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Why ? :
Propane Gas refills, Propane gas canisters won't be available all around the Middle-East. Till 1999 we managed to 'survive' on two propane gas canisters for the fridge, cooking and heating for 4 weeks. The main consumer of propane gas is the fridge and our gas stove. The fridge can also run on 12 volts (specially i.c.w. Solar panels ) or mains if available. For heating (which we hope not to use) we have to use propane gas, but for cooking there are different options. Diesel, paraffin, unleaded fuel, spiritus and so on are widely available.
Propane refills
: Only in Greece and Iceland we managed to get a refill for our propane gas canister, which in fact wasn't easy. First finding a propane refill site was quite hard. In both Greece and Iceland we managed to find one with help of locals. In Greece the guy who helped us with the (automated) refill forgot to empty the additional air from the tank. (Which we found out in Iceland a few years later) The result was a gas mixture which did not burn very well.
In Iceland we where really lucky the gas station had an adaptation set to connect the supply hose to our gas canister. The manual filling process itself was pretty slow, approximately 20 minutes. Every 5 minutes
the additional air had to be removed from the canister, converting it into a lump of ice. This also seemed a clever way to see how much gas is actually in the canister. The ice at the canister walls ended at the gas
liquid level. A weight gauge was used to check the weight of the gas in the canister, this to prevent overloading the canister. As a safety check the canister was put into a big tank of water to check for any gas
leaks. Well imagine the lump of ice you will get then :-)
Fuel stoves : It seems that the marine sector supplies the best fuel stoves around. Names as Wallas, Origo and Coleman show up in a wide range of boats. Unfortunately some of them need electricity to pressure the fuel, the Coleman set has a manual pump. For backpacking trips we already got ourselves a MSR Dragonfly single multi-fuel burner which works simply perfect on many fuels. The only problem is using it inside our camper, as we did in Iceland. To get it started you need to be pretty careful. Pulling the throttle too hard will produce a huge flame. Routine will do the job as we noticed in Nepal.
The alternative : A solar stove! An environmental friendly and cheap solution for cooking outdoor. See this site for an overview of which sets are available at this moment. We're thinking about building one our selves. :-)
Our choice : Take two propane gas canisters, get a two way adaptation set at REIMO to be able to interface with different gas tanks. We hope for refills and take our MSR Dragonfly (See Day2Day) as backup. The other stoves require
rebuilding of the sink and extra costs. The Dragonfly will be packed anyway for backpacking trips.
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