A friend for the road

When traveling alone, there is lot's of time to read a good book. However books are heavy and I'm openly paranoid about weight, since I'm the one lugging it around. So I have found the perfect companion - a book to last through the years and around the globe!

Ladies and laddies, may I present, James Joyce's Ulysses! The perfect book for the road, since it's the only one you will need. It will last you unread one month or eight, one trip or many!

I am a great fan of Joyce's, but this particular book, though absolutely poetic and wonderful, has always stuck around the page 300 marker. I have, however, read the first 300 pages very, very many times, and with great enthusiasm, to the extent that pages 225-228 have come loose.

This book I have carried with me for many months and through many countries. As this miscellaneous collection of bookmarks I found between its pages proves:
Item 1: a postcard from the Mekong river in Laos (oh, those days I spent in a river boat cruising down from Thailand to Luang Prabang)
Item 2: a massage ticket from the Lao Red Cross Massage Centre (the lady, who massaged me was exceptionally rough I recall. So a good thing that medical aid was close at hand)
Item 3: the entrance ticket for Zona arqueologica de Tulum in the Guatemalian jungle (Pekka carried a bottle of Pimm's no 1 there from Finland, so we toasted the sunset from the top of an old Maya temple in style)
Item 4: Entrance ticket to the giant Buddha in a stone hall from near Gyeongju in South-Korea

And yes, of course, I am taking James with me on this trip as well!

Now off to pack some other stuff as well