Gas canisters or not?
 

Hi guys,

I'm about to head off on my motorbike journey, but run into some questions, regarding camping.

My route: Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey -> Europe.

I have a liitle stove, that I can screw unto the gas canisters (see picture below). They work sublime. In the west that is, where you can buy them at almost any camping store.

But now for this trip, I'm not quite sure if it'll work so great, because when I run out of the first canister that I brought with me (on no I forgot you can't fly with them either!). Am I going to be able to buy these things anywhere in the places I'm going?

Any views on this, by personal experience would be very welcome!

Thanks,
Tim


http://www.expeditionexchange.com/ko...s002%20007.JPG

I have a stove which uses this type of canister but I don't think you'll find them in Asia. But I think you'll find the price of food and drink in Asia is likely to be less than a single gas can ;)

If you find you really want a stove .. buy one there.. that way what ever the stove uses should be available. Nepal may not be cheap .. lots of 'expeditions' so lots of demand for things like stoves? Personal I go with a fuel stove .. you have fuel for the bike - thus fuel for the stove.

I think you want to decide what the stove will be used for. I used petrol stoves for years as the fuel no problem and you can cook a full meal.


I've now switched to a pocket stove that packs down in a tobacco sized tin and slips into a metal cup. It can burn hexamine tablets, sticks or you pop a spirit burner on the shelf inside. As I mostly just have the odd hot drink and buy the rest this is a far better use of space. I guess if I got marooned and had to eat an Argentine Rugby team or something it would take a while, but the space saving now is more use.


Andy

thanks for your replies guys.

I understand that food is usually cheaper on the road, and I'll be very happy to eat on the road, because that's one of the intentions of the trip as well. But from experience it's never wise to go without a stove. You might get stranded and if it becomes very cold, you want to be able to make something. Also stressing situations can only be solved by drinking some tea :)

I've got a primus fuel stove, but the thing alltogether is quite bulky and even preheating the thing is not something I like to do in some dry dessert :)

The Hexamin stove sounds really good. Im going to have a read into that! Thanks
Tim

Hi

I saw these canisters for sale in Istanbul, Mashad (Iran) and Kathmandu, but not in Central Asia.

Why not consider a petrol stove.. then you will always have fuel..

The MSR Whisperlite is fab, although very difficult to simmer, just more for boiling. The dragonfly has more adjustability on the flame.

Once you get into India and Nepal, eating and cooking and camping in public is a chore, you get a crowd of 30 odd staring at your every move, which is novel and quaint to start with but a pain in the arse after a while, and tea at the roadside is 10 rupees... cheaper than getting the stove out.

It sure is worth taking a stove, water and food though as you never know where you might end up...

In India heap good food is available almost ever where. Petrol stove is the best to carry any where in the world as fuel is in your tank. And u cannot fly with Power gas.

And biker please make a note when in India my place is open for you. I love having bikers over.

Be my guest when in India

Thank you for your invitation!

And thanks for the replies. I'm in the process of buying a Coleman 533 stove. I have read good things about it, I think it's a bit heavy and would prefer the 442 featherlight but that's not sold here.

I have a Primus Gravity as well, but the thing leaks and getting a service kit is hard here in New Zealand. So the Coleman will most probably be it.

Now we talked about Fuel, can we talk about Cash? This is also something I found hard to find. I'm thinking about taking 500US$ with me and hid it somewhere in the bike. Although I now most places have ATM's, Iran lacks them for foreigners. And Plastic money: I have a Mastercard, but no Visa? Will this be a problem?

Timpel there is a good thread out there on hubb about hiding money...

Hi Fern, thanks, can you show me in the right direction? I've searched for it, but nothing really came up. Maybe I use the wrong search terms?

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...eep-your-63755

I am in Auckland... I lived in Nepal for 8 months and rode from UK to Nepal in 2012, if you are in N Island and want to catch up and check over my maps before you go then send me a pm or txt me on 021 083 78995 :-)

I have the Trangia stove which burns gas, petrol and kerosine. When taking a gas burner, take along an adaptor piece which allows you to buy non-resealable gas containers as well, otherwise you cannot detach the container from the stove until it is empty. In my experience it´s somewhat more difficult to get the self-resealing containers than the old-fashioned containers in which you have to poke a hole.

Not sure whether to post here about cash or card issues or on the end of the link Fern gave but this thread is current so here goes:

Why take and hide cash rather than depend on card machines as you go? As was said on the link there are places where machines are thin on the ground but even where they are plentiful you are dependant on the whole technology chain working.

My daughter went to Canada recently with a small amount of cash just to get her going and two cards. The first time she used one of the cards (in Vancouver) the machine refused her request and kept the card. The UK bank had been told where she was going and assured her the card would work. When she emailed them she was told nothing could be done remotely and she'd have to come back to the UK to get the card replaced. This despite her account having quite a few thousand pounds in it. Whether this was normal bank practice or not (and I suspect they would say it was a glitch) it was was what happened. She had no access to her account for the three months she was there. Fortunately the other card - a prepay one - worked ok and we kept topping it up from this end.

I've always been a believer in keeping enough cash about my person to get round issues like that but if it's going to be emergency cash it must be hard for me to get at as well as for thieves. Stuff that is hidden but easy to get if you know where to look doesn't work; if it's going to be for emergency use it has to be somewhere I won't be tempted to plunder when I need money for even more Beer. In the past I've folded up a large denomination note into small tubular dog tag (cat one are smaller) - the kind of thing that hangs on their collar, and then set that into a block of resin. The whole thing then went on my key ring as a kind of "lucky charm". It's hiding in plain sight but needs a hammer to break open.

An alternative which "worked" for us in Dublin a few weeks ago came about by accident but you never know, might work in some other circumstances. We dropped a 20 Euro note and it fell into a pool of dog piss. :eek3: Two shops refused it until I washed it (and me) in a cafe toilet.

On the stove front, I've had a Whisperlite for about 15yrs and run it on tank petrol for a lot of that time. I've only had to unclog it once in that time + replace a couple of sets of pump seals. It's a good stove that packs down very small but trying to start it in an early morning daze can be a little trying if you are the sort of person whose hand-eye co-ordination needs some time to wake up. On the up side the contents of the fuel bottle can be poured back into the tank if times get hard.