The white Land Cruiser approached the rear of our saloon car, flashing its lights. I was overtaking a small bus filled with low-paid immigrant workers. The men were heading back to their work camp after completing their latest twelve hours of on one of the highway developments going on all across Qatar. Outside, a flat expanse of brown sand and marching electricity pylons filled the view: a typical scene outside the major towns. In the distance, a red sun was rapidly disappearing over the horizon. Flash! Flash! Flash! The Land Cruiser was almost upon me, but I was still passing the bus in the second lane, my foot pressed flat down on the accelerator. A few workers wearily gazed at me, blankness in their eyes, tiredness on their faces. FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! ... read more

Arrival into Minsk The Air Baltic Fokker 50 landed like a World War II bomber and taxied past the usual assortment of old Soviet-era airliners that had been left in a huge field. MИHCK written in large Cyrillic lettering above the terminal confirmed I had indeed landed in Minsk. As I stepped onto Belarusian soil, or rather tarmac, and entered the passenger terminal, I wondered what the country the Americans had described as Europe’s last dictatorship would be like. To be honest, I’d not heard many good things about Belarus, and the things I had heard were mainly to do with its president, Alexander Lukashenko, a man renowned for his poor human rights record and his fondness for rigging elections. This man had once famously stated that if any of his citizens joined in with protests ... read more

Indira Gandhi International was clean and surprisingly well ordered, which was good because we were both hellishly tired. After clearing customs, we collected our luggage and then found an ATM so we could get some rupees. That done, we wandered over to the parade of men waiting with name boards. My name was on one of them, and I was thankful we’d arranged our airport transfer in advance of arriving. After shaking hands with Rahul, we were led past the trolley boys and babbling taxi wallahs towards the exit. “How are you feeling?’ Angela asked, looking up at the sky. April was the start of the hot season in India, and already the temperature was nudging thirty degrees Celsius. The humidity was bad too, as was the smell – an all-pervading aroma of smoke and wood ... read more

I began to pass through a back street of Baku, edging my way past some parked Ladas. Across the road, a large woman wearing a headscarf was leading a small child by the hand, and above me, leaning over an upstairs balcony was a middle-aged man in a string vest, smoking a cigarette. I carried on past them until I came to another narrow street filled with fruit and vegetable shops. It was just near a huge sandstone-coloured mosque with gorgeous golden domes. I noticed an overflowing bin with a clear plastic bag tied to one end. The bag contained pieces of bread. I’d already read about this strange custom, which had nothing to do with how full the bin was. Bread was regarded as a holy thing in Azerbaijan and could not be discarded with ... read more

The JAT Airways turboprop from Belgrade to Sarajevo took only forty minutes, even if it did sound like a Lancaster bomber. The first thing we did when we stepped into the arrivals hall of Sarajevo Airport was to change some British pounds into the local currency, the convertible mark. Then we caught a cheap taxi to our hotel. From the taxi, we noticed how hilly Sarajevo was. It was on these hills that snipers hid during the Bosnian War. We also noticed the abundance of mosques. Minarets were everywhere, a distinct difference from the Orthodox Christianity of Serbia. "Look," said Michael, pointing at a dilapidated building we were driving past. It was pockmarked with bullet holes. The driver noticed us looking. "From war," he said. The Siege of Sarajevo lasted for almost four years. It occurred ... read more