Flashpacking, ver.2.0

So I fancy myself as an amateur photographer of sorts. At the very least my friends say my photos are decent. Maybe they're lying and trying to get me to waste money by making prints for them. I hope not. Needless to say, I couldn't come to India without taking a single picture, so I've brought along a pretty decent amount of gear for the ride. The term "flashpacker" has been recently coined for those geeks who enjoy backpacking and so take lots of technological stuff with them on their trips. The poster child of this phenomenon is a freelance writer named Lee Gimpel, whom I also thank for his insights on his webpage Passing Through India.

For this particular trip, I've armed myself with the following:

Canon 300D digital SLR. This camera has been my workhorse since I purchased it in 2002. It's taken over 20,000 pictures without a hiccup. I managed to get liquid all over the sensor once, so photos take a little more touching up than usual, but they still turn out well. I should probably invest some money in a proper professional cleaning.

Nikon Coolpix 7900. For all the times I want to put myself in a picture and don't want to frighten the kind soul who has agreed to do so by handing them an SLR. Or for the "out on the town" nights when carrying an SLR really becomes a pain in the ass. This little camera is a trooper. It's been all around the world, and even 140 feet under the sea and hasn't coughed once.

Epson P-2000 Portable Media Player. This might be the coolest new little gadget I have. With 40 GB of portable storage, along with a built in SD and CF (I & II) reader, this is my photo storage solution. It's also my entertainment solution, and is currently loaded with Season 2 of House, M.D., which, YES, I DID PURCHASE.

Motorola L7 SLVR. This quad-band GSM phone will be my link to the outside world. Powered by a Hutch (a Hutchison/ESSAR partner company) prepaid SIMcard loaded with a bunch of rupees and a year of validity (Plans are by rupees here, not minutes, and they expire at the end of a given validity period), this phone is small, lightweight, discrete and provides ample standby time when I've gone a few days in need of a wall-socket.

Jabra bt620s. This stereo bluetooth device (A2DP and AVRCP) will connect to my phone wirelessly and allow me to move around my room wherever I am and leave my phone near the window where I can get the best reception. Turns out most rooms here are walled in thick plaster or cement which, inadvertently tends to make them deadzones for phones. It also lets me connect to my

Apple iPod (3rd Gen.) when using the iMuffs MA110 bluetooth adapter from Wi-Gear that I also brought along. I've got a bunch of songs on here, but as is always, we tend to listen to our favorites over and over again and ignore the others. Who needs 30,000 songs worth of music player space anyway? Hm...

What's that? No laptop? What kind of a wannabe flashpacker am I? Actually, I decided against the laptop because of weight concerns. Even though my laptop, a Dell 700m series ultraportable is lightweight, mine has the same storage space as the Epson, same video playback features, but lacked a CF slot, and weighed about 3 pounds more. And considering that India's becoming the next technology hot-spot, even the small gammadas (villages) are reported to have internet cafes.

With all this gadgetry, we'll see how the travelling goes. I'm looking foward to sharing pictures on this website as well as my Yahoo!Photos site. Keep coming back for updates!