travel memoir by techology

On my first trip to India I travelled with a walkman and a disposable camera. That's it. I taught myself to fall asleep to the sound of Matchbox Twenty, one of the only two tapes I still owned and brought on my trip with me, and I returned with grainy, dark pictures courtesy of my crappy disposable camera.

When I returned to India a few years later it was armed with a discman and a borrowed camera the latter of which possessed both broken flash and zoom. I purchased the same Matchbox Twenty album, my secret weapon in the struggle to fall asleep amidst the sounds of TV's, radios, car horns, barking dogs, late night arguments, and later night family dinners, on CD and packed a handful of 35mm film, proud that I'd remembered an actual camera that time out.

Although travelling with a discman AND a non-disposable camera was high-tech for me, I was a travelling ludite in comparison to others. These travellers came with iPods, laptop computers, digital cameras, and mobile phones. I wasn't envious of their 'stuff' so much as I was of their convenience and my next trip found me similarly stocked with laptop computer, iPod, mobile phone, and camera with fully functioning options. Granted, the mobile and camera were borrowed luxuries but they were convenient ones. Travelling with a phone changed things completely by making what had always been a solitary, disconnected pursuit a busy, social, connected one - this was an unexpected and not entirely welcome change.

And, yes, I'd downloaded my Matchbox Twenty sleeping soundtrack to my iPod.

For my upcoming trip, the list of technology grows to ridiculous lengths. In addition to my laptop and iPod I bring my very own phone, my beloved Nikon, and a new acquisition, a small Canon for those times when carrying the Nikon is too cumbersome. While I began writing this with a touch of humour, amused that I can trace my advancements into the world of technology according to my trips to India, as the list of stuff I travel with grew to culminate in that final list complete with not one but two cameras, I'm embarrassed. Can I explain that, with the exception of the laptop and Nikon, the rest are castoffs donated my way when the previous owners upgraded? Or that both the Nikon and my laptop travel with me for working purposes?

No. I didn't think so.

I have to go look this way now.