Desperately seeking Osama: Morgan Spurlock on his hunt for the world's most wanted man

As I searched for him I imagined many times what it would be like to sit face to face with Bin Laden. I'd read that as a youngster in Saudi Arabia he had spent his time riding horses. They were his passion. Well, that's what I'd done as a boy in West Virginia. So perhaps I could break the ice by talking to him about horses. Before getting on to the more important questions.

I couldn't help thinking, too, that it would be a kind of Tiger Woods moment. I meet him and then I'm presented with the cheque for the $25m that is on offer to anyone who tracks him down. Dead or alive.

But, of course, I wanted him alive. So I could get down to the really important stuff. Like asking him how all this craziness that has happened in the world since 9/11 could come to an end. How do we stop it? I hoped I might get a real answer, but I also had this picture in my mind of walking up to him, with my hand outstretched, and him pulling out a sword and cutting it off.

Behind the imagining, though, there were the practicalities. Such as where exactly is he? I never met anyone who handed me an address – "You will find Bin Laden at 432 Main Street." But there were plenty of folks who directed me towards Waziristan in the Tribal Areas, which lie between Pakistan proper and Afghanistan, and which are ' administered by the Pakistan government. So my plan was to pitch up in Waziristan and see where it led me.

I also spoke to those who had previous experience of making contact with the Taliban. And it sounded tough. They had been locked in a room for days on end, strip-searched, forced to change their clothes, hooded and put in the trunk of a car, driven to another house where they repeated the process, all before they got to talk to their man. So, if that was what you had to go through before you got to meet the Taliban, how much tougher was it going to be before I could sit down with Bin Laden?

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