MAKE A POINT of telling you the essential thing to carry on your trip, and it used to be a Swiss Army knife — that is, until air travelers were screened, x-rayed, patted down, and presented with a list of forbidden items. Now it is likely to be a cell phone, in my view one of the great impediments to a travel experience. I always take a small shortwave radio, to give me the news and weather of the place I'm in and to keep up with world events. The writer and traveler Pico Iyer says he never travels without a book to read; I am of the same mind. ¶ William Burroughs, a lifetime addict and also a traveler, never went anywhere without a drug of some kind, usually heroin. Kit Moresby, in Paul Bowles's novel The Sheltering Sky, carried evening gowns in her bag in the Sahara Desert. Bowles told me once that he traveled to India and South America in the old style, "with trunks, always with trunks." Bruce Chatwin, a self-described minimalist in travel, said that all he needed was his Mont Blanc fountain pen and his personal bag of muesli. But his biographer, Nicholas Shakespeare, claimed Chatwin always took much more. One of his friends, seeing Chatwin's typewriter and pajamas and book bags on an Indian train, said, "It was like traveling with Garbo."

Edward Lear in Albania, 1848: "some rice, curry powder, and cayenne

Previously to starting a certain supply of cooking utensils, tin plates, knives and forks, a basin etc., must absolutely be purchased, the stronger and plainer the better, for you go into lands where pots and pans are unknown, and all culinary processes are to be performed in strange localities, innocent of artificial means. A light mattress, some sheets and blankets, and a good supply of capotes and plaids should not be neglected; two or three books; some rice, curry powder, and cayenne; a world ofdrawing materials — if you be a hard sketcher; as little dress as possible, though you must have two sets of outer clothing — one for visiting consuls, pashas and dignitaries, the other for rough, everyday work; some quinine made into pills (rather leave all behind than this); a Boyourdi, or general order of introduction to governors or pashas; and your Teskere, or provincial passport for yourself and guide. All these are absolutely indispensable, and beyond these, the less you augment your impedimenta by luxuries the better.

— Edward Lear in the Levant, edited by Susan Hyman (1988)

Sir Richard Burton Heads for Mecca in Disguise: "certain necessaries for the way"

IN ADDITION TO his disguise as "Mirza Abdullah," he had "a Miswak, or tooth-stick" — a twig for cleaning his teeth; "a bit of soap and a comb, wooden, for bone and tortoiseshell are not, religiously speaking, correct." A change of clothing, a goat-skin water-bag, a "coarse Persian rug — which besides being couch, acted as chair, table and oratory," a pillow, a blanket, a large, bright yellow umbrella ("suggesting the idea of an overgrown marigold"), a "Housewife" (needles, thread, and buttons in a pouch), a dagger, a brass inkstand and penholder, "and a mighty rosary, which on occasion might have been converted into a weapon of defence."(Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, 1853)

Paul Du Chaillu in Equatorial Africa: "white beads… small looking-glasses… and my guns"

I foresaw that, from the dread all the coast natives have of the cannibal tribes, I should have difficulty in carrying all my luggage. I therefore determined not to encumber myself with supplies of provisions or anything that could be spared. My outfit consisted only of the following articles — A chest containing 100 fathoms of prints [cloth], 19 pounds of white beads, a quantity of small looking-glasses, fire-steels and flints, a quantity of leaf tobacco. In addition to which came my greatest dependence, viz, 80 pounds of shot and bullets, 20 pounds of powder, and my guns.

— Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa (1861)

C. M. Doughty and Chaucer in Arabia Deserta

DOUGHTY CARRIED IN his camel's saddle bags a seventeenth-century edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and he wrote Travels in Arabia Deserta under the direct influence of Chaucer's style.

Henry Miller on Coast-to-Coast Travel: A Monkey Wrench

There's one thing I'd like to advise anyone thinking of making a transcontinental journey: see that you have a jack, a monkey wrench and a jimmy. You'll probably find that the wrench won't fit the nuts but that doesn't matter; while you're pretending to fiddle around with it someone will stop and lend you a helping hand.

— The Air-ConditionedNightmare (1945)

Laurens van der Post: To Nyasaland with Sealing Wax

I have said nothing, though it is traditional on these occasions, about what I had packed in my suitcases… All I did was to add to my store of khaki clothing, to choose some books for the journey, because they can be difficult to find in Africa, and to lay in a small supply of sealing wax. I was doubtful whether I could get sealing wax at my destination, and I could not risk being without it as I needed it for making secure the samples I hoped to collect on my journey. But all in all I was taking so little that my friends, with their warm and affectionate concern for what is individual and eccentric, quickly created a legend among themselves. Would one believe it, they said, that I had gone off again to Central Africa with a stick of scarlet sealing wax in one hand and a copy of George Meredith's Modern Love in the other?

— Venture to the Interior (1951)

V. S. Naipaul Among the Believers: Smedley Roll-Neck, Exercise Pants

IN HIS BIOGRAPHY of Naipaul, The World Is What It Is, Patrick French writes, "Before leaving England for Indonesia, Vidia put together a 'traveling list.' In its care and restraint, in its honing, it reflected the man and the writer." And it was also a memo to his wife, Pat, to pack his bags so that he would be presentable when he met his mistress, Margaret, who was flying from Buenos Aires to Djakarta to meet him. A partial list: "Suits & trousers and jackets: Travel out in Simpson's grey; Pack — Simpson's beige lightweight; Trousers: M & S cotton, BHS cotton, Oscar Jacobson charcoal lightweight worsted; Underclothes: Pants 4 prs, Socks 4 prs, Pyjamas 1 pr, T-shirts, 2, Sleeveless vests 2. Shirts: 4 cotton (dress); M&S leisure 2, Smedley shirts 2, Smedley roll-neck 3. Shorts: Bathing trunks, Exercise pants, trainers 1 pr perhaps to be worn on journey…"

Freya Stark in Luristan: "a crumpled gown and a powder-puff"

My saddle-bags disclosed in their depths, a crumpled gown and a powder-puff, of which I made the best use I could, and finally emerged to meet my host more or less like a lady.

— The Valleys of the Assassins (1934)

Tapa Snim: A Buddhist Monk's Possessions

When I came back to the compartment, Tapa Snim was rummaging in his bag. I watched him take out an envelope, and then he began knotting the two strands that made this simple square of cotton cloth into a bag.

"Do you have another bag?" I asked, because the smallness of this one seemed an improbable size for a long-distance traveler.

"No. These are all my possessions."

Everything, not just for a year of travel, but everything he owned in the world, in a bag he easily slung under one arm. True, this was a warm climate, but the bag was smaller than a supermarket shopping bag.

"May I ask you what's inside?"

Tapa Snim, tugging the knot loose, gladly showed me the entire contents.

"My bowl, very important," he said, taking out the first item. It was a small black plastic soup bowl with a close-fitting lid. He used it for begging alms, but he also used it for rice.

In a small bag: a piece of soap in a container, sunglasses, a flashlight, a tube of mosquito repellent, a tin of aspirin.

In a small plastic box: a spool of gray thread, a pair of scissors, nail clippers, Q-tips, a thimble, needles, rubber bands, a two-inch mirror, a tube of cream to prevent foot fungus, ChapStick, nasal spray, and razor blades.

"Also very important," he said, showing me the razor blades. "I shave my head every fifteen days."

Neatly folded, one thin wool sweater, a shawl he called a kasaya, a change of clothes. In a document pouch, he had a notebook and some papers, a photograph showing him posed with a dozen other monks ("to introduce myself") and a large certificate in Chinese characters he called his bikkhu certificate, the official proof he was a monk, with signatures and seals and brushwork.

And a Sharp electronic dictionary that allowed him to translate from many languages, and a string of beads—108 beads, the spiritual number.

As I was writing down the list, he said, "And this" — his straw hat—"and this" — his fan.

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing."

"What about money?"

"That's my secret."

And then carefully he placed it on the opened cloth and drew the cloth together into a sack, everything he owned on earth.

— PT, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Joe Polis, Thoreau's Abenaki Guide: "no change of clothing"

He wore a cotton shirt, originally white, a greenish flannel one over it, but no waistcoat, flannel drawers, a strong linen or duck pants, which had also been white, blue woolen stockings, cowhide boots, and a Kossuth hat. He carried no change of clothing, but putting on a stout thick jacket, which he laid aside in the canoe, and seizing a full-sized axe, his gun and ammunition, and a blanket, which would do for a sail or knapsack if wanted, and strapping on his belt, which contained a large sheath-knife, he walked off at once, ready to be gone all summer.

— The Maine Woods (1864)

William Least Heat-Moon: Portable Toilet

FOR HIS 13,000-MILE Blue Highways road trip in his van called Ghost Dancing, Heat-Moon carried a sleeping bag and blanket, a Coleman cooker, a plastic basin and bucket, a portable toilet, a cookstove, utensils, a tool kit, writing materials, a camera, and a "U.S. Navy sea bag of clothes."

William Burroughs: Snakebite Serum and a Hammock

I took a few days to assemble my gear and dig the capital. For a jungle trip you need medicines: snake bite serum, penicillin, enterovio-formo and aralen are essentials. A hammock, a blanket and a rubber bag known as a tula to carry your gear in.

— The Yage Letters (1963)

Pico Iyer: A Book

The most important thing always to have with me in my case is a book: no companion is likely to be richer, stranger, more alive and more eager to be intimate. Pens and notebooks, of course. Pieces of America to give away. A Lonely Planet guide to get angry with and bitterly repudiate. More novels and biographies for eight-hour waits.

I think I spend more time thinking about what I don't want to take with me: assumptions, iPods, cameras, plans, friends (in most cases), laptops, headphones, suntan lotion, résumés, expectations.

— in conversation with PT