On my first trip to India, a local colleague made me walk across Mahatma Gandhi Road in Bangalore about a dozen times until I was comfortable with the traffic. Nearly 10 years later, in Hyderabad, I would amaze another colleague as I navigated the streets around the Charminar with the ease of a local. I love India. It love its mystique, its spirituality, its food, its peoples.

Travelling through Israel and Palestine with a contingent of friends from the Balkans bordered on surreal. So many illusions were shattered, so many misunderstandings unveiled. Like Dubai, the polarity of Qatar gave me lots to think about. I’m far from having a grip on that part of the world.

A month in Thailand, travelling mainly by bus and train, was an emotional rollercoaster that had me laughing and crying with equal abandon. It’s not for the fainthearted.