This afternoon I was reading about Typhoon Megi, a storm with winds as strong as a Force 4 hurricane. It hit Taiwan Tuesday, killing 4 people and injuring more than 100. Hundreds of flights into and out of Taipei’s airport were canceled or delayed, and more than 2 million households lost power. Normally, I probably wouldn’t care, but Steve and I are taking off on a flight to Taiwan Saturday, so I’m paying more attention to that part of the world. We could have planned to go 6 days earlier, or the typhoon could have arrived 6 days later. But we dodged that disaster, and I’m optimistic we’ll avoid others over the coming weeks.

Not that this trip won’t pose some challenges. We’ve never been on the road for as long as we’re expecting to be this time — 4 weeks and 5 days. We’re sticking to our “carry-ons-only” rule, even though we’ll spend more than 2 weeks near the equator, followed by a return to the Himalayas near the end of October. Here are most of the clothes I’m taking:

They fit easily within my carry-on:

But then there’s all the rest of the Stuff — the daily and emergency medicines, the books, the toiletries, the hiking poles and emergency M&Ms. The down jacket (in the orange stuff sack). And more.

We think all of that will fit too, but we’ll have to push down when we zip. Will we have taken enough? We’ll see. One of the things we’re NOT taking is any dictionary. Instead we’ll be relying on Google Translate, and another question for me is: how well will it work in these countries where we not only speak not one word of the language (Malay in Malaysia; Tibet) but are also illiterate (Taiwan and Thailand and China)? 

Follow us and find out!