Hello. I'm Max Gogarty. I'm 19 and live on top of a hill in north London.

At the minute, I'm working in a restaurant with a bunch of lovely, funny people; writing a play; writing bits for Skins; spending any sort of money I earn on food and skinny jeans, and drinking my way to a financially blighted two-month trip to India and Thailand. Clichéd I know, but clichés are there for a reason.

I'm kinda shitting myself about travelling. Well not so much the travelling part. It's India that scares me. The heat, the roads, the snakes, Australian travellers. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited. But shitting myself. And I just know that when I step off that plane and into the maelstrom of Mumbai - well, actually, I don't know how I'll react.

I'm doing India on my own. I've options to meet up with people there, but for the most part, it'll be me and my backpack. I fly into Mumbai today, but will move down to Goa pretty sharpish and chill there for a few days - a nice, slow introduction hopefully laced with lots of swimming, sunbathing and partying. And then South India's pretty much my oyster - Kerala, Madurai, Bangalore, Cochin, Mysore ... Wherever. I'm free to roam. That's the beauty of doing it by myself.

Practically all of my friends are dotted around the globe scouring every nook and cranny for a bit of culture and enlightenment (but secretly hoping to run into as many full-moon parties as possible). But it seems all gappers I know - wherever they are - will be going to Thailand in March or April, and every one I've spoken to is making no secret of the fact that Thailand should be pretty damn decadent.

I'm not entirely sure what appeals to me about travelling. Maybe the lack of work or study? The mayhem? The imagined company of beautiful girls ... all very good reasons to travel. And whether I'm right or not, I'm pretty sure it'll be a world away from cowering under an umbrella at the 134 bus stop.

Anyway, you could come with me every step of the way - well, not every step. Just a few minutes once a week, via this blog. Even so, I'll do my best to tell of the debauched beach parties, the dodgy days with "washing machine" tummy, the messy late-night stumblings into bars and, of course, all that bullshit about finding myself.

I have already experienced my first taste of India - and I only had to go as far as Aldwych. The Indian High Commission is a funny place. At first sight, it would be easy to get disorientated and think that you'd been transported to the queue for Space Mountain at Disneyworld. But in fact, you're 10 minutes from a Ben Elton Musical and just want a visa. Eight in the morning and the queue was already tailgating round the block. And that was just the queue to get a ticket to come back later. I finally got my

visa at four in the afternoon - tired, dazed and convinced that one or two very simple but effective changes - such as computerised ticket dispensers - would've made the whole thing much more bearable.

Anyway, I've had to get malaria tablets, purchase travellers' cheques, sort out travel insurance, try and find a universal bloomin' plug, buy a backpack, get iodine drops (whatever they are) and enjoy dozens of injections off a nurse who was grumpy and trying to get me to pay a hundred quid to minimise the after-effects of being bitten by a monkey. I still fancied her though. She was a nurse.