If you can live out of a couple bags while on a bicycle tour for a long time, then it proves that the minimalist lifestyle works and is suitable for these tours.  When covid hit during 2020 on my Thailand tour, I had to keep cycling into the unknown for at least two months like that.  I then asked myself, "What is all this stuff for anyway?"

Emergencies do happen.  Enter covid obviously.  Going forward, if another pandemic were to hit or a different scope of emergency, I would rather face it with a minimal amount of stuff and a maximum amount of savings.  

During the early months of 2020, I read dozens if not hundreds of cycle tours that got aborted where they repatriated to their home countries. 

From this point on I resolved to do whatever it takes to get rid of that clutter sitting in my apartment over time. 

Let's do an imaginary thought exercise and say back then in 2020 I was in the position I am now:  hardly any clutter and enough savings to last well over 6 months, even in my home country.  All potential options would have been on the table, even the one to head to Malaysia.  Would I have done that?  Who knows.  But I could have done so freely if I wanted to.  If I was forced to repatriate during covid like 99% of others with no savings then this pandemic journal wouldn't even be a thing now.

Back then I just didn't have the emergency savings.  A forced repatriation would mean falling on financial hard times and/or drawing from other investment income that is strictly saved for retirement.

The general idea is that you need at least 6 months of emergency cash to cover all expenses.  If you don't have that, start building it now.