Travelling Companion

I bought a NetBook yesterday.

For so many years I have slated them as “useless, worthless, weak excuses for a laptop” but recently, with the upcoming travels around South East Asia, I have thought for a long time about some of the great benefits of having a NetBook whilst travelling.

Whilst writing my diary in Southern Peru in the summer of 2010, I came across several problems that made it hard to keep it up. In the end I resorted to writing very brief notes on the day’s activity, with huge chunks of detail missed out in between.This resulted in the final writing up of the Tales becoming a challenge of memory—trying to recall what had happened all those months ago—rather than just elaborating on what I already had.

It wasn’t easy and I feel I missed out on some of the anecdotal snippets that could have made the book so much more of a success.

One of the other problems I faced was trying to write neatly on buses and trains in a cramped space as we drove over roads that looked more like Swiss cheese than a smooth thoroughfare. The four and five hour long journeys between the main cities presented themselves as the perfect opportunity to catch up on diary writing but as I soon discovered, my handwriting was all over the place and it became a huge barrier to writing fluid prose without hassle.

Added to that, when it came to writing up the diary months later, I often struggled to read my own writing on particular words. Mostly I could glean some sort of sense from context, but when it came to place names and people’s names I was stumped.

Another issue was that of speed. Without the knowledge of shorthand writing, I am unable to get down large sections of text at the same speed that my brain can think of it. This again posed a big problem in the fluidity of my writing and I think, in a way, hindered some of the anecdotes that never had a chance to shine through.

I only had the one diary to write into and this brought me yet another problem.

As soon as I had decided to write a “proper” book out of my diary, my style of writing changed dramatically and I always tried to have good, continuous, sensible prose in my diary. This was highly problematic as when I didn’t have time to write a full entry, I ended up not writing anything at all. What I should have done, of course, is just get down some of the key details—feelings, views, food, names, thoughts, quotes— so that at least I would have something substantial to work on later.

There was one final problem: I could never be bothered to pull out the cumbersome journal just for a quick  few notes, so the only times I would get anything in to it would be on coaches—see problem two—or late at night.

Dear Diary

Cue the NetBook.

This (which I am currently writing from) has been bought in an attempt to solve some, if not all, of the apbove problems. For my own sake—perhaps justification for purchasing a “crappy excuse for a laptop”—I will outline how this heroic dwarf will make my life so much easier.

1. I can type fast.

Perhaps I should rephrase that so that it doesn’t sound so big-headed.

1. I can type faster than I can write.

This is a big plus. I will be able to write three or four times as much on this than I ever could in a diary. I get a much better flow whilst typing, mostly because of the speed of it.

With such speed and ease I’ll be able to write every second or third day and manage to keep up with all the things that have been happening. Even if it’s a 10 minute babbling session in the late hours of the evening, where I can get down as many thoughts, ideas and quotes as possible to be written up and organised later, it will be far more beneficial to my needs.

2. It will always be neat.

This is a massive benefit. I am yet to fully test this (I will take it on a train and car journey at some point to try it out) but my thinking is that I will always be able to read Georgia. Sometimes my spelling may slip if I’m short for time or on a particularly bumpy ride, but I can easily take care on the words that matter to get them recorded correctly.

Not only will the legibility be improved, but also the amount that I’ll be able to write. Even in a cramped seat on a bumbling bus from Krabi on some excursion on the weekend, I reckon I’ll be able to make full use of the time.

3. I can still use a conventional notebook.

I will be taking a conventional notebook or pad, but with this beauty to write the main sections on, I can use the smaller pad when this becomes impractical. On short day trips, for example, rather than missing out on the fun by carrying around a NetBook, I can slip a tiny notebook or pad into my pocket with a pen and jot down words about feelings, colours, tastes, smells, thoughts, names, quotes, and places.

With the added help of a voice recorder, I’ll be able to stay free during the day and during smaller outings, whilst still gathering a plethora of information in multiple forms to be condensed, enhanced, organised and elaborated upon when I am back at this faithful keyboard with a free half hour to spurt out continuous prose from the jumble of words, ideas, sounds, and memories.

There is in fact one more added bonus to taking a NetBook with me: being an avid—though amateur—photographer and videographer, I plan to be capturing as much of my surroundings as possible. All this data cannot have a storage limit so with the extra 200 odd gigabytes on here I’ll be able to safely take as many photos and as much footage as I like. There should be no fear of capacity limits when creating true art.

To return to the title of this post, I have bought this NetBook with traveling in mind, and doing so has brought the  thought of leaving that little bit closer in my mind.

Every time I do something that is in preparation of my travels I always feel a bit closer to South East Asia. As I type now, I am imagining myself propped up on a small bed in Dhaka, Bangaladesh, after yet another hectic day volunteering at the Dhaka Project.

Or maybe I’m hurrying to catch up on the week’s events as our train nears Singapore and the end of Thailand and South East Asia.

Perhaps I’ll be writing a post in the future as I sit outside our tent in the Outback of Central Australia. The stars providing plenty of light as the crickets chirp in the distance. The tapping of the keys carries for miles in the ghostly air as I put thoughts and feelings into words.

Every act brings me a step closer.

This is going to be fun.