Good morning! A general rule when traveling the way we are is to limit the weight of the content in the bags. Almost every day we are lugging our things around, so we are trying not to carry unnecessary weight. For our trip, Ben purchased the Osprey Farpoint 40 liter bag with a detachable 15 liter day pack, which has been detached since we left Ben Gurion. Nadine opted for the Osprey 40 liter accompanied by a separately purchased foldable backpack. It's a smaller bag that is more suitable for her size. Both of us have two bags, a bigger one mainly for clothes, the smaller one for our valuables. We have four TSA approved locks to keep our bags safe when we need to leave them at a hotel or elsewhere.
Since we are traveling for a full year, we thought long and hard about what we needed to bring vs. what we wanted to bring. There is only so much room in the bag and so much weight we can carry. With that in mind, here is our final packing list:
Ben's Bag
iPhone 7 with three charging cords
2 passports
2 books
5 fruit loop underwear
2 pair of UnderArmour compression shorts (short and long)
Toothbrush
Floss
Deodorant
Nail Clippers
Q-tips
Nadine's Bag
13'' Macbook Air with Indian and American Charger adaptors
iPhone charger
2 passports
1 Marshalls foldable cooler
1 bikini
1 pair of loose beach pants
1 pair of glasses
2 pair of men's UnderArmour compression shorts (short and long)
Medicine Bag:
- Levofloxacin Antibiotic
1 sleeping mask
1 hair brush
1 electric Toothbrush with charger
Tweezers
1 playing cards
Listing each item makes it seem like we packed a lot, but it's really not. Even this is too heavy for us to carry. Nadine's big back weighs about 24 pounds. Her small bag is probably 6 pounds. That's 30 pounds to lug around! Her goal is cut that number in half somehow.
Ben weighs in at 20 pounds total, 15 in his big bag, 5 in the day pack. Getting it down to about 17-18 would be helpful.
As we have been on the move, we are starting to shed weight one way or another. Leaving a hat here, leaving reading books there. It's a challenge
The following morning we showed up to our third destination without pre-booking a place to stay. Palolem Beach is the most well known beach in South Goa, and probably the most beautiful as well. Before we left, we "shed some weight" by leaving behind Nadine's safari hat, her computer mouse (she would take Ben's Apple mouse), a pair of Ben's underwear, and one of Nadine's long sleeve shirts. This weren't heavy items, but they take up valuable space inside the bags!
Rather than paying for a $15 taxi, we slummed it on two public buses, which cost us a combined 100 rupees, about a buck fifty. The second leg of the way took about two hours, which could have been cut in half if the bus driver didn't stop on the side of the road a half dozen times recruiting new passengers. Apparently they work on a commission structure.
Over our years of traveling, we have picked up a little trick that really only works for Jewish people. Chabad is a is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic movement that has hundreds if not thousands of outreach programs all over the globe. For Jews, the Chabad houses can be somewhat of a save haven while traveling, but providing a feeling of security, knowing you have somewhere to fall back on in all else falls through. It is not uncommon to find other Israelis or even non-Israeli Jews inside of Chabad centers, using it as a source of a meal or simply a meeting point. Jewish people are a small, tight-knit community who are usually willing to offer a helping hand to a fellow Jew, especially whilst traveling. In the past we have attended prayer services, spoken with the locals, and even attended meals. If nothing else, they will give solid advice about what to visit or eat. Popping in on a local Chabad house in a new city has been a valuable trick for us.
Goa, and Palolem in particular, is a popular destination for Israelis who want some R&R away from the hustle and bustle of Israeli life. No joke, about 90% of the tourists we encountered in Palolem were speaking Hebrew. It is the holiday time of year, so Israelis flock to India by the hundreds, if not thousands.
When we arrived at the Chabad house, it was reminiscent of how a typical Israeli household looks likes: the women hovered over the kitchen table chopping up vegetables while countless children run around aimlessly. It was the first night of Sukkot, so the necessary preparations had to be made for 300+ Israelis who would be in attendance for dinner that evening, and yes, we were invited as well. We politely accepted, left our belongings under the supervision of our religious sistren, and went off in hunt of a place to sleep for the next few days.
Bouncing around from hotel to hotel and negotiating prices for some time in the Indian heat built up our appetite. The going rate for a beachfront bungalow to rent with AC was about $40-50, which is a steal by American standards, but this is India, and we had a budget to keep us in check.
We stopped for a peaceful lunch at the Round Cube, which also offered rooms at a price a bit higher than we were willing to pay. Little did we know that over the next four days, literally every single one of our meals taken place at this restaurant.
We settled on a place called Flavia, which was about 100 feet away from the sand. The room was simple, with working AC, inconsistent internet, and a live gecko, at all a price of $12 a night. We did not get our beachfront property, but we saved $30 a night, and we still have all of Southeast Asian beaches ahead of us in the next couple of months.
We hiked back to Chabad, retrieved our bags, and spent the remainder of the day doing a whole lot of nothing. We finally made it to the beach.
At night we had dinner under the Sukkah with hundreds of other Jewish travelers. We have travelled so far, only to end up back where we started in Little Israel. The food itself was unimpressive, but the Israeli scene was comforting to us. The unaccompanied children scampering about without direction, the Chabad rabbi getting toasty from copious amounts of whiskey, and of course the Israelis were gleefully singing songs and yapping away about everything and nothing all at once. In a land so foreign to us, being around some of our countrymen was a nice break from our hectic travels. Unfortunately, electricity and cell phone use is prohibited on the first day of Sukkot, so we do not have pictures to share. We did see a cow sucking its mother's teeth in the middle of the road after dinner, so here ya go:
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