Packing and Unpacking

The first thing you do is to get all your clothes off the hotel hanger. Prepare the wastebaskets. Your toiletries and last clean clothes (even underwear) go in the handcarry. Get one book. Not the most interesting but the lightest. Call the hotel receptionist and ask for a weighing scale. They have to bring it from the kitchen. Fine. Then do the packing. Roll each of the dirty clothes first into tight balls and put them in the sides. Let the clean shirts doing a 69 with your clean pants and then fold them together. Put your magazines on the bottom then the clean clothes in the middle like a lasagna. Place all the metallic, jingling souvenirs in the spaces. The socks engulf your semi-valuables and placed inside the shoes. This is for the clothes bag which you expect to be squeezed and thrown etc. The luggage bag with the rollers are where you put your semi-valuables. Buy a lock if you're in the Mekong area and you don't want to be Claire Danes in that movie (which was filmed in Manila to much controversy about cockroaches and limbless people). They might insert some contrabands. Start weighing. If you're beyond the weight limit. The first thing to throw are the paper, handouts, etc. Do your Sophie's Choice. If you really need something, maybe your countrymates who attended the same thing had it and you can borrow them later. Be harsh. If you are not harsh, mail the documents. My friends did on surface mail. $50! Could have used it for shopping. CD cases are heavy. Throw them and rip off the liner notes. If you have a gift, throw the wrapper. Food is Sophie's Choice. Many years ago, somebody gifted me with jellied durian sealed tight. But I put it in my tight bag and it broke and I can no longer wear my clothes. Remember this. So weigh and return, weigh and return. Throw the hotel souvenirs. Those are cheap shampoos. If you can't really add and you still want to bring them. Put them in your handcarry. Remember: only small fluid packs. No nail cutter and bullet amulet and knives. I finally evened out my pack to exactly 20 kilos. So I had dinner and maybe added a few stuff. When I checked in at the airport, I came to 20.9 kilos. Whew.