In a few days' time - less than a week now -
I'll be leaving for the Afghan-Pakistan border
to start the new series,
"Himalaya With Michael Palin" as it's called.
I've never really talked about - certainly not on camera -
a series before we've actually left.
It strikes me as possibly bad luck. We don't know what's going to happen.
Once it starts it'll be fine.
At the moment I have all these worries.
Some of them, obviously, about the area itself.
I know that Pakistan and certainly Kashmir have been flashpoints.
There have been political problems, tensions, a lot of people with guns.
But that's exciting.
I like to go somewhere where there's a bit of an edge, a bit of tension.
Then there'll be a lot of mountain curries and things like that.
I hope the old system will survive.
It's a long journey.
We're going to be covering about 1,500 miles, as the crow flies,
down the Himalaya chain from the Khyber Pass to the mouth of the Brahmaputra.
So by the time you see this, we'll have done it
and you'll know whether it's worked or not.
But six hours of television at the advanced age that all the crew are now...
I'm taking the crew that I've worked with before because they're terrific companions.
They know what we can do. They're experienced.
But we are getting now very much to a Saga Holidays age, you know.
I'm 60. Three days ago.
And the cameraman's coming up that way.
But we all really want to go. We're all keen to get going.
The good things about it are that we're going to be going through
a whole range of very different countries, very different cultures...
and the most fantastic scenery, the highest mountains.
What worries me is altitude sickness.
I did about a week in the Andes on "Full Circle"
above about 14,000 feet
and had the headaches and the loss of sleep.
I was waking with a dry throat, breathlessness - things that go with altitude sickness.
I'm just hoping that I will get used to it, as I did then,
because we'll be spending a lot of time... especially on the Tibetan Plateau.
The great thing about "Himalaya", which is exciting
but also... worrying, at the same time,
is that it gives the answer to people who say, "You've been everywhere. Where else is there?"
Well, none of these places I'm setting out to see have I ever been to before.
The entire journey through the Himalayas will all be new to me.
That's exciting because my reactions will be fresh,
they won't be based on anything else.
I still enjoy travelling
and I enjoy it often because I'm going to places I've never seen before
and there's nothing like the stimulation to the senses -
the sight, the sound, the stomach - that you get from new places.
So all this will be new to me.