THE police deputy commissioner strode from behind his desk incensed with the action of the expatriate manager. "How dare you speak to a woman who is not your wife," he spat, a split second before punching him in the face. The blow lifted the Filipino off his feet and he crashed into the wall, splitting open his head, suffering a head wound which required hospital treatment.

It was my brother Stephen's first taste of the cultural, legal and ethical differences of working in a foreign land. It shook him to the core. "I thought I was next," recalls the 43-year-old, of Darlington. "My legs were wobbly and I felt sick."

It was a real eye-opener for a man who had forsaken the relative safety of North-East to pursue a nine-year tour of the expat circuit.

Stephen was an operations manager of an Arab supermarket chain in Saudi Arabia. The victim was one of his butchery managers. The crime was that he had tried to help a nurse who had asked him whether she had missed her bus. They were spotted "allegedly chatting" by an off-duty policeman who asked them if they were married. When they said they weren't, they were arrested.

"It was very intimidating working there. You felt like you had no rights and that they could do anything they wanted at any time," says Stephen.

Police once threatened to shut down one of his supermarkets because they considered it was open too long. On another occasion, officials spotted some out-of-date produce still on the shelves, accused the firm of trying to poison Saudi nationals and threatened to charge it with attempted murder. There were also tales of expats being flogged for being involved in car accidents, whether it was their fault or not, and others jailed for months for possessing home-brewed alcohol.

"If you went down town, it wasn't wise to be there around mid-day prayers on a Friday. The religious police were known to round people up to watch the public beheadings."

Next stop on his expat tour was Hong Kong, where Stephen had to pay protection money to Triad gangsters. "It accidentally wasn't paid one month and they blasted the regional office door with a shotgun," he recalls.

A stint in Brunei saw problems with the local wildlife rather than the populace. "I was forever fishing scorpions out of the swimming pool and we had to cope with enormous flies, bigger than birds. They were like a blue bottle but bigger than your hand." In adjacent Borneo, headhunting tribes still existed, though the practice was ruled illegal some years ago.

The next port of call was Bangkok, Thailand, to work with certain staff, who seemed friendly on the surface, but would plot behind his back.

"Jewellery, money and cameras were stolen by the maid and another member of staff," says Stephen.

"We were all arrested and taken to the police station. It looked like they'd also tried to kidnap the children. There's a trade in children for unpleasant practices and even organs. I had to go into hiding and my family fled the country. There were also pirates and bandits operating. We used to lose vessels regularly. Outside Bangkok it could be pretty lawless.

" Living abroad, you do have to take care, there's no doubt about it. It's a different world."

Still, thousands of Britains venture abroad in search of adventure and fortune. Even more go as tourists, leaving the UK with varying degrees of success.

The latest research shows Britons are becoming "serial tourists", with one-in-three going abroad every four months.

As many as six per cent pack their bags and leave on trips once every eight weeks. Even ten per cent of those earning £6,000 a year or less manage to get away three times a year, according to the findings.

The survey, based on responses from 1,000 adults, showed that:

l Britons spend £2,220 on holidays each year

l Scots spend £2,905 while Londoners fork out £2,275

l Nearly one in five people in their 20s is spending up to £3,000 a year on trips

l Those earning between £7,000 and £12,000 a year spend as much on holidays as those taking home twice as much

l Men pay 20 per cent (£455) more for holidays than women.

To get there, they must brave all the inherent dangers associated with mechanical travel, whether that's by ferry, tunnel, air or road.

Arriving in one piece, hopefully, they can become easy prey, standing out from the crowd as only the British can.

Middlesbrough traveller Keith Mangan never returned from his trekking holiday to Kashmir, in 1995, falling prey to extremists with a grudge. Tyneside engineer Tim Selby is currently being held prisoner in Bangladesh by kidnappers. Briton Sandy Mitchell is in prison accused of planting bombs in Saudi Arabia. If he's convicted he could be beheaded.

Living in a country cosseted by countless health and public safety laws, like Britain, can also leave travellers vulnerable abroad to injury, such as in traffic accidents, caused by mechanical defect or poor standards of driving.

Differing standards of hygiene can make Britons susceptible to food poisoning and, being from a country where dangerous animals are virtually non-existent, can leave them nave to the hazards of the wild.

It's a dangerous world out there but help is available to make it that bit safer. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office runs a website (www.fco.gov.uk) offering a host of advice to would-be travellers.

In Brazil, for instance, most visits are trouble-free, it claims. Nevertheless, it warns: "Do not resist muggers as they are normally armed."

Israel and Palestine are fine as long as Gaza and the West Bank are avoided. Pakistan is mostly safe, though sanctions against the Taliban have created anti-Westerner feeling in the whole region. China is pretty safe, and Indonesia isn't as bad as you might imagine. Russia has more than its fair share of crime and, where it borders Chechnya, should definitely be avoided.

Afghanistan is an absolute no-go area for the British. If terrorists don't get you, the Taliban will.

But there is one sobering thought for we British, as we sit back in the remnants of our Empire, smirking in a sanctimonious way - foreign visitors here are being warned about the terrorist threat offered by the Real IRA.

It's a dangerous world we live in - everywhere.