I was in the same boat as you when I road across Asia last summer. I needed something that used AAs because I would be away from wall sockets for long periods of time in Tibet and the western deserts. I ended up with the Canon SX130. It takes 2AAs and fits in a loose pants or jacket pocket. Canon makes a slightly smaller AA battery camera but there is no long range zoom or HD video.

The SX130 is really nice, HD video, x14 zoom, 12.1 meg, $160 at walmart.com right now. They are also selling the SX150 pretty cheap for the holidays which is the exact same camera but a year newer with an additional few megapixels of resolution, which is unnecessary if you ask me. You can take a look at my journal on CGOAB for a ton of example photos. The ones from Tibet and Nepal are my favorite.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/thecyclingvagabond