There is something about volcanoes that fascinates me, and finds me craving to conquer their summits to be able to satisfy my curiosity and peer down their crater rims. Having climbed Mount Etna (3350m) in Sicily and Gunung Agung (3142m) in Bali, (Cotapaxi (5897m) in Ecuador was weeks away but the trip was cancelled at the last minute), the time had come for something African – Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania was the next conquest. At an altitude of 5895m, it is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, and I promised myself that one day soon I would have my picture taken at the summit, Uhuru Peak.

It all started to go wrong when a moment of sheer impulse led me to jump into the murky lake.

Together with two girlfriends, I had been travelling around Nepal for a month or so, and, finally back in Pokhara after a grueling Annapurna trek, plus a suicidal bout of amoebic dysentery, I decided it was time to give my miserable body a break.

If phrases such as ‘deserted beaches’, ‘pristine waters’, ‘unspoilt scenery’, and ‘rarely more than a dozen tourists on the island’ don’t spell out ROMANCE, I don’t know what does. This is Pemba, and I’m in love!

I desperately needed some quality time with my better half. I was craving somewhere exotic but didn’t fancy dodging sarong-sellers on Kuta beach in Bali, or fighting for a patch of sand in Ko Samui, Thailand. I wanted somewhere away from the maddening masses of tourists. I wanted isolation. Peace. Tranquility.

Photo by Carolyn Bonello

The Friendship Highway, a 920km stretch of road, links Kathmandu in Nepal to Lhasa in Tibet. The drive takes five days, stopping at some of the most authentic Tibetan villages and highest mountain passes in the world along the way. It has been described as ‘A journey to the roof of the world’ and ‘Without doubt one of the most spectacular highways in the world’. Reading those descriptions, I knew I had to go there. The trouble was getting across the border to Tibet.