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Unpacking My Souvenirs

Packaged with care

The Before - packaged with care

Despite 17 hours of transit time, I was still excited to open the packages of souvenirs I'd mailed home from Hong Kong, China, Nepal, India, Thailand, and South Africa when I got home from Colombia.

Some of the stuff seemed trivial (like the stupid aluminum can tuk-tuk I paid far too much for in a Bangkok market) while other items like the Tibetan “Wheel of Life” thangka I spent a day shopping for in Kathmandu were as beautiful as I'd remembered.

For a few items, I used expensive courier shipping like FedEx, but for most, I relied on the national mail service.

The After - worldly souvenirs

The After - worldly souvenirs

I lost one package, which contained all the souvenirs I'd bought in Cambodia and Laos, plus a few DVD's of photos and videos.  I learned a valuable lesson I used the rest of my trip, and will continue to adhere to on future trips – burn two copies of photos/video, so if you mail one home and it doesn't arrive, you've got the back-up still in possession.  Blank DVD's aren't that expensive these days…anywhere.

Thankfully, I had been compulsively uploading ALL my photos to Flickr like a mindless travel-blogging zombie, but only a few of the video clips were ever uploaded to YouTube, so the rest of the footage I took during the time period was lost.

Since I didn't talk much about my souvenirs while I was traveling, I thought I'd feature some of my favorites week to week.  Of course, each one has a story to tell…if I can manage to remember them!

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Saturday 30th of October 2010

Keep focusing on your blog. I love how we can all express our feelings. This is an extremely nice blog here :)

Dave

Wednesday 5th of August 2009

Hey Paul - always good to hear from you. There is a lot I want to do with my photos and video too....but so far, finding a job will have to come first. Or maybe second to creating (and hopefully selling) a calendar. :)

Dave

Wednesday 5th of August 2009

Hey Paul - always good to hear from you. There is a lot I want to do with my photos and video too....but so far, finding a job will have to come first. Or maybe second to creating (and hopefully selling) a calendar. :)

TravMonkey

Tuesday 28th of July 2009

Hi Dave,

Nothing worth than loosing things you bought whilst traveling, although it tends to happen quite a lot.

I have that many photos from my last big trip... I haven't had time to actually do anything cool with them yet. There is just too many!

Paul @ TravMonkey.com

TravMonkey

Tuesday 28th of July 2009

Hi Dave,

Nothing worth than loosing things you bought whilst traveling, although it tends to happen quite a lot.

I have that many photos from my last big trip... I haven't had time to actually do anything cool with them yet. There is just too many!

Paul @ TravMonkey.com

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