Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.

A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.

In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.

Visit Cape Town and history is never far from your grasp. It lingers in the air, a scent on the breezy, an explanation of circumstance that shaped the Rainbow People. Stroll around the old downtown and it's impossible not to be affected by the trials and tribulations of the struggle. But, in many ways, it is the sense of triumph in the face of such adversity that makes the experience all the more poignant.

As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.