California -> France -> Kenya -> Tanzania -> Madagascar -> Zambia -> Malawi -> Botswana -> South Africa -> Rhodesia -> Zaire -> Kenya -> Ethiopia -> Yemen -> Kuwait -> Iran -> Afghanistan -> Pakistan -> India -> Nepal -> Burma -> Thailand -> Malaysia -> Indonesia -> France -> California
Map of countries and places visited
After working at Hewlett Packard for ten years, the first eight as a computer programmer in the Cupertino computer division, and the last two as the manager of the software development team in the brand new Grenoble division, I and two fellow HP employees, Scott Wallace and Ken Klingman, decided it was time to stop work, take a leave of absence, and go to Africa (!). And so, on October 8, 1976, we and our partners (Scott's wife Bardie, Ken's wife Vickie, and my French girlfriend Nicole) flew to Nairobi, Kenya. Our adventure had begun.
But not in the way we had planned. In fairly short order, Scott took a job in Nairobi, and Ken and Vickie returned home to California. Abandoned by our travel companions, Nicole and I had no intention of cutting our travels short so soon. Our adventure had just begun, and would continue for three years and 25 countries, from Africa, through the Middle East, and as far as Indonesia, before returning to France in 1979. This sequence of pages describes this trip.
I documented this trip in several ways.
I kept track of the people I met and places I visited (or wanted to visit) in a small three ring binder, with entries organised by country. Click here to see these notes (sorry - they aren't very easy to read).
I took pictures (Kenya, Zambia, Botswana, Rhodesia, South Africa, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia).
I kept a diary for part of my travels, and wrote letters (mostly to my parents): Their pages are incorporated in the countries listed below.
Click here to see a list of what I carried in my backpack.
Click here to see my 1976 passport with its many extra pages (50 pages, over 150 stamps)
Click here to see my vaccination card (40 entries).
Here are the diary pages and letters from the countries Nicole and I visited. CAUTION: My letters necessarily describe past events that have already been documented in my diary. Be prepared for some duplicate descriptions.
1976
1977
1978
1979
All dolled up before Ken Klingman, Scott Wallace and I took off for Africa
