You can see the recording of this talk here .

In July 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to challenge preconceptions about this long-misunderstood region, her 11,000km journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran. This is her talk about an odyssey through landscapes and history that captured her heart (and her stomach), but one – plagued by punctures, fearsome heat, repressive police states and a truly obscene number of kebabs – which also frequently came close to defeating her.