It's frickin' boiling here in Taiwan. But, at least I found a solution to my zipper problem.

At the start of my trip to Cambodia (end of January this year), my North Face knock-off backpack zipper derailed from one side of the zipper rendering it useless and extremely annoying. Instead of two functional zipper tabs like most backpacks have, I only had one since - meaning to close the zipper, I need to pull the one working tab all the way to the other end of the track.

Everyone I asked (including tailors) said that once a zipper separates, game over: it's broken and can't be fixed. It's also because the end of the zipper is sewn over by another material of the backpack, making the zipper stop inaccessible. So until now, I just bared with the annoyance searching for a better plan of action.

Alas, last night I had an epiphany as I examined the problem again. Perhaps a simple and unoriginal solution, but it didn't occur to me before:

I cut the side of the zipper from which the zipper tab derailed near the end of the track (where it disappears into the sewn-over material). Then I just pulled the zipper tab down past that cut point, and followed steps 3 - 7 from this How to Fix a Separated Zipper article. Done!

Works perfectly, with only a < 1 cm loss to the bag's opening. I'm proud of me.