Sudan suffers from rather bad press, in terms of its tourism industry. All we hear is the perennial civil war; and all we see is thorn bushes and desert. Hence the scepticism, in some quarters, when Gillian Gibbons, the British schoolteacher at the centre of the teddy bear named Muhammad furore, disembarked at London-Heathrow airport and informed the local journalists that she hoped her brief imprisonment and narrow escape from 40 lashes would not put anyone off going there and enjoy the indulgence.

“I am very sorry to leave Sudan,” she said. “It is a beautiful place. The Sudanese people I found to be extremely kind and generous and until this happened I only had a good experience.” She has a point to make, while she said so: just because some bits of the largest country in Africa are scary doesn’t mean that all of it is.

Imagine the absurdity of a ban on travelling to the Hebridian islands off the west coast of Scotland, because of the July 7 bombs in London - then remember that Sudan is more than ten times the size of the United Kingdom. It is true the United Kingdom Foreign Office’s advice on travel to Sudan is a veritable litany of bans and restrictions (avoid the Eritrean border, avoid the Congolese border, and avoid Darfur). There is also “a high threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers”.

But isn’t that rather like what the head of the British security service MI5 said of Britain just the other day? The 2007 Lonely Planet guide to Africa notes that Khartoum and the north-eastern desert - where there are ancient pyramids - are among the safest places in the world. Sudan’s Red Sea dive sites are apparently as good as Egypt’s. The Sudanese, it transpires, are famously hospitable.

The more persuasive argument against going would be political. If you felt that helping the Sudanese economy would indirectly be fuelling the genocide in Darfur, then you would be within your rights not to travel there on principle. But if it’s for reason other than that, why not go? Just be careful where, and try not to offend local sensibilities - standard holiday advice, really.