I kept a written diary every day from 1 January 1963 until 30 September 1970, after which I added a few sporadic comments until 1977. The excerpts I reproduce here are some of the more interesting parts. In April 1967, my father and I left Malaysia to drive to England in a Citroën ID 19. As time goes by, I'll add to the story, but the intention was that I, 18 years old at the time, would stay in Europe and go to the University of Hamburg to study Chemistry.

In transcribing this diary, I've kept to the style in the book, including occasional spelling errors. Where appropriate I've put comments [in italics, like this one].

Before the current start of the entries (20 April 1967), we had driven from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.