BRUCE: A lady called Abanesh from the Dassanech tribe in Ethiopia's Omo valley. She was an incredibly charismatic, wonderful, intelligent person, who believes in female circumcision. It would be very easy just to hate her because of her belief, but it's about tolerance and understanding, and not about telling people what to think, which is what western culture tends to do.

Look at what's going on in the Middle East: it doesn't work, it's wrong and it needs to be done differently. I'm no politician but from my experiences of interactions with other communities I know that persuasion works and dominance doesn't. You can't judge other cultures. How dare we? Our culture is the one that is trashing the world, not theirs. It's all about power and economics.

BRUCE: Only when I had to jump over a line of cattle as part of a ritual. I was naked, covered in cow s**t and about to humiliate myself in front of the tribe and the whole world. At the thought of jumping over a bunch of cattle naked, I nearly s**t my pants. I'm more frightened of ridicule than danger.

BRUCE: I eat the food and drink the water of the people I stay with - and on every shoot there was a day when I was violently ill. I had a check-up recently, though, and got the all-clear. Before Tribe I had loads of diseases, including malaria many times, salmonella and dengue fever.

BRUCE: My life is mad fast: I haven't put my feet up or watched TV in years. I've got to put the brakes on. I'm fundamentally lonely all the time. I don't mean that to sound like a plea, of course not, but always being away is hard. My life is completely arse-about-face.

BRUCE: I am horribly addicted to stimulation, whether it's physical, emotional, visual. Every month I'm in a different place with different people in a different environment. If I sit down for more than a minute with nothing to do, I'm frustrated and start dancing around the room. It's the result of having been to so many places: it's wonderful, but I need to wean myself off otherwise I won't be any use to anyone in the future.

BRUCE: Picture this: it was my first morning in Siberia with the Nenets. It was -30 °C and I was sitting in a big fur coat with sleighs snaking behind me in the snow for a full 10 kilometres. Seven thousand reindeer with frosty antlers were kicking up tiny dust-like particles of snow, their sweat crystallising and slowly drifting in the slight breeze, against a bright red sky. I've never seen anything like it. I thought if I was with my girlfriend now I would propose. The irony was that I didn't have a girlfriend!

BRUCE: Question your preconceptions. Any negative view you have, try and figure out where it has come from. That's it.