In July 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off alone on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to challenge preconceptions about this long-misunderstood region, her year-long revelatory journey took her through Western Europe and the Balkans to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Oman, the UAE and Iran. The 11,000km odyssey through landscapes and history captured her heart, and her stomach. But, plagued by punctures, fearsome heat, repressive police states, and a truly obscene number of kebabs, it also frequently came close to defeating her.