We were in Mongolia when we started to struggle. There are no roads, no fences, no signposts out in the wilds and every time we fell into the valley between two mountains our team would become bogged down in a quagmire of mud; even locals were getting stuck and came to us regularly to use to use our winches. This was Long Way Round, with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, and I was directing the film-production as we'd traced our circuitous route from London to New York in three and a half months. None of us had really known what to expect in Mongolia, but I was struck by how beautiful the country was and - despite the difficulties - how thankful I was to be here. It had all been down to that long chain of small life events, chance decisions and fortunate encounters that had lead me onto the path of becoming an adventure film-maker, all the way here to Mongolia's great and exciting lands.

I always had a great interest in making movies when I was young. At thirteen I was borrowing my dad's standard 8mm film-camera to go out and make stock frame animations. I used to animate anything: billiard balls moving on a snooker table; I'd animated furniture going around and around the back garden, or toy soldiers charging along the ground. In truth, they were pretty rubbish as the exposure always went a bit wrong on the single frame, but at an early stage I was interested in being creative with film.

The teenage years hit, and all I wanted to do was race motorbikes. I had planned to leave education after my exams and race my bike, make money and hang out with my girlfriend; fairly standard stuff. And it was only through a serendipitous meeting with my deputy headmaster that I didn't head down that path. He told me that you could get paid to do a degree, that you'd earn money just to study. So I went to university in the end, to study Civil Engineering and I got paid to do it. It gave me the chance to still race my bike but I also I started up a business in photography on the side. Suddenly from this interest in stills photography I was back in the direction of making films again, back on the road to Mongolia.

One night out on the steppe it started to rain. I had put the tent up and was looking out over the rolling hills to a small collection of Gers (portable homes used by Turkic nomads) a hundred metres from us. There were some people outside who looked like they were training a horse but I couldn't quite see what was going on, so I said to Ewan 'why don't we get a bit closer?' We both walked towards the nomads and as we got nearer it became apparent that they were castrating a horse; it looked awfully painful. When they'd finished they waved us over cheerfully and asked us if we would like to come for tea.

I got Charley over and David, and we all sat in their warm Ger as they poured us out some of the tea they'd promised; white and milky-sweet, not too dissimilar to how we would it drink in England. We were all sat cross-legged (as it is bad manners to show the soles of your feet in a Ger) in the centre place of honour when one of the guys asked in English: 'would you like some nuts?' 'Nuts?' I replied, 'What like cashew nuts? Peanuts?' I thought this was an odd expression. 'No nuts, testicles,' he said, taking off the top to this cauldron. There, bubbling away, was two hundred floating testicles. They'd all been just chucked in; some still had all the ducting dangling off them.

They invited us to a nut each and Ewan ate all of his. However I'm convinced that they were all from different animals - everything from a goat up to a horse - so I still hold true that I was given one of the bigger ones. It came to my turn; the testicle was white and veiny and had sperm ducts hanging off it. It really was just not what we're used to seeing, even though they were a delicacy there. So, I put it in my mouth and tried to swallow quickly in one go but it was effectively like trying to swallow a Kinder Egg.

Try as I might the nut wasn't going to be swallowed whole but the thought of biting into it was gag-inducing. Yet something had to be done; I was going to have to bite the ball and then, when I finally did chomp down into the flesh, it popped and ran out in my throat. I tried desperately to swallow but gagged, threw it up and the testicle rolled across the floor to everyone's great laughter. I just hoped I hadn't offended our hosts. All in all, it wasn't one of my best performances.

Adventures have always given me the opportunity to enjoy time with somebody else. We all see our partners, we all see our parents, we all see our friends, yet with work going on and energy levels low you don’t necessarily spend as much quality time with people as you'd like to. Expeditions gave me that chance to reconnect with people. However you do have to be careful, as trips will make or break friendships and sustained periods spent with others can often be as frustrating as they are enjoyable. I wrote this book called 101 Amazing Adventures. The publisher said to me that you wouldn't have to do all the trips because most people would prefer just to write the book at home and get stock photos out from a library. But whilst I logistically wouldn't be able to do every adventure, I was certainly going to try and get as many down as possible and it became a great opportunity to have an expedition or two with my girlfriend in the process.

One trip we both ended up on was to Guyana, to meet and live with the Vaquero cowboys. Two of them met with us early one day to take us to the lodge where we would be staying that night. It was an eight hour drive there along a track steeped in potholes, completely topped up with water after the rains. Eight hours of driving over holes you don't know the depth of; we honestly nearly completely flipped the car over once on a particularly deep one. Then across a river; it was full of piranha, but 'don't worry, they're not like how they are portrayed in the movies', we're told. It still livened up the experience nonetheless. Then we get to our room and there's a massive frog - the biggest frog I've ever seen in my life - sitting on the toilet seat. Huge bats flit their way amongst the dark rafters. My girlfriend’s parting shot to me as I went to the bathroom that night was, 'be careful not to step on the scorpions in there.'