Well, I'm not much of a journal writer, although I keep hearing what a good thing it is for you.

My first ever journal I kept on my first ever trip by myself, when I was 16. I rode my bicycle from Houston to the coast of California and up the coast to Vancouver. That was my introduction to travelling, and I have been addicted ever since. Anyway I tried to keep a journal, was good at first, but I was writing it in felt-tip pen. I got caught in a horrendous rainstorm, in fact I was right inside the storm clouds, as they were sitting against the north side of the mountains surrounding Flagstaff, and I was riding down the mountains through them on the way to the Grand Canyon.

Rain was hammering down, visibility was close to nothing, and lightning kept flashing. When a bolt of lightning hit about 30 metres away I decided it was time to abandon my metal bicycle and take shelter off the road. The road was raised up on a sort of dyke so was quite exposed, and I felt like a lightning rod. So I left my bike to fend for itself, up there parked on the side of the road, and I scurried off and huddled in the ditch maybe 3 metres below, waiting for the rain to ease up. Eventually it did and I rode on, coming out of the mountains to the flat desert stretching most of the way to the Grand Canyon. Again I was the tallest thing for miles around, sitting on a metal bicycle while the storm continued, trying to lie as low on my bicycle as I could.

Well, I'm still here. I made it but my journal didn't. All my gear was soaked through (I learned a lot about packing gear from this and many other experiences!), and my journal had melted because it was written in marker, not ink. I spent time over the next couple of weeks trying to reconstruct the earlier entries, but just gave up. I had lost the spirit of it.

I didn't write a journal again until another good bicycle and walking trip, this one in Nepal and onwards, in 1991: hiking in Nepal, hanging out in Kathmandu and cycling from there to eastern Europe. That journal, in several volumes, survived OK (I had learned!), and I mailed volumes home as I filled them up.

I haven't written a journal since. I can't promise too regular contributions here

Wow, Indiana Ling and the temple of doom. Well Ling, this journal should stay dry!