[michaelbsc]

Somehow hitch hiking across thousands of miles of a country where I don't even speak the language with a load of expensive photographic equipment seems to me to be a disaster waiting to happen to both the equipment and myself.

No problem. Within a few days you'll begin to pick up the language. And limit yourself to one camera and a couple of lenses. I'd take a Kiev 4 or a FED-2 with a Jupiter 12 and a Jupiter 9. The lenses were available in both mounts, so you can find them if you look.

Hardly a fortune in equipment there, and if it's serviced properly it's as reliable as anything else. If you loose it, some shop wherever you happen to be will have another one, probably cheap.

Forget a meter. Use this: http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm

Just protect your exposed film. That's the valuable thing anyway.

Now, if you aren't hitchhiking, then you can take more equipment, and you can also be a lot more versatile. But for a hitchhiking trip, treat it like a hitchhiking trip.