I thought I would update you with my adjustments to my packing and my experience with the Thai postal service.
See here for my original packing list post.
It was hard to decide if I should ditch the things I didn’t need and they buy them again at home or to post them. In the end I decided to post because I wanted to get rid of my grey fleece but I like it too much to just dispose of it here. It cost about £28 (that’s 15,00 baht) to post the box but I think it would cost me about £50 to buy those things again in England, so I think it was worth it.
Everything arrived home fine and very quickly so I posted a second box a few weeks later. I had a hectic rush to get to the office before it closed for the night as we were getting the train North the next day, (I will post a link here when I have written that days blog post).
For the first box, read this post for my experience posting from Ko Samui.
So in total I have posted home the following:
Box one – 22/06/15:
–one T-shirt
-my second pair of sunglasses
-some keyrings I bought for souvenirs
-my zip off camping trousers
-my charger and adapter for my iPhone which no longer the works
-my grey camping jumper
-spare face buff
-mozzy head net
-two small travel books on Thailand
-my thin gloves – what was I thinking bringing gloves to Thailand?
-two pairs of hand knitted merio wool socks which I made and sneaked in (they were not on the original packaging list) :p
Box two – 13/07/15:
-new hammock that I bought in Ko Phangan
-my large toiletries bag (I decanted a bunch of liquids into smaller bottles and left any I didn’t need in the travelers swap drop bin in the hostel)
-a few small bits like a flannel from my wash kit
-my expensive North Face waterproof which I didn’t use once and is too expensive to loose (I didn’t post it in the first box in case it wasn’t a reliable system)
-my red packing cube
-all the items from my red packing cube, my dress shirt and my rash vest for watersports
So less items than last time but it cost the same because the hammock was cotton and quite heavy.
I think I will post another box home before I leave Thailand, with a few things I have bought and some books which I don’t want to sell back to the second hand bookshop because I liked them too much :p
I was going to post a box just full of Christmas presents, (which I haven’t bought yet) but I now I think I will buy those souvenirs on my last few days in Bangkok and check them into the hold of the plane (my main bag will still go as hand luggage).
Anyway I have to agree that light is best, this is the lightest I have ever traveled and my bag always gets put inside of the mini van while other people’s bags get thrown on the roof rack and I can fit it in all the hostel lockers, even the small ones (some are big and my friends had no problem but many are swimming pool locker size). So a success.
Next up: days twenty and twenty-one.
Previously: days eighteen and nineteen.
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