When you are traveling as long and moving as much as I am on this trip, you are bound to lose things. Everything you lose is important in some way, or you wouldn’t be carrying it, so it’s always painful to discover that you’ve lost even the smallest thing. When it’s a big thing that you’ve lost, it becomes that much more painful, especially if it’s difficult to replace and/or expensive. So, as a cathartic way for me to get over my losses, I am listing everything I’ve lost up to now, three months into my trip, listed roughly chronologically.

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My Journal. I lost it before I even got to Bangkok on the stopover in Taipai. Not a great way to start the trip. Fortunately only two days were written in it.

Vancouver baseball cap. The second thing I lost after my journal. Left it hanging behind a towel in a room, I think.

My Wallet. Don’t know how or where, but somewhere in Sihanoukville. Only 10 bucks in it, and it was falling apart anyway, so I wasn’t too upset.

My shark bag: Left on bus from Hanoi to Halong Bay.
I loved this bag. I’ve had it for years and I took it with me almost everywhere I went. I made this small bag from leftover silcone-nylon when I made all of my ultralight gear for Hawaii. II called it the “shark bag” because it had a small plastic shark attached to the drawcord. Inside was a collection of bits and pieces that I liked to have with me with regularly. Fortuntately for me, I had just slimmed it down for my trip to Halong Bay, where I only brought my daypack and my camera bag, so I only lost some dramamine, some band-aids, a blister kit, emergin-c, insect repellent, a lighter, earplugs, glass cleaner, lip balm, and some assorted drugs for pain/poops. It normally also contained my headlamp, swiss army knife, and my compass, all of which I would have been additionally bummed to lose. I’ve replaced it with a sandwich baggie that I’ve drawn a shark on.

Big red bandana. Lost in Vang Vien when I had a bag of laundry done and it was never returned to me. Remarkably, hard to replace here in Asia.

Red plastic carabineer. used it to hang my daypack on bus seatbacks. Lost on bus from Vang Vien to Luang Prabang.

A nice pen I bought in Vientianne. have no idea where or when exactly.

An almost brand new cell phone. Bought in in Saigon the end of October. Disappeared less than 2 months later sometime between leaving Luang Prabang by bus and coming back to Luang Prabang by boat 10 days later. Very irritating that I lost it so soon after buying it, I really liked it, and it wasn’t cheap.

A lens cap and a lens end cap while hiking in villages around Moung Ngoi.

Canon SD500 Digital Camera. Ouch. This one hurts. Lost on boat from Nong Kiow to Luang Prabang. I’m sad about this one. I loved this camera and all the images on the card are obviously also gone. Hopefully I can replace the camera in Bangkok. It too was almost brand new. I bought it in September just before my trip. I am hoping my travel insurance will cover it and the cell phone loss together, because combined, they are a considerable chunk of money, and there is a 200.00 deductible on every claim.

A 1000 Bhat note (worth about 25.00) Lost most recently in the night market in Luang Prabang. It must have fallen out of my pocket or something. Still a big mystery. This was my holiday spending money, so I’m still quite vexed about it’s disappearance.

It seems buses and boats tend to eat my stuff, so I must learn to be VERY careful about my gear when traveling by bus and boat. It’s very easy for gear to be jostled from pockets and seats and fall to the floor where they are often never seen again. Also, if you determine that you’ve lost the item after the bus or boat has left, you are almost guaranteed never to see them again, as the busses and boats aren’t reachable or identifiable once they’ve left, and, chances are, someone has already grabbed it anyway. Your stuff is gone gone gone. Take my word – be very careful of gear on boats and buses. I fairly certain that nothing I’ve lost was stolen, except perhaps that one red carabineer. Everything else has simply dropped away from me never to be seen again. It sucks. I don’t consider myself a clumsy or bumbling traveller nor overly burdened with luggage and gear, but here I am losing things left and right and I hate it. So, I have to try to be even more careful in the future. Here’s to not losing anything for the rest of the trip!

Things I THOUGHT I lost, but then found:

My digital camera

My ability to take a decent travel photo

My sunglasses

My SE Asia Phrase book

Things I’ve found:

Lots of friends

Cool culture

Great people

Unforgetable memories that I will probably forget by the time I reach India.