To get in touch with people you met whilst volunteering on a kibbutz, try www.kibbutzreloaded.com or whilst travelling or volunteering overseas generally, try www.lostamigos.net 

Through Kibbutz Representatives, I signed up to volunteer on a kibbutz for three months, just about the time that Saddam Hussein thought he might travel more broadly around the Middle East.

I went out for three months in September 1990 to Beit Govrin ('House of the Heroes') in the West Bank borderlands not far from Hebron. I found myself working in a glue factory - not the orange groves I had fondly imagined - with a small group of volunteers: Rachel Power, Jez and Tracy, Dean and Amanda.

I might have left in December but love was in the air - I had met Moshe Gofer and so I was back in the January just before desert storm. I might still be there to this day, but it was too hard - even just being with someone who already had a large family and a different language, but when you add in the air raids, glandula fever, the stresses and strains of a 'difficult' baby house and my chronic itchy feet we had no chance.

It's a long story how I got from one to the other, but in Autumn 1991 I found myself at another Kibbutz between Haifa and Nazareth in the north of Israel. There I worked in the dining room, kitchen and aluminium factory. 

It was a friendlier place by far, and after a while I found myself romantically involved once more - this time with Rahamim Afiq. I made some great friends out there.

It was supposed to be all the way - but perhaps I'm not that kind of girl!   Five weeks in India was a bit of a culture shock but amazing - Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodpur, camel trek into the Thar desert, Udaipur, Bombay and Goa.

Then it was off to Bangkok in time for the food poisoning to kick in. Up to Chiang Mai, rafting and elephant trekking, and right down to the dangly bit where all the fab beaches and islands are. Wish I knew then what I know now - exactly what goes into a 'special' omelette - I'd have had more! 

Across to Hong Kong for Chinese new year, a rather chilly China and Macau, then back to Singapore, whistle stop tour of Malaysia, Penang island and across to Sumatra.  Indonesia was my favourite. Had split up with 2nd cousin Cassie by then so perhaps it was just relief... stayed on a gorgeous island in the volcanic Lake Toba in my own chalet for 50p a night. It was hell! 

Then across Sumatra to catch the 3 day ferry to Java - passed a grumbling Krakatoa in the night. Through Java's volcano-strewn landscapes to Yogykarta and a bus to Bali with 120 mosquito bites for company!