open...: Introduction to Moody's Black Notebook Travels

I have two great regrets in my life. One is eating a chicken sandwich in Varanasi, shortly before flying to Kathmandu. This gave me the worst food poisoning I have ever experienced, nearly killed me, and meant that I missed a unique opportunity to visit Lhasa before it was turned into a Chinese Disneyland. The other regret involves three Inter-rail trips that I made in 1979, 1980 and 1981. They were extraordinarily rich in sights and experiences. Stupidly, though, I did not keep a travel diary at that time, so all I have are vague, if important, memories of what I saw, thought and felt.

At least I was able to learn from these two huge blunders. Afterwards, I no longer ate chicken sandwiches in exotic lands, and I kept travel diaries for all my major trips. The latter took the form of black notebooks, bought from Ryman's, in two formats: one small enough to fit in a pocket, and another, slightly larger, that I kept in the travel bag I used for longer journeys.

I now have dozens of these notebooks sitting behind me, filled with my illegible scrawl. I have been meaning to turn them into digital texts for some years, and to bring them into the 21st century, but have never got around to it until now. I am not transcribing them in any set order, but will place links to them below, as they go online, ordered chronologically. There is no overall plan, no overall significance. They are just what they are: quick thoughts jotted down in black notebooks, captured moments of a specific time and place.