Packing Light?

Posted on December 30, 2014 by racheldennisotr

All the travel blogs sensibly tell you to pack light, promoting the two by two rule, i.e. take two t-shirts, wear one and wash one. Now anyone who has travelled with me on work or pleasure knows that I am terrible at packing light. You never know what you might be invited to or what the weather might do. I try, I really do, but I am always lugging massive heavy bags and suitcases around with me full of stuff that I inevitably don’t use or wear. I am envious of those people who can manage a 2 week trip around Europe with a just hand luggage ….you know who you are!

My friend Mark, a seasoned traveller, advised me to buy a backpack no bigger than 55 litres. For practical reasons, when traveling on local transport you can comfortably nurse a pack that size on your lap and not have to worry about it being strapped to the top of a bus out of sight. Sage advice indeed and totally unrealistic in my case!

After much online and in-store research I ended up buying an Osprey Farpoint 70 litre pack. The main pack is 55 litres with a detachable 15 litre daypack. It’s comfy and in my signature colours of black and grey*.

My good friend Skye, who works in the travel industry and is constantly on the road, introduced me to the wonder of packing cells back in 2003. For this trip I purchased a number of different sized dry bags to help keep me organized.

  • 2.5  x clothes
  • 2 x toiletries
  • 1 x chargers, adapters, torch
  • 2 x first aid kits
  • 1 x odds and sods
Dry bags

Trying to keep myself organised with Exped dry-bags.

I did a couple of trial runs at home prior to my trip and everything fitted (but only just). Now I’m on the road however it’s clear that, once again, I’ve totally over packed and will need to have a bit of a re-think on what I really need and will use!

Kit bag

My kit, well nearly all of it. See future post ‘Indigo Pearl’ for an explanation for the high heels.

*Quick rant: Why do backpack manufacturers feel the need to design female packs in garish purple or pink, (or with pink highlights)? Why does a backpack need to confirm to gender stereotypes of colour?

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List Porn

Posted on December 30, 2014 by racheldennisotr

I love a list. I get this from my mother who is never too far away from a spiral bound reporter’s notebook detailing week upon week of actions. We would often discuss the rules of list making, for instance, if you’ve forgotten to put something on your list but you’ve completed it, can you add it to your list and then immediately cross it off? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes’ of course! List making for my trip began in earnest in November; a list for home actions, travel actions and work actions (as I was doing a bit of marketing consultancy). Plus a master list of lists. All actions then transcribed into daily to dos. For those productivity geeks out there check out www.rememberthemilk.com for pure list porn. Don’t judge me on this one!

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The Itinerary

Posted on December 30, 2014 by racheldennisotr

So here is the current itinerary:

  • Thailand – for some time on the beach and a bit of yoga with my NYC besties Amy and Shereen.
  • Sydney – my second ‘home’ and first visit for three years, to spend time with old friends.
  • New Zealand – hiring a camper van and exploring together with my parents (hopefully we’ll still be speaking to each other by the end of it!).
  • Perth – to visit friends and explore the West coast. South for wine or North for beaches and vast open spaces?
  • Singapore – catching up with friends and to pop into the Getty office on Amoy Street to say hello.
  • Sri Lanka – teaching, exploring, riding on trains, beaches, the hill country, ancient cities and to reconnect with this beautiful country and its people (see coming blog post ‘Serendipity’ on past travel experiences in Sri Lanka)

I booked my flights in July through ‘Round The World Experts’ www.roundtheworldexperts.co.uk. Charli my contact was brilliant, highly knowledgeable and very patient. The itinerary ended up as follows:

  • London > Bangkok – 25th Dec* (via KL)
  • Bangkok > Sydney – 19th Jan (via KL)
  • Sydney > Queenstown – 2nd Feb
  • Auckland > Sydney – 2nd March
  • Sydney > Perth – 23rd March
  • Perth > Singapore – 13th April (via KL)
  • Singapore > Colombo – 15th April
  • Colombo > London – 15th July (via KL)

The main carrier for the trip is Malaysian Airlines. I booked my flights after the tragic loss of MH370 and before MH17 and QZ8501. People questioned my choice of Malaysian as a carrier, but I’m the daughter of an airline pilot and understand statistically that the chances of being involved in such an incident are very low. The current crash rate is 2.1 for every million plane that fly, and even lower on large commercial aircraft^.

*Traveling on Christmas Day evening was £350 cheaper than the days before or after the 25th Dec.

^I am however knocking on wood as I type this!

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The Present Perfect Continuous

Posted on December 30, 2014 by racheldennisotr

My only prior experience teaching English was in 2004 when I was in North Laos. A local school was looking for native English speakers to be teaching assistants. No experience needed. I was told to come later that afternoon where I would be assistant to the teacher for the afternoon classes. On arrival that afternoon I was greeted by the teacher, who handed me an English text book, told to start from chapter three, grinned at me and then promptly left. I was left standing at the front of a class of 40 kids all staring at me. Deep breath. How difficult could this be? My Mum’s a teacher, surely I just had to tap into some innate teaching talent and it will all be okay. The following two hours however were not okay! Forty blank or bored faces stared back at me as I tried to instruct the class on the use of the present perfect continuous. Panic set in. My classroom management skills were atrocious and, although the lesson didn’t end in a riot, I can safely say I learnt more in those two hours than any of the students. The experience left me with a new found respect for anyone in the teaching profession and a curiosity to one day learn more.

Ten years on and I finally signed up for a TESOL course (the Trinity College London certified EFL* qualification) at St Giles International in London. Before I was accepted on the course I had to complete a written test and attend an interview to gauge my level of understanding of the English language and the role of an EFL teacher. I have no idea what I was taught in English at school but it definitely didn’t prepare me for this! However with the help of Google and Carol Vordaman’s ‘English Made Easy’ I managed to pass. During the interview I was told numerous times about how intense the course was and how I should be prepared to cancel my social life and ensure that I had no other distractions going on in my life. How intense could this be? I’m used to working long hours, having multiple deliverables and deadlines and working under stressful conditions. This caution seemed a little melodramatic. How wrong I was! I expected to be challenged and I wasn’t disappointed. The sheer volume of deliverables, number of classes, continuous assessment and feedback meant I was working up to 16 hours per day. The hardest part was getting my head around all the various elements of the English language, tenses in particular were challenging. The actual teaching, although nerve wracking, was a joy. To have a classroom of students fully engaged in a lesson and to see their understanding grow and develop has to be one of the most satisfying things I’ve done.

After four intense and challenging weeks I passed with a distinction and a head full of grammatical tenses, superlatives, comparatives and conjunctions!

*English as a Foreign Language

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Thrive?

Posted on December 30, 2014 by racheldennisotr

In May I went to the London book launch of Thrive by Arianna Huffington with my good friend Lauren. Huffington spoke about the key themes from her book, the need to define success in more ways than just power and money, the need to be present in the moment and the restorative power of sleep (something at the time I was getting very little of due to work). Hearing Huffington speak so passionately about these themes gave me the additional confidence I needed to make some changes in my life. Five days later I resigned from my position as Senior Director of CRM at Getty Images a company that I’d worked for nearly 14 years. Not a decision to be taken lightly but I realised over the prior months that it was time to move on to something else, to take restorative time out and to challenge myself in different ways. I wanted to travel again but during that time I wanted to contribute so decided to become a qualified TEFL teacher so I could teach English as a foreign language while I was away. So in answer to the question ‘Are you having a midlife crisis?’ the answer was no, it’s an adjustment a recalibration of what’s important.

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“So are you going to write a travel blog?”

Posted on December 30, 2014 by racheldennisotr

That was one of the most frequently asked questions when I told people that I was giving up my job, taking 12 months off and heading off traveling….that as well as “are you having a midlife crisis?”

I hadn’t given a blog much thought. I guess I just thought that I’d post amusing quips and insights on Twitter and smug selfies on Facebook. On further reflection however I realised I’m actually not very good at on the fly social media postings so maybe a blog was a good idea.

So here it is my initial attempt to keep you up to date with where I’m at, what’s going on as well as providing a written record for myself. I’ll try to keep it short and to the point, having spent 14 years writing Powerpoint decks I’m thinking bullet lists might be a good idea? Something like the below perhaps?

Friday 26th December, 21:00

Location: Gate H8 KUL Malaysia, waiting for delayed flight MH0796 to BKK Thailand

Doing what: Listening to Jake White Lazaretto, typing up ideas for my blog and reading Chuck Palahnick’s ‘Beautiful You’

Feeling: Weary and slightly concerned that the grey looking chicken noodle soup probably wasn’t the best choice for a pre-flight snack

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