Most people we know think that my husband Alan and I are stark raving mad for travelling to the countries we have chosen to visit over the last years. Our friends continually tell us so. Strangers politely ask if we are travelling on business.

This journey was no different. We had fallen in love with Pakistan and far west China on our 2009 travels, were intrigued with the strange and little known country of Turkmenistan upon which we have gazed from across the mighty Amu Darya River in Uzbekistan. And we had always wanted to visit Iran. Friend and ex-boss Kevin Sheridan was bemused. Why, he asked, didn't we include a cruise down the Somali coast or maybe even a weekend in P'yongyang, North Korea? Very amusing....

There never seems to be an ideal time to travel to these lesser visited countries. Prior to our travels in 2009, the Taliban was in full force and had declared war on all of Pakistan, demanding the full evacuation of Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. And Pakistan, no doubt due to the strong arm US pressure, had decided to take on the Taliban resulting in some 1.5 million refugees fleeing the North West Frontier Province. The world economic crash didn't help and just for good measure Swine Flu was declared a pandemic by the World Health Authority.

Just after our 2009 travels, more deadly riots occurred in Urumqi, China and then all across Kyrgyzstan. Pakistan suffered its worst ever floods and a massive avalanche swamped villages and formed a huge lake totally cutting off the Karakoram Highway in the northern Gojal area of Pakistan.

This time it was the year of the Arab Spring. The Egyptian government was overthrown by populist movement, NATO had taken on the Libyan government with bombing raids after massive street riots and defections of prominent government officials; and there was shocking media footage of deadly riots in Syria and Bahrain. The events spurred a domino effect throughout the Middle East.

Iran had suffered shocking riots which were ruthlessly repressed just two years ago and we were well aware that the country must be a powder keg. Pakistan was always in crisis, either from natural disasters or political events and although we had heard nothing, goodness knows what was going on in Dubai also in the troubled United Arab Emirates. I think we were rather pleased that Turkmenistan seemed to be off the Australian media map - or rather "does anyone here know that Turkmenistan exists?".

Friends visited. Others invited us for drinks before we left. It felt like we were being invited to the Last Supper.

We left our gorgeous bit of paradise of Crowdy Head on the mid north coast of New South Wales excited and full of anticipation as to what our coming trip would bring. And, I have to admit, for me at least, a bit of apprehension. After all, we were going to the North West Frontier Province, right on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border....