how to pack a toiletry bag for trekking or general traveling

I have been traveling a lot, it has been a week's travel almost every month this year. Most of the times we end up walking around the places a lot even if it is not a full fledged trek. Seeing the marketplaces, walking on the streets and interacting with small time shopkeepers and passersby is a great way to know local culture and lifestyle, as we have experienced. So we get a small backpack, water bottles, couple of fruits for the day and get walking all around the place when we are there.

Yes I tan a lot when I travel. My skin is prone to get burnt too but I haven't found any good solution to it as all sunscreens I have tried till now have been either too suffocating to apply or have had some really irritating perfume. So a cap is all I have for my defense mostly and a large framed pair of sunglasses. Walking around the places leaves me quite exhausted by the end of the day and a warm bath helps a lot. So I take care to carry everything that gives me the comfort of a nice warm bath after a days worth of roaming around. Not that I am too conscious of products but a few basics are good to pack. Mine is quite a frugal toiletry bag.

One thing to take care is not to put the toiletry bag in checked in baggage when flying as a leaked out sunscreen or shampoo will be a lot of mess to handle. Try and keep it in hand baggage or segregate the products before you sort out the stuff. My toiletry bag often carries a few random things like a knife, few safety pins and may be all my medicines too, which I take out and keep in drawers when staying in hotels or guest houses.

1. Shampoo: I prefer a tube pack but a small pack of whatever brand you are currently using will be great.
2. Bath gel : travel pack definitely. Sometimes I carry soap bar instead.
3. Face wash : tube pack or a bottle. It can be quite versatile if you are pressed for space or have a limited baggage restriction. *Read how I managed on our last trek.
4. A sunscreen or sunblock ( I carry a lactocalamine lotion as I find it quite useful for me)
5. A foot cream if you have the habit of applying, I pack a jar Boroline as it is quite a multipurpose cream. I use it as a hand cream too after the night bath. It is a good antiseptic cream for small nicks and cuts or bruises.
6. A bottle of hand sanitiser that I carry in my hand bag all the time. One is packed into the toiletry bag as well.
7. Detergent powder sachets : I find them useful to wash any accidental stains or if I need to wash any essentials during my stay.
8. Mosquito repellent cream: I am intolerant to any heavy feeling cream on my skin and even the perfume, but when there are mosquitos we have to be careful. I often apple the MR cream on the headboard of bed or any solid surface rather than my skin and it works for a while :-)Applying it on my nails also works. Yes I am creative :-)
9. A pain relief spray: This is required when we get minor sprains. It has not happened often but it's good to pack especially when you are expecting a difficult trek.
10. Savlon or antiseptic solution : this is more of a first aid kit essential but has to be packed.
11. Ear buds : I need them a lot and these are useful for many random purposes I see. 
12. Lip balm : it goes into my handbag but I pack it in my toiletry bag as well.
13. Sanitary pads: I pack them in a foil bag and keep them in the toiletry bag (which is transparent) just so the pads are not visible if I have to take out the toiletry bag in public for some reason. Especially during treks. (it is not seen in the picture as the bottles and tubes are placed above the pack).
14. Tissue papers: I keep tissue paper in almost all bags I carry, just for the usefulness. This also goes in polythene bags or foil bags.
15. Disposable panties or panty liners : I found these really useful when I was on the Kullu to Leh mountain biking expedition. You are often not left with a choice to have a nice bath and change but the panty liner can be changed to feel fresh.
16. A toilet seat sanitiser : I found a product called Peesafe which is very useful during travels and treks as we use public toilets a lot. Just spray the product on a toilet seat, wait for a few minutes and do your business. I prefer spraying the door knobs and taps as well to prevent any potential contamination. A very useful product I must say. I got it from SafetyKart, you can also order it online if you wish.
17. Deodoriser spray or roll on: I personally don't use these as all chemical perfumes are a strict no for me. A good bath is good enough for me and this is not on my list. I mentioned as many of you might like it, but please take care to ask people if you want a generous spray and you are surrounded by a few people in a tent while trekking. Someone like me might be allergic to it.
18. Vicks or pain balm if you have a tendency to get colds or headaches. I keep my tablets in my toiletry bag too.
19. I always keep a knife (often wrapped in a handkerchief to avoid any cuts)and a few safety pins in my toiletry bag too. Used to have a needle and thread too but I required it so now I am careless about it.
20. A white cotton or polyester rope : I find it really useful in many ways so this is a constant in my toiletry bag, which you see is a multipurpose bag in my case :-)
21. A comb and a small mirror if you need. I mostly don;t pack the mirror and have sometimes lost my comb and have felt jut okay without them. But These are essentials it your travel is not of trekking type.

*We did a nice trek last week as well which was fairly tough and I had to chose the absolute essential toiletries from this list. The best decision I took was to carry a bottle of face wash that doubled up as a bath gel and a hand wash as well.

Do let me know if you pack some more. Knowing more is always better.

Yes I was on a 10 day long break and came back just 2 days ago. Will be sharing a lot about this birding oriented trip which turned out to be a surprise trek as well. Stay tuned.

For those who want to know....

Why the Himalayas and what made me try this .....

Considering it was such an exhaustive cycling expedition and i am no cycling expert I was very reluctant initially, to talk the nitty-gritty of it.. True that i like doing so many different things , some of them very enthusiastically but i end up being an average performer. Not that i regret being an average performer, but an average performer is not the best person to tell the stories of how to do things. An average performer can just tell how to plunge into something even when you don't really want to win. How wanting to do something can be a winning feeling. And more than winning the battle or reaching the destination , the journey can be a test of your limits too. Average performers learn to be contented even when they take breaks and are clubbed with the laggards. At the same time you, as an average performer, overcome the odds and 'stay there' even when the difficulties seem to take your spirits off your mind . All said, after seeing so many excellent performers zip zapping past me, i think i can tell what i didn't have. Years of practiced stamina, that tidal volume they had. But still i could cycle , at my own pace and cover unbelievably long distances ...racing was not on my mind anyways.

 I knew i had very limited time and still i wanted to give it a chance, that could make it more interesting for the people who want to know how i prepared for an extraordinary cycling expedition like this ...a couch potato sprouting legs to peddle and expanding lungs to inhale....:) It was unbelievable for me too...

There was much more i learnt during this apart from cycling fundas and performance-fitness strategies.....And here i am , a reluctant learner ...sharing my journey with you. I realized that a basic threshold of fitness was required of course, but there was much more to it.....

I would quote a discussion i was having with one of the organizers travelling with us on the expedition . This gentleman was complaining about how the newbies and amateurs are not suitable for this kind of torturous cycling event , he told me he was disappointed and even angry to know that someone has just learned cycling for 15 days and has come for this expedition. I asked him what if the girl in question was fit enough to pull it off as this journey was more than just cycling as i felt. He shrugged and gave a half smile , let's see ...

Needless to say , the lady in question was a 43 year old yoga teacher and she cycled so well till the end. I met another woman who learnt cycling just for this event and did very well with good energy level throughout the expedition. This woman is a doctor and had traversed the same route on a motorbike 4 years back and that time she had learnt to drive a bike just for that . Indicative of the fact that it's not the vehicle you choose to go there , it's your personal grit against adversities and love for nature combined which takes you through the most treacherous roads of the world.

Having said that, almost all the girls i am i touch with, feel that there were times when they thought why did they decide to go for it , The tough uphills , scorching sun and declining pO2 ...it was an extreme concoction.You need to carry your own water with you and many of us didn't have the camelback hydration packs, most of us used to carry 2 liters of water , our bottles tucked into the clamps and yet we needed to refill the bottles a few times. A dry mouth , breathless lungs and oxygen deprived muscles , all of that could be a recipe to disaster. The muscles and joints can get injured very easily if not warmed up properly before starting , can you imagine there was hardly time to warm up before we started our daily spin?

Your muscles need to be warm to perform well and your joints need to be warm too before starting and imagine after a night in the tents , often sleepless , a reluctant visit to the open air or pit toilets , quick brushing and a quicker breakfast ...repacking your bags and loading them into the truck and getting your gear ready for the daily pedaling. This was in such contrast with our daily workouts,with proper warm ups-working out in the luxury of abundant oxygen-proper fluid intake-and then a relaxed cool down session. And REST . There was practically no rest between those long hours of cycling daily.

It was getting more and more difficult daily and as soon as we reached Sarchu , many of us required Oxygen and one of the participant was recorded with a pO2 of 40% ( normal value is 80-100%) A very handsome doctor treated us at Sarchu army hospital BTW... It was so heartening to see the participants getting up and getting ready to cycle again, and no , it was not because of the handsome doctor, it was what they had come for, to challenge their own body and mind. Many participants required the services of the accompanying ambulance and started with the cycles as soon as they felt better. It was the place to see a bundle of highly motivated people.

Was i really ready for such a tough task of my life? Not really . Not when i got to know about it through IHM.I was really very uneasy about my fitness levels and whatever i could do in the two and a half months i got for my preparations for this event. Needless to say, i started spinning on my standing bike the day i decided to go. I was very reluctant because of my long years of being a couch potato when IHM asked me for the first time. It was after a long telephonic chat with her friend Anita Rao, who is also one of the organizers, that i decided i should go. She is one great motivating person and i fell in love with her from day one.

The feeling to challenge myself had awakened . Then came the wanting to get back to my fit days. I had seen many mental challenges during the past years and this time i wanted to challenge myself on a different turf.

Okay , so this old standing bike was dusted and pulled up in the middle of my dining space and thus started my 5-10 minutes of spinning after every hour or so. Being breathless in the first few days and then getting my breath back as the day passed , i started doing my pranayam and yoga stretches too for one and a half hours in the morning. Do i need to say i started feeling a lot better on energy level front. It was not difficult to cycle 50-60 kms a day almost daily, sometimes even more. It was later to be revealed that in the mountains, this much energy was to be exhausted in just 30 kms and we would need to push more every single day.

How fit i was before this expedition?

I used to do an hour of morning walk cum bird watching in the morning earlier , with a good session of gardening (read handling the hoe and repeated squatting , weeding etc. , getting myself dirty in the process) once a week at least. A few yoga stretches now and then and some ten minute sessions of pranayam thrown in time to time. My standing bike was masquerading a hanger in a corner all these years , now it was time to place my butt on it . And what a discovery it was , i never knew cycling for long hours can give you serious butt issues to deal with. I realized i needed some basic equipment for cycling. A gel padded saddle cover and a gel and chamois padded cycling pants were bought and started my cycling practice , mostly within the confines of my home. Delhi roads are scary for a cyclist and i didn't want to buy a cycle till i was sure i would continue cycling , and i am still not sure of it :)

I did cycling on the roads too , some 3-4 days for 2-3 hours each day . It was on a borrowed racing bike which was more than 30 years old and gave me knee pain because of it's chain being faulty and other issues i could not diagnose. Some knee specific stretches were included to protect my precious knees . All of these exercises were self motivated and found on the internet thanks to the age of google. I was not in a mood to go out of my home much and to invest too much into it for some reasons .Somehow i still wanted to be in my comfort zone probably while preparing and yet i had to go out and challenge myself with all my grit i thought i had...how this affinity to my comfort zone was challenged you already know :)

A great deal of online research led to discoveries of good stretching techniques , cycling equipment and packing essentials. It helped a lot. Being a beginner and a first timer i was curious to know more about the other people who were going for this expedition ,i made a facebook group to interact with people who were going on this prestigious expedition. We shared our exercise regimes and lists of packing essentials, tips were exchanged about what kind of padding in the cycling pants were suitable for us. Turned out that the chamois padding is better for long duration cycling expedition like ours. Some home remedies for joint pains and mountain sickness were exchanged and travel plans were finalized. The bus we boarded from Delhi, turned out to be a college excursion like experience as there were 16 cyclists from our group and 3 Australian cyclists who were carrying their own cycles in the boot of the bus. Interestingly those Australian cyclists were planning to cycle from manali to spiti valley and then move on to srinagar but seeing and knowing about our group prompted them to cycle till khardung la , we used to meet them every day. They probably proceeded towards srinagar after that.

The expedition was a huge learning experience, discovering myself a bit more and discovering people around me a little bit more too. Being with the most natural elements of nature comes with a lot of surprises and a lot of spiritual moments , a lot of introspection in a human mind . Feeling like being just a speck of dirt on the face of Earth and still having a place of my own and a consigned work of my own.

On a lighter note , there were many villagers we found till Keylong , who asked where we were going. After knowing we were going to Khardung la , many of the girls were asked why we are going on cycles .....

This kid came to me asking to be photographed and wanted to see how he looks in the camera. His father asked me where we were going and why on bicycles. How some questions are tough to answer and we have to look away with a smile :) 
This cute kid wanted a bicycle and wanted mine , i made a false promise to come back to him.....How we make false promises to kids . I had to say similar things to many kids we found during the Kullu to Solang nala via Manali ride, that was our first day of cycling and we found many slate roof houses and many women and children walking past the roadside , that day was the happiest day of cycling , if i forget making false promises to those innocent kids.

Not for those false promises i made , but i want to go there again for sure.....my soul is craving for it....