Warned by a fortune-teller not to risk flying, the author - a seasoned correspondent - took to travelling by rail, road and sea. Consulting fortune-tellers and shamans wherever he went, he learnt to understand and respect older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity. Yes, the fortune-teller did save him from an air-crash in Cambodia. Looking back afterwards, Terzani reckoned that “I was marked for death and instead I was reborn.”.