Negotiating the chaotic bumper-to-bumper traffic of Tripoli in a vain search for a hostel shocked me into the feeling that I had been grabbed by the scruff of my neck and pulled through a proverbial Lebanese bush backwards. I must have had the stunned look of a rabbit caught between the headlights because a Swedish chap of Lebanese descent called Nasser – who had recognised the EU ‘halo’ of stars on my mudguard – pulled up in his 4×4 to insist on subsidising my night’s accommodation. This was followed shortly by a pit stop of fresh carrot juice prepared by a kindly roadside vendor who refused payment. Yet again, random…