Rucksack V Suitcase
 

Up until a a year ago I'd alway used rucksack when traveling. I liked them because you had more control with them on your back, loads of pockets and more squashy to fit in odd places. But it was always annoying at airports because you can't check them in at the regular point and have to take to a special place which always worried me that it would end up on the wrong plane. Then it could quite often be the last item on the carousel (sometimes the first though).

Then when I went to Brantford/Chicago, my Mum bought me a suitcase for a pressie and I was instantly converted. Pulling it on wheels is far easier than carrying a rucksack, it's easier to rummage the contents and it keeps your clothes tidier. And it's aubergine in colour with matching hand luggage - bonus.

But on my China trip (which is tomorrow btw and this is why I'm too excited to sleep), the trip notes recommend, nay demand that I use a ruck sack because of lots of traveling about. And get this, pack less than 10kg!!! I've just weighed my case and it's 15kg. Not like I've taken excessive stuff. But a rucksack is lighter than a case, but my rucksack is so old and battered I really don't want to take it - metal bands are poking out the top - but they still let me on planes with it before.

But what if I turn up and all the other travelers are hardcore travel types with rucksacks and I'm trying to drag a case up the Great Wall of China or summat? I don't want to look like a lah-di-dah upper class pillock, ooh look at her with her suitcase and we're all rugged with our rucksacks, etc

Which to take, it's a dilemma. Any of you retards traveled around China and used overnight hard sleeper trains? How would you carry your luggage?

I have a nutsuck you can use that weighs in at a modest 9kg.

if interested I can over-night ship it to you.

is this rucksack made of lead?

Can't you hire a chinaman to carry your luggage? That's what you Brits used to do.

Brass, actually.

You're not the first to suggest this.


But if I don't want to look posh with a suitcase, how the hell do you think I'll look with my own chinese skivvy?
Added to that, I'd have to pay his travel tickets unless he could sleep on the roof of the train.

If you are only staying in places for the night and then on the road again, wear a backpack.

you can hire a chump each time you get off the train.

you see this is how i used to think

BUT

if you have a rucksack and you are looking for one item in particular, digging down in it means screwing everything up and eventually you give up and have to throw everything all over the floor to find it then repack. But with a suitcase, sinlge items are dead easy to find. Andthey have wheels. Did I mention wheels?? WHEELS

I think hiring a chinaman to carry for me is kinda wrong...

trust me, they like the extra cash

that's because you're a selfish westerner -- TOO GOOD for CHUMPS. Meanwhile you ignore the fact that five euros or whatever you use is like a years worth of food for themselves and their children.

Good job protecting your western ideals from impoverishment.

Ha! That's me well and truelly told. Why can't they just rip me off and take the piss as is the norm in many other tourist traps without losing self esteem?

Oh, you're going to THAT part of China.

Is it wrong to ask...WTF?

When I think of china, I think of dirt streets that little suitcase wheels won't work on.

When I think of China, I think of our Leader's glorious revolution. And tea.

I used to travel with a U.S. Military backpack, this one as a matter of fact.



All the stuff I needed contantly were in the pockets. The Top flap even splits open for an extra pocket for papers and maps and what not. Anything in the middle at the bottom was stuff I had no plans on using at the moment.

you need a fanny pack.

Haha, fanny.

Anyway, you had best take the rucksack, because the most important thing is how you will appear to other people, and you don't want to be doing the wrong thing when you could have easily gone along with what everyone else was doing with a rucksack.

A little thing called honor and the goodness of human spirit :rolleyes

BTW Bod, I've gutted your home whilst you were away.

You should sew her panties together to make a sleeping bag.

HAHA ISNT DIMNOS JUST GREAT?