"These are the Diomede Islands in the centre of the Bering Strait." "Behind me is Greater Diomede - uninhabited, a Russian island - and the one I'm on - Little Diomede - is American." "50 miles to the north is the Arctic Circle." "Behind me runs the International Date Line." "On Greater Diomede it's already tomorrow." "From these straits, the Pacific 0cean stretches southwards to cover one third of the Earth's surface." "0ur journey will take us all the way round this vast ocean." "50,000 miles of travel through 18 countries." "If all goes well, when we return here in a year, we shall have been full circle." "A late August sun shines for our departure, making light of the harsh life in this village, battered by the elements for nine months a year." "The 180 inhabitants of this windswept rock live by fishing, and always have done." " What?" " (BOY) What are you doing?" "Just making a film." "The oil-rich government of Alaska has done much to make life here comfortable." "There's a school, satellite TV, electricity and abundant fresh water." "And the island has voted itself alcohol-free." "But they still hunt beluga whales in boats of walrus skin and it's in one of these that I shall begin my Pacific journey." "The locals are, frankly, unimpressed." "They've seen travellers trying to cross the ice bridge between Russia and America or on their way to the Arctic." "This is just one more crazy departure for a people who wouldn't exchange Diomede for anywhere else on Earth." "So we say, "Farewell, Diomede!"" "See you in a year." "It's good to be on the move - out on the ocean on a wing and a prayer and a walrus-skin boat." "What more could I ask for?" "Except a helicopter like the rest of the crew." "130 miles south of Diomede lies Nome - a doughty, resilient community of 5,000, clinging to the shores of western Alaska." "The spirit of the last frontier survives in Nome." "They're proud of the fact that the nearest tree is 75 miles away." "In Nome, real men drive pickup trucks and never wash them." "90 years ago, these bleak beaches were called the "Golden Sands of Nome"." "30,000 prospectors camped here in search of a fortune... and they still come." "Excuse me dropping in, but I was told I must see the Golden Sands of Nome." " See if it's true." " Legendary!" "That was three hours of work." "Maybe $100." " Three hours this afternoon?" " Yeah." "Maybe $100." "I'm gonna suck it right out." " Are you together?" " Yeah." "This is my son." "Your son?" "Really?" "So is this a hobby?" "This is a hobby." "I invest all the gold money." "I don't have to live on it." "I'm buying a new Corvette with this year's gold." "Last year..." "Two years ago I bought a Corvette." "Last year I bought a house." "I've got five homes now." "With gold prices at $350 an ounce, there's still money to be made at the Bering Sea." "But everyone has his own way of making it." "Stan Cook is an Englishman." "Not for him the delicacy of the gold pan." "Stan is slowly and systematically washing away the beach." " Why do you do this?" " Why?" " Yeah." " So I don't die from lack of activity." "It's fun." "Do you have to get special permission to pan on the beach?" "No." "Just from my wife." "My wife is the only one I have to ask." "How much does she pay you?" "I mean, how much do you have to pay her?" "Sorry." "I goofed." "How pay much she her you do?" "Pebble number 13." "Bering Sea." "Ocean." "Sky." "Palin here." "Very cold." "Chill, chill." "Nosey dribble and soon terrible temperature." "Flu-y." "Fall over deady." "No more Pacific Rimmy." "I'm deteriorating fast and it's only the second day." "This may be the frozen north, but no one leaves on a sled any more." "Thank you." "They know how to treat a star." "Thank you." "There are no roads from Nome to the rest of Alaska." "From here, there's only one quick way out." "0ur circle around the Pacific will follow the Asian side first." "So we must make our way across to Russia." "The US Coast Guard has offered to take us on their supply flight from Kodiak down the Aleutian chain to the island of Attu." "They leave from their Kodiak base in two days." "(BELLS RING)" "130 years ago, America bought Alaska from the Russians for $7 million - less than two cents an acre." "But at the 0rthodox church, Kodiak still feels firmly Russian." "(CHOIR SINGS SOFTLY)" "As we have two days before our plane leaves for Attu, there's time to see the sights." "The greatest of these is the Kodiak brown bear which can be seen in the wild on an overnight trip from the capital." "The only way there is by floatplane." "These workhorses - this one is 33 years old - are the equivalent of cars on a rugged island like Kodiak." "The weather is good as we land 60 miles away on Karluk Lake, so we set off straight away with Scott the ranger," "Siggi and Rosie - two enthusiastic Germans - and a few thousand blackflies." "We're in luck." "Somewhere beyond the flies is a bear." "This is one of her cubs right here." "He's OK." " He's a year old?" " A year and a half old this one." "Are they aware of us now?" "That little cub..." "His mom picked up on that when he made a few sounds there." "So what are they thinking now?" "She's more interested in pushing this other bear out of the area." "(INCESSANT BUZZING)" "Shelly and Olga have these disputes all the time." "Usually neither one of them gives in." "The bears scour the river for migrating red salmon." "A full-grown female will eat 30 fish a day." " Where are the males?" " That's a good question." "They come through in the evenings or late at night." "We see a few, but we don't see a high population of males here." "They're scattered around." " Are they much bigger?" " Yes." "Sometimes 300-400 pounds more." "Finding somewhere to put the flies would help." "You can hardly see the bears for the flies." "That one up there has hunkered down." "Looks like a huge boulder." "Next morning the weather has turned." "We're packed and ready to go." "All we need now is an aeroplane." "When it doesn't come, we resign ourselves to a second evening here." "That's very nice." "Lucky you." "So where are you going to next?" "Maybe Kenai." "Look at this." "What a feast!" "Rosie and Siggi are relaxed about the delay, but they do not have to worry about circumnavigating the Pacific." "Has this happened before, people being stuck here?" "We've had a few people this year that have spent up to four extra days here." "But that's where the town was fogged in solid." "It's mainly fog conditions in Kodiak." "It's now 24 hours since we should have been airlifted from Karluk Lake back to Kodiak and off to Attu, but we're still here." "I can see the mountains over which the plane should come, but there's no sign of it." "We've heard there's fog in Kodiak, so we're still stranded." "There's nothing we can do but sit and wait." "The day passes with no sight of the plane." "There is a real chance that we will miss our Coast Guard flight to Attu and we can't tell the Coast Guard what's happened." "Scott's proud of the fact that there's no phone on the island." "In some desperation, I ask him if there is any other way out." "You could walk to Larsen Bay." "It'd be around five miles of walking and six miles of floating." "How do we get down the Karluk River?" "I know of an old raft." "I'm not sure about its condition." "We'd have to check it out." "Are there bears down there?" "Not as thick, but there's one point along the river on this corner where they're doing lots of feeding - catching king salmon, red salmon." "You will encounter bears, I'm sure, along the river." "There may be one female with three spring cubs that might stay there." "There is one, as Scott warned, and it's quite large." "Suddenly, the idea of walking out loses its appeal." "It comes right out of the blue... or the grey." "For a moment, I don't believe what I'm seeing." "Then I'm running out to welcome our saviour." "Impenetrable fog had grounded all flights out of Kodiak City for three days, but no one's complaining - we've been rescued." "Ah, down to the last pair of underpants!" "The bad news is that the Coast Guard flight has left." "The good news is that we've got on the last flight of the season on the only scheduled service between Alaska and Russia." " Morning." " Good morning." "Petropavlovsk, please." "I have trouble saying that." "You know where I mean?" "We know where you mean." "And it is how it's pronounced." " How many passengers are travelling?" " There's seven of us." " How many bags will you be checking?" " 43." " 43?" "!" " We're going on somewhere." " We have 43 tags here." " Good." "If you could set your bags up here, we'd appreciate that." " Do we have comfortable seats?" " Very." "If there's nobody in first class, we could go there." "We won't bother anybody." "Just give us a glass of champagne and some bags of nuts and we'll sit there quietly." "Flight 203 from Anchorage to Petropavlovsk." "From America's last frontier to Russia's last frontier." "Kamchatka lies 2,000 miles away." "The contrast is stark." "Alaska is the land of opportunity, and Kamchatka, until six years ago, was closed to all foreigners." "But that's changed, and I'm welcomed with a traditional offering of bread and salt." "Oh." "Thank you." "Oh, dear." "Unfortunately it's not for me at all, although some of the press half recognise a star when they see one." "The real celebrities are an Alaskan delegation from Homer, led by the mayor." "The way he tucks in makes me strangely envious of the new cordiality in Russian-American relations." "(INDISTINCT INTRODUCTIONS)" "Greetings over, the Alaskan delegation is swept away in the official limousine." "But the offerings from the people of Petropavlovsk don't go unappreciated." "I was given it by a friend." "It was a bit of a mistake." "They weren't for me." "They were for some Alaskan-Kamchatkan friendship society." "But they left me with the cake." "I didn't get the flowers, but I got the cake." "Very nice." "We'll share it." "It should last us a week." "Next morning we meet the team who are to show us the wilder side of Kamchatka." " Director of the Kronotsky Reserve." " Hello, Sergei." " Cook, Svetlana." " Svetlana." "Excellent." " My assistant, Alexander." " Alexander." " And interpreter Konstantin." " Konstantin." "And for those who may not know, this is Igor Nosov, who is the big man here, who's going to guide us through Kamchatka and all the way down the Russian Pacific." "So we're all ready." "Igor, we are in your hands." "Let's get aboard." "Thank you." "Please." "Svetlana." "Sergei..." "And me." "Kretchet - the name on the aircraft - is one of the myriad private companies running these old military helicopters." "The word means "falcon", but this mighty beast feels more like an elephant." "For one moment, I thought we'd decided to go by road instead." "There are no roads across Kamchatka and very few people." "Those that brave the weather and the rough terrain are mostly nomads." "We're looking for a tribe called the Evenks, who live off great herds of reindeer." "We locate one of their encampments." "It seems remarkably reindeer-free." "Can he tell us where are the reindeer herds?" "(TRANSLATES)" " Do you see the mist over there?" " Yeah!" "I don't see anything in the mist!" " He said that they are there." " In the mist?" " Not far from here." "About two kilometres." " Two kilometres." "How many reindeer does he have up there?" "(KONSTANTIN TRANSLATES)" " One thousand." " One thousand?" "!" "Well, I think we should try and see them if we can." "So the bird labours into the air again, threatening to blow away the Evenks." "I missed the Kodiak bears in a cloud of flies." "I missed the Coast Guard flight to Attu." "This time I'm determined not to miss the reindeer." "By now, the entire crew, including the pilot's son, are on full reindeer alert." "But there's not an antler to be seen." "Then the weather clears, the landscape changes, and we're over some of the most spectacular scenery in the world." "Tourism is not yet established here and it's doubtful it ever will be." "This part of Kamchatka is protected." "The 6,000 square miles below us is known as the Kronotsky Reserve." "This is the crater of the Uzon volcano." "There are 25 volcanoes on the reserve - 12 are still active." "This is a truly amazing place - the Kronotsky Reserve." "I haven't seen this much steam since I gave up trainspotting." "It is just the size of the place - not only what you see on the surface, like the volcanoes, but what is underneath." "I've never anywhere else felt the sense of the earth bubbling and pulsing beneath me, energy just pouring out." "And it is in the middle of nowhere." "We're extraordinarily privileged to be here." "This is inaccessible, remote land of Kamchatka." "The geysers erupt with clockwork precision." "This one - the Giant - blasts 100 feet in the air every three hours." "I persuade Sergei and Konstantin to take me closer." " Be careful because of very hot steam." " Yeah." "How hot is that?" "257 degrees above zero." "Wind, blow that way, please." "Come on, God, you've been on our side today so far." "Attention, please." "Slowly." " Slowly." " Yes." "I'm going to keep under the water to avoid being bitten to death." "After this water... too young." "Possible 20 years ago." "I feel 52 already, Igor." "I am 52!" "It looks rather nice up there by the lake." "Is it my imagination or has this fish soup got vodka in it?" " Is there vodka in here?" " Yes." " Do you always put vodka in fish soup?" " Russian fish soup always with vodka." " It's really good." " Red wine." "Moldavian wine." "It's fantastic." " Welcome." " Cheers." " Cheers." "Cheers." " The fresh rustle of plastic!" "(IGOR SINGS IN RUSSIAN)" "Next morning, we're brought down to earth." "Rain sets in and we're confined to 0lga's hunting lodge in Petropavlovsk." "Perfect weather for learning a cheerful Russian song." "Can you do this into a tape recorder?" "Just a bit." "I don't think I can learn the whole thing." "OK." "We're on." "So in your own time." "Igor with..." "What is it called?" "The song?" "This is "Poliushko Pole"." "It's very traditional Russian song." "Composer..." "Knipper." " Poliushko Pole..." " Fantastic Russian." "Repeat." "Two words I'm OK on." "Three I'm rather foxed." "OK." "Igor live in the studio." "(SINGS IN RUSSIAN)" "# Poliushko Pole..." "(HUMS)" " That is good!" " So, big and then small." "Loud and then soft." "Manic and then melancholy." "This is Russian character." "All this water reminds me that there is something absent from my traveller's kit and from most Russian hotels as well." "Bath plugs." "Bath plugs." "Don't see a plethora of bath plugs." "But one can but ask." "Ah." "There's somebody over here." "(SPEAKS RUSSIAN) ...probka dlia vanni?" " Nyet." " Nyet?" " Here, nyet?" "Nowhere here?" "Nyet." " Nyet probka dlia vanni." "Nyet probka dlia vanni." "Spasiba." "No bath plugs." "(SINGS TO "POLIUSHKO POLE" TAPE)" "(DOG BARKS)" "Igor?" "Next morning, whilst 0lga makes potato cakes for breakfast," "Igor is negotiating transport to get us out of here." "(PHONE RINGS)" "(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)" "Thank you very much!" "Igor's subtle techniques of persuasion worked." "We find ourselves back at Petropavlovsk airport." "0nce again we're on our way around the Pacific Rim." "0ur destination is the city of Magadan, 600 miles away on the shores of the Sea of 0khotsk" "Magadan was built by slave labour in the 1930s." "It was the administration centre for the mineral mines of the Kolyma region." "Most of the inhabitants of this bleak city are the sons, daughters and grandchildren of prisoners and prison officials." "This is where Stalin sent the "enemies of the people"." "Writers, artists, lawyers - anyone on whom his suspicions fell." "In the heart of Magadan is the start of the long road that led to the camps." "It runs for hundreds of miles." "It, too, was built on slave labour, laid over the bodies of those who perished." "We're taking one of the survivors back to the gulag camps where he once worked." "His name is Ivan Yakovlev." "He's not returned to this harsh wilderness for 50 years." "These are the old uranium mines where men worked in isolation to extract the vital ingredients for Russia's first atomic bomb." "It was always officially denied that forced labour camps existed, but Ivan Yakovlev shows us the remains of a cemetery 200 miles north of Magadan." "There is evidence to prove that someone knew who was buried in these communal graves." "Each one is marked with an identification disc made from an old tin lid." ""F"?" "No, that's a Russian G. "24."" "There's a bone there." "(THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN)" "What would have been the main cause of death?" "(THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN)" "He told me that the main causes of death were overwork, radiation and terrible hunger." "These are the buildings where the labourers lived." "Ironically, the best preserved is the prison." "As if one were necessary." "If you escaped from here, there was nowhere to go." "In the shadow of the mines, there are poignant reminders of those forced to work them." "It's estimated that from 1933 until their closure in 1953, three million Russians were sent to their deaths in camps like these." "I asked Tatiana, the interpreter, what Ivan Yakovlev's feelings are on returning here." "He says he's quite cheerful." "The generals and politicians who ran the gulags are all dead." "But despite everything that he's been through, he's alive." "And, as he himself says, "I'm smiling."" "When Ivan was released from the gulag in 1946, he was given a medal for services to his country in the Great Patriotic War." "He treasures it." "(CHEERFUL HUMMING)" "We leave Magadan later today." "Still time for last-minute shopping." "The store is called "Things For The House"." "That reminds me - there IS something I need." "Tweezers, brushes, soap." "Corkscrews, bulbs." "Bath taps." "That looks a bit like a probka." "Ah." "Excuse me?" "Probka." "Probka dlia vanni." "(IMITATES GURGLING WATER)" " No?" "Nyet?" "Nyet?" " Nyet." "Nyet probka?" "Got something like it, I think." "(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)" "Like a cork?" "What she offers me has holes in it." "I want something rubber." "No." "I think that would let the water through." "No." "Spasiba." "There is still one Russian city left in which I can buy a plug." "1,400 miles due south is Vladivostock - the capital of the Russian Far East - where the only railway line across Russia meets the Pacific." "This is a first for me." "The last few miles of my journey to Vladivostock are along the Trans-Siberian Railway line." "The 6,000-mile journey from Moscow takes six days and crosses seven time zones before the train reaches the glorious extravaganza of Vladivostock station - built in 1912 in the Bavarian Gothic style and freshly painted by an Italian film company." "Vladivostock is full of Japanese cars and the midday bustle has an almost European feel." "It's hard to believe the city was closed to foreigners as recently as 1992." "It was closed because it was home to the mighty Russian Pacific Fleet." "The fleet now goes on joint manoeuvres with its old enemies America and China and is no longer mighty." "My hotel in the leafy suburbs is called the Vlad Motor Inn." "It's a joint venture with a Canadian company." "Could my search be over?" "Do the baths have bath plugs here?" "Er... probka dlia vanni here?" " Do the baths have bath plugs here?" " Yeah." "They're made of rubber." "You don't know how glad I am to hear that." "It'll save me wandering around Vladivostock." " You can take a deep bath!" " I can bath!" "Thank you." " Where's this?" " It's the second floor." " Thank you." " Have a good time here." "Ah, the pleasure of retained waterl" "(SINGS "POLIUSHKO POLE")" "(PIPED TINKLING MUSIC)" "The navy wakes early." "I do too." "The Pacific Fleet has agreed to be my host for the day." "(BELL CLANGS)" "(SHOUTS ORDERS IN RUSSIAN)" "(PIPED BUGLE CALL)" "Where the hammer and sickle used to fly, the Russian navy now has a new flag." "0nce it's raised, the day's work begins." "I have been invited to join Vice-Admiral Chirkov, deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet, aboard his launch called Typhoon." "I've one special favour to ask him." "We have an ensemble of dancing and song of Pacific Fleet." "Yes." "That's what I'm talking about." " And admiral chief of this ensemble." " Really?" "This ensemble his son." " Does the admiral himself enjoy singing?" " Yes, yes." "(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)" " Because..." " He likes a song?" "# Poliushko Pole... #" "(SINGS IN RUSSIAN)" "He like hear." "Not song." "Only hear." "Anyway, I would like to, if he doesn't mind, maybe he could give me the address of the choir and if they're having a rehearsal, I could just pop along." " It is not a problem." " No problem?" "Thank you very much." "(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)" "As long as there are no auditions." " Have you meet with ensemble?" " No." "I would like to." " OK." " Thank you." " I've been learning this song." " Poliushko Pole." "And will be Poliushko Pole special for you." " With you together." " Please thank the admiral very much." "I hope I will do the song justice." "So it is that, with permission from the highest level," "I'm given temporary membership of the legendary, once mighty," "Pacific Fleet Ensemble." "(RHYTHMIC TAPPING)" "A dream about to be fulfilled." "Breathe in." "Two fingers to the forehead." "Ready to go." "Oh, my gosh." "There's more." "Do I need make-up?" "(MUSICAL INTRODUCTION)" "Thank you." "(CHOIR HUMS)" "# Poliushko Pole..." "# Poliush!" "#" "I'm en route to Sado Island - my first stop in Japan on the way to Korea and China." "I'm impatient to get there." "Sado Island is where the Kodo drummers live." "I first saw them perform ten years ago." "Their sheer power and energy has stayed in my memory ever since." "Which is why I've come to this modest, respectable, out-of-the-way island." "In the Middle Ages, Sado was a place of exile." "Now it's where the Kodos work and train, and they've invited me to join them for a day." "They're putting me up in a ryokan - a traditional inn - called the House of the Red Pear." "It's run by the lady who grew up in it." " Hello." " Michael Palin." "Michael." "Michael Palin." "Thank you." "Right, let's go." "Mamasan showed me up to my room." "Into the woods." "Thank you." "It's lovely." "Thank you." "Yes." "Right." " This... yukata." " Yukata." "Right." " Ooh!" " Shoes are wrong, I know." "Oh." "I'm sorry." "Yes, yes." "Oh, dear." "That's another shoe error." " Yes." "Lovely." " Haori." "That's like a dressing gown?" "Like you're wearing." " Haori." "Jacket." " Jacket." "I see." "Very nice." " Obi." " Obi." "Which is a belt." "Yes." "Not quite sure how to put all this on." "That's lovely." "Thank you." "That's in there, right." "Sleeping..." "Where do I sleep?" "Sleeping..." " This." " I see." "That's put out." "Futon." "You put it out?" "Yes, I see." "Yes, I think I'll lay it out." "Good." "Fine." "The ryokan is immaculate - like a newly finished dolls' house." "Everything has its place - even Mamasan's goldfish, which are fed every afternoon at five." "Every morning at five, the Kodo apprentices begin the day with a ten-kilometre run." "I've asked if I can train with them and my bluff has been called." "There are ten of us, and in deference to my great age, they've reduced the ten kilometres... to nine." "(WARBLING SHOUTING)" "Then they make a lot of noise which welcomes the sun and keeps down local property values." "This is where it all started - the old schoolhouse which Kodo bought in 1981." "Here, a few carefully chosen apprentices spend a year in frugal, almost monastic conditions." "They cook and clean for themselves, may not drink or smoke and have one shower and one stove between them." "They're here to drum." "The technique is based on the art of the traditional Japanese drum - the taiko." "The word "kodo" means two things " ""heartbeat" and "children of the drum"." "The teaching emphasises the need to play with the innocence and energy of a child." "They drum for 90 minutes each morning and afternoon, six days a week." "It's like playing in the Cup Final twice a day." "At the end of the year, only one, or maybe two, of these apprentices will be chosen to become full members of Kodo." "Sayo is 24." "She's given up a job teaching English to attempt the near-impossible." "(SAY0) The sound of the drumming becomes together with my heartbreak." "Your heartbeat." "At first, I have to think, "OK." "Rhythm..." "Oh, I have to raise my arm more."" "I have to think at first." "Then, as I get used to it..." "Maybe 30 minutes or an hour." "Sometimes it takes two hours." "But as I play taiko more and more, then I become a part of like taiko." "In case you think it's a youngster's game, this is Yoshi Kazu - one of the founders of Kodo." "In three years, he'll be 50." "Yoshi Kazu is one of the only two members of Kodo strong enough to play the hugely demanding big drum - 0-daiko." "At their new headquarters, the other virtuoso, Eichi Saito, is auditioning for a successor." "(SPEAKS JAPANESE)" "OK." "Is that right?" " Relax." " I'm not relaxed!" "I've never hit anything this big in my life." " More?" " Power." "We British are not brought up to make a noise." "We're brought up to be very quiet and retiring." " Good." " How do you do it?" "How long can you play this for continuously?" " 15 minutes." " 15 minutes!" "15 seconds is my limit." "We'll come back later to that!" "Back at the harbour, the fishing boats are in." "Most of their catch seems to have gone straight to the House of the Red Pear." "Oh, I say." " Seaweed." " Seaweed." " Seaweed." "This name - igonay." " Igonay." "I'll try and remember that." "Not Egon Ronay, but igonay." " Vegetables." " That's tofu, is it?" " Tofu." "Shell... fish." " Shellfish, yes." "With the shellfish and the seaweed, there is bream and squid and scallops, sea snails, abalone in soy sauce and teriyaki of tuna stomach." "Scarcely a denizen of the deep is unrepresented at Mamasan's table." "All served on quite different things." "Oh, magnificent." "Magnificent." "Absolutely wonderful." " Sake?" " Yes, thank you." "Thank you." "This is hot sake?" "Thank you." "Well, cheers." "Bottoms ups." " Oh, shit!" " (LAUGHTER)" "I'm terribly nervous." "I'm terribly nervous that I'm going to do everything wrong." "Isn't it beautiful?" "All I've done is knock the sake over." "It's not a big deal." "Bottoms up and the bottom did go up." "No giggling." "Thank you." "Now, then... try and get this meal back on the road." "Look at that." "Isn't that delightful?" "I'm going to have a little bit of this very succulent fish." "My crash course in Japanese cuisine is just a golden memory next morning." "This is modern Japan - fast food for people on the move." "(WOMAN'S VOICE ON TANNOY)" "Even in the country, a spotless train arrives at a spotless platform spot on time." "We're on our way south across Honshu - the largest of Japan's three main islands." "From the rice plains of the coast to the rice terraces in the mountain valleys." "The journey to Tokyo surprises me - two thirds of this crowded country still consists of woodland and forest." "Tokyo - fourth largest city in the world - is another kind of forest." "Dense, uncompromising and overgrown." "It's the first mega-city on our route and it's especially confusing if you're not Japanese." "There is someone I know here who might help me make sense of it." "She's a girl called Mayumi who was Japan's first "Monty Python" fan." " (COINS JINGLE)" " In profit already." "I've fixed a rendezvous at a city-centre cafe." "But first I've got to find my way there, on my own." "(LAUGHTER)" "Well, almost on my own." "Although we've exchanged many letters, Mayumi and I have never actually met." "Mayumi?" "Are you Mayumi Nobetsu?" "You are?" " Hello." "Nice to see you." " Hello." "Am I allowed to give you a kiss?" "They don't do that in Japan too much." "How are you?" "What is this?" "Somebody told you I was coming!" " Welcome to Tokyo." " Thank you." "How are you doing?" "It's nice of you to do this." "I thought we ought to meet after all this time." " I think so too." " When was it?" " 20 years already." " When you wrote the first letter?" "Uh-huh." "I started learning English." "I just wrote, "I am Japanese." "I am a girl." Like this." "And you wrote me back." "I loved your letters." "20 years." "So, I'd be a young lad of 32." " You looked like this." " Oh, that is wonderful!" " Long hair. "Holy Grail."" " Yes." "You were in "Holy Grail"." "We got to meet." "That's really nice." "I've been trying to find my way around Tokyo and I thought you could show me around." "Sure." "Leaving the corporate tower blocks and cold plazas behind," "Mayumi and I head for the slightly shady street life of a working-class neighbourhood called Asakusa." "This street looks like more gambling street." "These are stands for the newspapers of horse racing." "This guy is selling horse-race ticket." " This gentleman, I think he won something." " How much did he win?" "Excuse me." "We're from England - a great gambling nation." " He spent only 1,000 yen." " 1,000 yen." "With this ticket... 5,000..." "This means 370,000 yen he won." "On a thousand-yen bet?" "Good." "Congratulations." "Let's stick around." "Back to your place." "I feel a bit of racing fever coming on." "OK." "Why don't we try horse racing?" "Cockpit Fever is number one." "Or do you want to try seven" " Super Licence?" " Super Licence?" "OK." "BBC." "Very appropriate." " Number seven." "Super Licence." "I find horse-race commentaries difficult to follow in English." "In Japanese, it's impossible." "Super Licence could have been taken by extraterrestrials." "It's finished." " We won!" " We won?" "Number seven." "Really?" "(SPEAKS JAPANESE)" " Won seven." " Hey!" "Well done." "There we are." "Look at that." "Number seven." " All the money." " Here we are." "126,000 yen!" " On, what, a 5,000 bet?" " Right." "That's about 12 to one." "And the horse was called Super Licence." "There we are." "We'd better not show this too much." "A grand total of £845.63 - the most I've ever won on a horse in my entire life." "That's yours... and this is mine!" "We celebrate at one of Tokyo's oldest restaurants." "For 190 years, undeterred by earthquakes and American bombing, the Dojo Nabe has served the people of Tokyo with something they could not get anywhere else." "There we go." "Thank you." " Here?" " Yes." "I've been places without chairs before, but never anywhere without a table." "News of my win must have got about, for the owner of the restaurant, Mr Watanabe, insists on joining us." "Mr Watanabe, what is it that you serve here?" " What's your speciality?" " Dojo nabe." " Dojo nabe." " Dojo nabe?" "Yeah." "Cooked loach in a pot." "Cooked loach?" "I've no idea what loach is." "The loach is a freshwater fish with two attractions for the Japanese - it aids both digestion and virility." "0nce selected, the lucky or unlucky loach are tipped into wooden tubs and served copious amounts of sake - the Japanese rice wine." " They become full of sake?" " Enjoy!" " Enjoy drinking it." " They enjoy it, do they?" " And then die!" " And then what happens?" "The tottering loach are then upended into a soup of secret ingredients." "To complete the dining experience, each table is supplied with its own blast furnace." "So has this recipe been in use for 195 years?" "No change at all from the beginning." " I am sixth generation." " Sixth generation of people who run this?" "Of the Watanabe family?" "Right." "Is your son going to do it as well?" "Maybe." "I hope so." "He working at other company." " Is he?" " Him a dishwasher!" "Oh." "Starting at the top!" "(MAYUMl) Let's start now." "Mr Watanabe's enthusiasm for loach borders on the obsessive." "He even publishes a loach newsletter four times a year." "Do we eat the whole fish?" "Bones and everything?" "(MAYUMl) Yes." "And leeks on the top of it." "The whole fish goes in." " Hot." "Very careful." " Mmm." "The leeks, the onions are very good with it." "They really just... just add that nice sort of clean taste." "They tell me the restaurant has a famous slogan." ""If you keep eating, you can't die" because if you died you wouldn't be able to eat!" "(HEAVY ROCK MUSIC)" "This may look like a hallucination brought on by an overdose of loach, but it's actually Tokyo on a Sunday afternoon." "(POP MUSIC)" "A mile-long stretch of Yoyogi Park is closed to traffic and open to everything else." "0r so it seems." "In fact, it's all strangely clean and innocent." "By dressing as English heavy-metallers, Dutch punks or American rockers, these young Japanese can be outrageous and blame it on somebody else." "(ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC)" "It's a way of showing off in a country where showing off is not encouraged." "(ANN0UNCER) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Shinkansen." "This is the Hikari Super Express, bound for Hakata." "We will be stopping at Shin-Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto... (MICHAEL) It's time to leave Tokyo and Mayumi, and head south on the bullet train, accelerating fast until we're lapping the Tokyo suburbs at 2.5 miles a minute." "The train will take us down to the island of Kyushu from which there's a ferry for Korea." "But we're almost 200 miles out of Tokyo before the urban sprawl gives way to something like open countryside." "We break the journey to look at a way of life which modern Japan has hardly touched." "This is the Zen Buddhist temple at Buttsuji." "It's been a place of silence and meditation for 600 years." "The immaculate grounds reflect the love of precision, order and formality which lie at the heart of Japanese culture." "Seeing these spartan surroundings makes me aware of how much clutter I carry." "By the time I've climbed yet more stairs, I'm ready to renounce all worldly goods - beginning with my suitcase." "Later that afternoon I'm summoned to meet the abbot - the Roshi." "As I wait, I find my mind full of ignoble distractions, like "Do they have chairs?"" " Welcome to Buttsuji." " Thank you for letting me come." "I am abbot of Buttsuji." "My name is Sokun." "Please call me Sokun." "Sokun." "I will indeed." "I know I'm only here for a very short time, but I hope I'll learn something." "Is it possible to say in a few words what the difference is between the Zen Buddhism that you practise here and more traditional Buddhism?" "Yes." "We mainly practise zazen" " Zen meditation." "And..." "Not only by learning from books, but also practising with our whole body - with body and mind." "(S0KUN) And with the unity of body and mind, we can attain our true nature." "And from the morning till night - for 24 hours - each moment is the practice." "(MICHAEL) The most important part is meditation - to which I have been invited." "It takes place in an old wood-beamed hall - the zendo." "The monks live here." "Each one has a tatami mat three and a half feet wide and seven feet long." "And that's about all." "It's rather like the first day at school, watching everyone else and hoping not to make some terrible gaffe." "When we're all sitting comfortably..." "nothing happens." "0nce I've accepted that nothing is going to happen, calm descends." "All I have to do is be." "(HIGH-PITCHED NOTE LINGERS)" "After what seems hours, a bell indicates a break, in which tired limbs can be rearranged before the next session." "(BELL RINGS)" "Then, as calm is descending for a second time, something finally happens." "Just as I'm wondering what it must be like, I'm offered the chance to find out." "He can't do enough to make me comfortable." "And in the true spirit of Zen, I thank him." "I learn afterwards that this is the keisaku - the warning stick." "A means of ensuring that meditation does not become an excuse for a quick nap." "(S0KUN) You know, the monks should sit for over 15 hours a day when we practise the big session." "As I am only here for one night, what will I be able to learn in that time, do you think?" "You?" "But that is your problem." "You must not ask me." "Oh, well." "Interviewing never was a Zen activity." "(SOFT CHANTING AND BELLS)" "The spirit of the past haunts Japanese life in the most surprising ways." "(JOLLY PIPE-ORGAN MUSIC)" "For 200 years, Japan hid away from the world and the Dutch were the only people allowed to trade with them." "It isn't a dream, you know." "You might think it's a dream - I almost did - but, in fact, it is reality." "Well, it's not actually reality." "It's a fake." "You see, I'm in Holland... but I'm also in Japan." "It's all very Zen." "To celebrate this Dutch connection, a Nagasaki businessman has raised $2.5 billion to recreate 17th-century Holland on the shores of the East China Sea." "Most historic Dutch buildings, including the Royal Palace, are faithfully reproduced." "But thanks to Japanese technology, the canals are self-cleaning and the merchants' houses are earthquake-proof." "(MOURNFUL BRASS BAND PLAYS)" "Four million Japanese come here every year to see what life in Europe is really like." "This theme park with clogs on has become Japan's favourite honeymoon destination." "This celebration of historic links with the foreigner seems to me to be the fantasy of a country ill at ease with the rest of the world." "99% of all Japanese were born and still live in Japan - a country with no minorities of any size." "The village is a success because it enables the Japanese to be part of the wider world without ever having to leave home." "The wider world has always come to Japan through Nagasaki." "First the Dutch came here, then the British and Americans set up Japan's first railways, coal mines and shipyards here and, in 1945, the biggest bomb the world had ever known was dropped here." "At 11 o'clock on a Wednesday morning, the equivalent of 22,000 tons of TNT exploded above this spot." "More people were killed in this one blast than were killed in all the bombing raids on Britain in the Second World War." "More than 50 years later, the Japanese make a point of not forgetting." "School parties lay streamers made up of paper birds - a token of respect for the dead." "They sing songs of peace a few hundred yards from all that remains of a Catholic cathedral that lay directly in the path of the world's second atomic bomb." "(CHILDREN SING)" "The bomb that wiped out a third of Nagasaki was intended for the Mitsubishi shipyard." "Mitsubishi survived and, with American aid, became the world's number one." "But as the Japanese learnt from others, so others learnt from them." "Across the water lies my next destination - the country whose shipbuilders beat the Japanese at their own game." "We're just about to leave Hakata port in Japan for the ferry trip to Korea - another country." "I feel all those things you feel about travel - a bit harassed with getting bags on and off and tickets, but also curiosity about the country we're going to see." "Though Japan and South Korea are a ferry ride from each other, they've never been happy neighbours." "Tomorrow I shall arrive in Pusan." "As I travel north to Seoul, I hope to find out more about this tiny country wedged in between Japan and China - our next destination." "As we approach the land of the morning calm," "I look out for images of Korean-ness." "But the busy waterfront could be any modern city and the concrete apartment blocks stare blankly back." "The capital, Seoul, 300 miles north - a new city ballooning out over the countryside from which it has sucked in 11 million inhabitants." "These office blocks belong to the family conglomerates, which have guided Korea through one of the world's fastest industrial revolutions." "In the short space of 20 years," "Samsung, Daewoo, Hyundai and others have won this old country new recognition." "I walk through one of Seoul's markets in the company of a young journalist, Shin-Na." "What do the Koreans think?" "Are they proud of what they've done in Seoul?" "Yeah, they are proud." "They just got out of a war 20 years ago." "Who do they measure themselves against?" "They always measure themselves against Japan because Japan was also levelled by war and they rose to become a great economic power." " So the Koreans look to their neighbours." " Do they still harbour a grudge?" "Yeah." "There is still anti-Japanese sentiment, especially among older Koreans." "Japanese pop culture - music, cartoons, things like that - are still banned in Korea and Japanese cars are banned." "This anti-Japanese feeling is a surprise until you read the history." "Early this century, the Japanese occupied Korea for 36 years - pretty ruthlessly." "The Koreans are determined to get their own back by winning the economic war." "But Korean single-mindedness is showing cracks, especially among the young." "Hanging here are photos of the victims of a massacre of 200 students in 1981, which has since traumatised Korean politics." "There is outrage that the generals responsible for it have been granted immunity from prosecution." "(STIRRING SONG)" "Police are deployed in anticipation of a march which might well end in a riot." "Multiparty democracy in Korea is less than ten years old and a very demanding child." "Shin explains that these confrontations are increasingly common." "Protesters and police know each other's tactics." "But the cars are doing U-turns, and to an outsider it looks pretty threatening, as students and union leaders take to the streets." " How many do you reckon here?" " Several thousand." "Several thousand." "Shouting what?" "What are they shouting?" "The shouts of "Massacre the massacrers" are directed against the generals involved, but there's also anger at a much wider corruption in public life." "This particular march was not in vain." "A few months later, the generals were arrested, tried and imprisoned." "Next morning, Shin and I are doing our best to cross the city." "We've been invited to a wedding." "In the South Seoul Marriage Hall, every wedding-day worry is taken out of your hands by an expert staff." "Everything is for hire, except the guests and the person you marry." "Brides can be dressed, decorated and delivered to the altar in rented loveliness within the hour." "Shin tells me that one in four Koreans is a practising Christian." "The ceremony is a mixture of Western religious ritual and Korean business opportunism." "First, the Korean opportunism." "This is traditional." "Everyone gives some dosh at the beginning." " Is this instead of a wedding present?" " Yes." "Or in addition to." " This is to help them pay for the wedding." " Thank you very much." "The proud parents - the women in traditional dress and the men dressed as band leaders." "Their daughter is prepared for the 2. 15 ceremony in the number two wedding salon." "(PIANO PLAYS "HERE COMES THE BRIDE")" "This family has opted for the simple piano, knowing that the money saved can be spent on something more spectacular." "Everyone is a bit misty-eyed by now and the in-house video is there to record it." "0utside the salon, the atmosphere is less sentimental." "As the men of the family count the takings, the bride is prepared for one last photo opportunity." "This is all that's left of the way they used to get married." "The happy couple are immortalised by sophisticated camera equipment in front of Korea's rented past." "This is the real thing - the Pulguksa Temple, known officially as "historic site and scenic beauty number one"." "In a place like this, you begin to get a clearer sense of what defines the Koreans." "They have a history 5,000 years old." "It's different from anyone else's and they're proud of it." "Despite constant invasions, they've kept their own language, alphabet and architecture." "Pulguksa stood for a thousand years before being destroyed by Japanese invaders in the 17th century." "It's now restored, and after days among the concrete canyons of Seoul, its colour and craftsmanship is like a breath of fresh air." "Today, we shall encounter our first serious obstacle to progress around the Pacific Rim." "It's called North Korea, and no matter how nicely you ask, North Korea is not interested in seeing you." "There is only one way to approach it." "This is the start of a tour into one of the most militarised borders on earth, so special restrictions do prevail." "First, I have to sign a visitor's declaration which says, "the visit will entail entry into a hostile area" ""and possibility of injury or death as a result of enemy action..." ""Although incidents are not anticipated," ""the United Nations, the USA and the Republic of Korea" ""cannot guarantee the safety of visitors and may not be held accountable."" "So I just have to sign this, let them off the hook, and we can go on with the tour." ""In front of them all" is the motto of the 506th Infantry - some of the 37,000 American troops still stationed in Korea." "The war they fight now is a propaganda war." "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Freedom House." "Today's Gls double as guides, taking foreign tourists - no South Koreans are allowed - right up to the border itself and right back in time." "Here, the cold war is still frozen solid." "0ut there is the enemy." "You are still under close observation, so refrain from any hand and arm gestures." "In front is the North Korean administrative building." "It was built on a man-made hill to ensure its dimensions are one metre higher and wider than this." "We're in a world of minefields and tank traps," "B-52 bombers, attack helicopters and quick-reaction forces - ready for combat in 90 seconds flat." "Momentarily, we'll be going in the vicinity of the MAC building." "From the way they talk, you'd think the Korean war had ended yesterday." "In fact, it's never officially ended." "In this hut, actually built over the border itself," "MAC - the Military Armistice Commission - has been trying to turn a ceasefire into a peace for 43 years." "Welcome to the MAC building where the meetings essential to the supervision of the ceasefire are held." "All the meetings last three to four hours - one lasted 11." "Everything is translated into three languages - English, Korean, Chinese." "Beneath all the military-speak, the fact remains that these are the world's least successful peace talks." "Most of the time seems to have been spent discussing the placing of microphones." "Ours is on a two-tier base, theirs on three." "They're both equal in height." "But the only thing that matters is the line running down the middle of the hut, and that's not budged an inch." "Those on my left, welcome to Communist North Korea." "Those to my right are safe in the Republic." "If you wish to cross into North Korea, please do so at that end of the table." "If you have any questions, I'll be located to the southern end of the door." "It's a bit busy in North Korea." "I'll try and get round." "I've been around a bit but I've never known a more bizarre way to enter a new country." "It's very..." "Crossing the frontier is halfway between a parlour game and a visit to the house of horrors." "Nearly there." "Inches to go." "North Korea." "It's a chance for all of us from the lands of the free to experience a frisson of Communism, a hint of what might have been, a whiff of the old enemy." "As the tour rolls remorselessly on, my spirits remorselessly sink." "No one seems to care if nothing happens here." "The military get training, the South Koreans get their border watched, and those like me, who believe in human contact, get depressed." "It's a place deserted by common sense." "When we are allowed a view of North Korea, the village we see is just another piece of propaganda - no one lives there." "This is the end of the road." "We can't go any further into Korea without the risk of being shot or arrested." "It comes as a bit of a shock to find such a heavily fortified, potentially lethal border in the middle of the open Pacific Rim area, but I suppose the immeasurable sadness of a place like this is that it's not a border between two rival countries." "It's a border that separates one country..." "from itself." "(PIPED BUGLE CALL)" "As the flags come down, so do our chances of passing unhampered around the Pacific Rim." "North Korea may be a brick wall, but it's not one on which I shall bang my head." "I'll leave that to somebody else." "I've got to get to China." "There it is - the coast of China." "The big one." "Probably the most important and significant of all the countries of the Pacific Rim, and yet the one that's least understood." "But we've got to try and understand it because if forecasts are right, within the next 25 years, China is going to have the most powerful economy in the world." "Yet I still have that feeling - partly because of its recent history - of apprehension about travelling in China, a vague whiff of difficulty." "But I'm also deeply fascinated and looking forward to getting there." "Slipping into China through Qingdao is like coming in through the back door." "If you've taken the overnight ferry from Korea, this is where you will first set foot in a country that is home to one quarter of the world's population." "The first surprise is how big the place is." "Qingdao has grown from a seaside resort to a city the size of London in just 20 years." "And there are no signs of it stopping there." "The second surprise is the Welcome Guest House, which turns out to be a Bavarian castle." "It was built for the governor 90 years ago when Qingdao was a German colony." "The spirit of Wagner lingers in the woodwork and the Chinese seem to rather like it." "Communist leaders were especially keen, if the wall plaques are anything to go by." "When Mao Tse-tung went to the seaside, this is where he came, and this is the room he stayed in." "It's just this, is it?" "Thank you very much." "Xie xie." "Xie xie." "A little anteroom for drinking tea and planning revolutions." "And through here another little room leading to another... huge room!" "The state bathroom." "This is wonderful." "A mixture of simple socialist taste and German baroque results in a very small loo." "The old colonial town has survived remarkably unscathed." "Maybe because the party leaders liked it so much." "Modern China has been grafted onto Germany without anybody really noticing." "As soon as I've unpacked, I take a walk to get my first feel of life on Chinese streets." "Looks interesting." "Blood donors, organ donors." "The sign doesn't help much, but the sign language tells me that "mass massage" is on offer." "(SPEAKS CHINESE)" "Every single masseur turns out to be blind." "Yeah?" "Shall I take my coat off?" "Do you speak any English?" "Do you speak any English?" "Well, communication isn't really necessary." "Does it through the fingers." "It's getting slightly stronger all the time." "Pressure's like... having a wall collapse on you." "That's nice." "That's better." "(VOICE WARBLES)" "He'll turn me out on the street in a minute." "Public massage is clearly not unusual in China and I come away converted." "Walking on air." "Walking on air." "Really..." "It's a tough massage." "A few bones broken, but I feel wonderful." "The Chinese seaside seems just like the British seaside - lots of people in thick coats walking round very cold water." "There are the same school parties and the same loonies... sorry, health freaks." "There are the same keep-fit fanatics and the same sun-worshippers." "Being photographed seems to be a passion and one that an old ham like myself can hardly resist." "It gives me a sense of belonging, as if I've become an honorary Chinese on my first day." "That's good." "You like those?" "They're good?" "Yeah." "Very nice." "Back at the guest house, there is only one possible book at bedtime." ""Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung."" "Suitable reading for the man who once slept here." ""The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system." ""This is an objective law, independent of man's will." ""However much the reactionaries try to hold back history," ""sooner or later revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph."" "It's a dream, really." "0utside the city is something never envisaged in Mao's little red book - a vineyard producing Chinese Chardonnay." "It was started 12 years ago by a pioneering Englishman who went bust and died at the age of 43." "Parry's grave overlooks slopes where supply can now barely keep pace with demand." " Do the Chinese like wine now?" " Oh, yes." "Very much." "Wu Lizhu is the chief winemaker at the Hua Dong vineyard." "Because production is getting bigger and bigger." "Michael Parry's unfulfilled dream has been realised as a joint-venture project between the Chinese and a British company." "Hua Dong is being modernised, but the labels still go on by hand and some of the departments remain defiantly labour-intensive." "In the end, it's all a matter of taste." " The magic moment." " Let's start with Riesling." "0n an afternoon when we didn't need to chill the wines," "Wu Lizhu poured me some of his favourites." "It's a nice colour." "Yup." "Pale and..." "Chinese Riesling here we go." "Yup." "Kind of appley." "Yeah." "Appley." "Like green apple." " Shall we break the ice?" " Taste it." "Mmm." "That's smashing." "Nice, isn't it?" " Well, that's good." " Shall we change to Chardonnay?" "I could do with a few more glasses, but China awaits." "There's a lot of the country still to go." "We've come inland now from Qingdao on the coast to Taishan," "China's most sacred mountain." "It's considered to your spiritual advantage to climb it, which I intend to do." "Thoughtfully they've put some steps up the mountain - 6,293 of them." "So I'd better get started." "The Chinese believe that if you can climb the Exalted Mountain, you'll live to be 100." "Pension-fund managers would be impressed by the turnout." "Good for you, though, isn't it?" "It's a good thing to climb." "Once you get to the top... the gods will look after you for a few years till you come again." "The stamina of the pilgrims is impressive." "Taishan Mountain is 5,000 feet high." "Well before the top, we're amongst snow." "I've lost count now but I think it's about 200..." "About one..." ""Is this travel or work?" I was asked." "To travel and work." "To see the country." " To see the country." " As much of the country as possible." "Today Taishan, tomorrow the world." "Race you to the top?" "The only people who take it in their stride are porters carrying the heaviest weights." "Taishan Mountain has great meaning for all Chinese." "Taoists believe life begins where the sun rises, so this - the most easterly mountain in China - is the most sacred." "Even Chairman Mao struggled up here." "At last, after two and a half hours, I reach the Southern Gate of Heaven." "0nce through the august portals, relief is short-lived." "Not only is the temperature well below zero, but the real heaven is another half-mile away up another hundred steps." "Then there's Immortalisation Archway to pass through and you're there." "Time to pay respects to the greatest deity on the mountain - the Princess of the Temple of the Azure Cloud." "Thank you very much." "Very nice mountain." "From the sacred mountains of Taishan to the fleshpots of Shanghai is a journey of 550 miles." "For a Communist country, China's trains have always been class-conscious." "Now the difference between hard and soft class seems to be widening." "Hello." "Taking pictures of Chinese eating breakfast?" "In today's China, wealth, it seems, can be flaunted without risk." "As Deng Xiaoping himself said, "To be rich is glorious."" " Rice?" " No, it's not rice." "I'm invited to eat with a businessman who honed his skills in Canada and is now one of Shanghai's many new entrepreneurs." "I was here eight years ago and it seems to be changing a lot." "Do you find it's changed?" "For the last ten years, it's changed a lot, mostly in the major cities and especially around the coast and on the Hong Kong border." "Shenzhen is the city changed the most." "Shanghai has been changing a lot." "Are there problems running a business in China that you wouldn't have elsewhere?" "Over here there are problems." "People are not used to the way we're running things." "They've been working in the Communist kind of way for the last 40 years." "But they're learning." "(CHINESE SONG ON RADIO)" "It's eight years since I was last on a Chinese train and they have changed." "The in-train entertainment system now carries adverts." "There was one for liquor and one for insurance." "The buffet I had for breakfast this morning." "Very international." "The uniforms." "The look of the train." "It's all much more up to date." "It's almost more Western." "I just remember it used to be a bit livelier, a bit less predictable." "I wonder if this is just one face of modern China." "See?" "More advertising." "In exactly the right place." "We're sucked into Shanghai by mile after mile of new apartment blocks." "They're being built for the millions of Chinese who Chairman Mao once exhorted to work the countryside." "They're now urged by his successors to seek their fortune in the city." "0utside the station, I step into a great stew of cars, crowds and commerce." "0verwhelming but exciting." "Next morning I'm out on the streets because the authorities won't let us interview people in their houses." "So not everything has changed." "The number of bicycles in Shanghai provides a collective security - it's the cyclist who's boss, not the car - but I wonder for how long." "I'm told that beside these old alleys where Chinese Communism was born, there is now a branch of Harvey Nichols." "And it's true." "London, New York and Paris are all represented here." "Even Savile Row has come to Shanghai." " Hello." " Hello." "It's quite a surprise to find Gieves  Hawkes here." "It's a long way from home." "Let's have a look." "Ah, there's a sale." " Can I try this on?" " You can try it, sir, yeah." "I never get the chance to go to Gieves  Hawkes in London." " Mirror." " Thank you." "Not quite." "I don't think it's quite me." "It should be longer and wider and I could have it as a dressing gown." " How much is that?" " 440." "440?" "For only 440 quid you can look like a complete prat." "Let's have a look at the blazers." "They're not in the sale." "How much is it?" " That's £750." " £750." "Yes." "Is it really only 20 years since the whole country wore Chairman Mao jackets?" "Better?" "That's better, isn't it?" "That's more like it." "Lovely." "Oh..." "Sorry, I've just noticed." " But you can look only..." " Exactly." "Just shoot me from up here, Nigel." "Do you sell bicycle clips?" "That's what I really need - some monogrammed bicycle clips." "Alongside luxury tailors, luxury cars are beginning to appear." "At this speed of change, I wonder how long Shanghai's bicycle-repair men will survive." "(MICHAEL) Good." "That's fine." "Thank you." "That enough?" "Really?" "You don't want that?" "Bargain." "Xie xie." "Nice to do business with you." "Just as you start thinking you understand China, you come across something like this." "(GENTLE WALTZ PLAYS)" "Something you can't imagine happening on 0xford Street or Fifth Avenue." "The Chinese love ballroom dancing and they'll do it anywhere." "And anyone can join in." "You don't have to be Fred Astaire." "It's all coming back to me now." "I gave all this up for rock and roll." "I only had two lessons." "You don't need to speak the same language." "You just have to be dressed properly." "It's all right." "Yes." "Thank you." "Thank you." "Good morning!" "You are all from London or Cambridge or Oxford?" " Well, he's from Bristol, Ealing..." " (CAMERAMAN) All those places." "If I want to get to the Bund, which direction do I go?" " Go eastward, then you can get to the Bund." " Where did you learn to speak English?" "I'm a St John's graduate." "St John's was sponsored by the Americans." "This was before the Liberation War." "(MICHAEL) During the time we call the Cultural Revolution, what were you doing here?" "I'm very sorry." "I am graduate from St John's and that would be very troublesome." " To talk about it?" " Yes." "So 20 years ago, you would not have been allowed to talk to me?" "Sure." "If I talk to you, I am something wrong." "I must be a rebel..." "What is it called?" "Yes." "Something would be wrong." "Yes." "OK." "But it's different now, is it?" "There's a couple of chaps in police uniforms looking a bit uncertain." "But nowadays that don't matter." "They can't interfere." "We can talk freely." "I feel my new friend is someone I still shouldn't be talking to." "I make a quick exit and follow his directions to the Huangpu river." "This area behind me is the Bund, which is the old 1920s and '30s financial and economic heart of Shanghai." "Even eight years ago, this was still the centre." "But in the last five years, a truly staggering construction project has changed all that, and the new face of Shanghai is going to be here on what was... (SHIP'S HORN)" " Thank you." " (SHIP'S HORN)" "Shouldn't have had the prunes!" "I was trying to say that this is the new economic zone of Pudong." "It's awesome evidence of China's open-door policy." "Tower blocks, built at the rate of one floor every three days, will house a stock exchange, banks - all the heavy artillery of capitalism." "It may be capitalism without democracy, but there is surely no going back to the stern certainties of old-style Communism." "This is the gaudy face of a country that has seen 10% growth every year for the last ten years, and wants more." "Later that night, I catch the midnight express out of Shanghai." " Is it always full?" " Yes, it is." "It's always like this." " People have to book ahead for these?" " Oh, yeah." "How many people?" "Thousands on these trains, I suppose?" "Yeah." "You've never seen the hard seats." "If you see that... fully packed." "That's further down." "They sleep on the hard seats for days?" "How long would a train like this take to get down south to Beijing, say?" "It would take probably three days." "Hard class haven't got beds." "But we have." "0ur destination is Vietnam, but we're taking an inland route - travelling due west and following the Yangtze River into the heart of China." "It's the third longest river in the world - a fraction shorter than the Amazon and the Nile." "Upstream from the city of Yichang, it enters a series of gorges which cut through mountains so impassable that the river is still the only way through." "The Yangtze is a dangerous river." "Attempts have been made to control its mighty, unpredictable flow." "The lock at Gezhou is one of them." "Before it was built, boats battled through rapids, whirlpools and fierce currents." "This massive lock we're ascending actually raises the water level about 100 feet." "And it's here because the Yangtze's already been dammed at this point." "If the Three Gorges Project goes through - this massive damming project which the government insists will go through by 2009 - then there'll be many more locks for people to navigate as they go up the Yangtze." "This is pretty spectacular." "0nce through the lock, we enter Xiling - the first of the three great Yangtze gorges." "This was once the most treacherous stretch of the river." "Massive rocks claimed dozens of ships and thousands of lives." "The busy river sweeps by between limestone formations to which the Chinese have given names like Yellow Cat Gorge," "Lantern Shadow Gorge and 0x Liver and Horse Lungs Gorge." "Then suddenly the landscape changes." "Changes utterly." "From the middle of the countryside rises the biggest construction site in the world." "0ver the next 15 years, a gigantic wall - 600 feet high and one and a quarter miles long - will rise from these foundations." "It will cost $20 billion." "This is currently the most important and probably the most controversial point on the Yangtze River." "You can see the workings for the Three Gorges Dam which will extend to the other side of the river here." "So everything from here on that we're going to see will in 16 or 17 years' time be totally underwater." "The homes of over a million people will disappear beneath a lake 370 miles long." "The project promises safe navigation, cheap electricity and an end to devastating floods." "The cost will be the loss of all this." "The man-made scenery of the Yangtze is spectacularly grim." "Ancient power stations belch fumes." "A permanent smell of sulphur hangs in the air." "These towns look doomed." "Why change anything when, in a few years, all this will be engulfed?" "Coal is flung down the mountainside - some of it sliding into barges, the rest settling over the city like a great black shroud." "We pass through Witch's Gorge and into Szechuan province." "There could hardly be a greater contrast with the world we've left behind - the glittering promise of Shanghai and the Three Gorges Dam." "This is old China, where machines are few and human effort plentiful and cheap." "Men and women form a conveyor belt to the coal barges." "We decide to stop here and look at the town." "It's called Wushan." "A small hard-working place of few luxuries." "Life on main street reflects basic needs - food and warmth for the coming winter." "For some reason, Wushan is full of hairdressers." "I decide to treat myself." "Can you do one of those like you were doing to him?" "And a wash and..." "No haircut because I think that's OK." "How do you do?" "Thank you." "This is a monk's hair wash." "They just do the bit in the middle." "Thank you." "They obviously work in relays here." "One lady lathers the hair very thoroughly and now this girl here applies the massage, which is very nice." "I'm not sure what's going to happen next!" "I'll leave them to it." "I don't think this happens often in Wushan, judging by the audience!" "They don't really see any Westerners at all." "The other sad thing... is that in seven years, this high street will be completely dead." "It'll be evacuated." "And a couple of years after that - about ten years from now - it'll be underwater." "Every porter in town has turned out to help us leave." "It's a fixed fee - the fewer the porters, the more money they share." "So each man fights to carry more." "Believe it or not, these are the lucky ones." "I try to be helpful but all I'm doing is depriving someone of a job." "Separated from the rest of China by mountains," "Szechuan is home to one hundred million people." "For many, the Yangtze is not only the lifeblood, but the great highway." "The hard-worked river boats sustain a whole range of ancillary services." "As departure draws closer, the pace in the kitchen rises from merely manic to hysterical." "Chinese takeaway is given a whole new meaning." "Those of us not enjoying a Chinese throwaway eat in the more sophisticated surroundings of the first-class dining room." "We're deep inside China now and I'm aware, not uncomfortably, that we're the only non-Chinese on the boat." "After three days and two nights on board ship, we've..." " (SHIP'S HORN)" " Thank you!" "We've negotiated..." "Shut up!" "We've negotiated our way down the Yangtze gorges to the town of Chongqing here." "It's about 1,500 miles from the mouth of the Yangtze in Shanghai and here the Yangtze River meanders off for another 2,500 miles to the Tibetan border." "We have to try and head south towards the Vietnamese border and try and get a train across to Hanoi." "The last we heard was that there wasn't a train across the border to Hanoi and also that there was, so we'll just have to see for ourselves." "This might have been the easy bit." "At first sight, Chongqing looks as romantic as all the other cities of the Yangtze." "The difference is its size." "Chongqing is the biggest city in China." "It may soon be the biggest city in the world." "16 million people live in and around this mini Manhattan." "It's famous for its fog." "In the morning, I set out for a lunch date." "Steps climb steeply from the river." "50 years ago, the entire water supply for the city was carried up here by an army of 20,000 porters." "So if you choose a local speciality?" "Waiting for me at the meat market is Miss Liu - a 23-year-old graduate from Chongqing University." "She's one of a new generation of Chinese who can barely remember hard-line Communism and the Cultural Revolution." "So the meat that's hanging up here, that is the menu?" " That's where the food comes from?" " Yeah." " What's this we're starting with?" " I think this is the steamed meat." " Steamed meat?" " Pork." " Pork meat." " Have a try." "Try a bit of steamed pork." " How about it?" " I knew it was good before I ate it." "We've come into China through Korea and we spent some time in Shanghai." "Does it worry you that as people get richer, they get more selfish?" "Less community-minded?" "Mao's idea was that China should be built on the peasantry who shared everything." "Now everyone's getting rich." "They have their mobile phones." "Is it a change for the worse?" "I think so, to some extent." "Because..." "I've heard that before the Cultural Revolution in China, people lived more closely to each other." "They talked to each other very friendly, but nowadays I don't think so." "Do you have an image of life in Great Britain?" "Like London, where I come from." "Someone said they were very preserved." " Reserved, yes." " Reserved." "Preserved is perhaps more true than you think!" "Is it true?" "And also the..." "Especially for the men, they are gentlemanlike." "They have good manners." "I think if I had the chance I would go to Britain to see what's the difference in the real Britain and the Britain in my mind." "You be careful of the men." "They're not all preserved." "(BELLS AND CYMBALS)" "Not the local football supporters, but retired people exercising in the socialist manner." "Red sashes are sported to remind Miss Liu's generation of their revolutionary heritage." "Time to leave Chongqing." " (PATRIOTIC MUSIC PLAYS)" " The Chinese take their railways seriously." "Complete with its own martial music, the 9.30 for Guiyang pulls out dead on time." "South of Chongqing now." "Still running beside the Yangtze." "For about another half-hour or so it's still the main artery of China." "An hour out of Chongqing, as we part company with the Yangtze," "I asked the driver what he thinks of the Spice Girls." "We're travelling south, away from the mists of the gorges into a world of green paddy fields and a rich, reviving, subtropical sunshine." "The railway slices across a high limestone plateau and into Guizhou province." "Its construction 30 years ago was vital in opening up this remote region." "But even so, Guizhou remained closed to foreigners until the 1980s." "Guizhou is far from big cities and centres of control." "These mountains have provided a refuge for some of the oldest tribes in China." "My guide, Sheng Wan - or Priscilla as she prefers me to call her - is taking me to a market deep in the mountains." "This is where the Miao people live." "The Miao form an ethnic minority of some five million." "They've more in common with the mountain people of Laos, Vietnam and Burma than they do with the Chinese." "During the Cultural Revolution, they had to conform." "Now they're free to live the way they want, but they remain very poor." "(MICHAEL) Would you buy things from this market?" "Would you buy food here?" "Is it safe?" "Yes, it's safe." "Yeah?" "It just looks kind of basic." "Meat laid out on the open tables." " Do you want to try some?" " I've suddenly lost my..." "I love these." "Do the women wear this all the time, this national dress?" "Yes." "And they wear even more beautiful on holiday, on festival days." " This is what they normally wear?" " Yes." "Normally wearing." "These days the Miao are encouraged to celebrate their own culture." "The Chinese have set up a Minorities Ministry to make sure they do." "The Miao love festivals." "They were originally for the young to find partners." "A get-together could lead to a knees-up which could lead to a get-together and a whole new generation of musicians." "Driven out of the rich plains by the Chinese, the Miao have had to make a living from a magnificent landscape but very poor soil." "The methods haven't changed in hundreds of years." "Machinery is almost unknown." "Their tractors are water buffalo and their seed drills are women and children." "There are no roads." "To get to the village we have to walk through the paddy fields." "There are few places in the world as untouched." "We're probably the first foreigners they've ever seen." "Hello." " Do they speak Chinese or Miao?" " Only Miao." "(SPEAKS CHINESE)" "Only can understand some Mandarin." "Unlike many others in China, the Miao are open, friendly and curious." "I asked Priscilla if we can see in the house." " (PRISCILLA) Yes." " We can have a look in." "(MICHAEL) Let's go in, shall we?" "Barging in while you're having your lunch." "Is this?" "Do they have a big meal in the middle of the day and go back to work?" "(SPEAKS CHINESE)" "Yes, yes." "Can you ask them have they ever seen foreigners before?" "People from the West?" " (PRISCILLA) No." " What do we look like to them?" " Quite different." "Quite strange." " How?" "Why?" " Oh." "With big nose, they say." " Big noses?" " Westerners have a big nose." " That's just me, not everybody!" "Two weeks after entering the Yangtze gorges, we're out of the mountains and rushing across the plains towards the Vietnam border." "Well, almost to the border." "It turns out there is no rail connection to Hanoi." "We must leave our train and carry on by bus." "We're set down hours later at a grand, strangely deserted frontier." "This is Friendship Gate in Pinxiang and it marks the end of China and the frontier with Vietnam, which I hope to cross soon." "This is not an orthodox way of leaving China." "In 1979, the Chinese and the Vietnamese went to war and the border was sealed." "It's now open again but there aren't many people here." "I hope there's someone to see my passport." "Sadly, it's goodbye to China and "Hello, Vietnam."" "We've arrived in the People's Republic of Vietnam at a time of great change." "Ho Chi Minh, father of the country, is a memory." "Don't want to make them too wide, Charles." "Vietnam is rejoining the world." "Hanoi has sprouted hotels, mobile phones," "English-language newspapers and cricket." "English ex-pats v Indian ex-pats." "I'm asked to watch the game and spin the coin." "Heads." " And it's tails." "There we go." " Well, I think we'll bat." "It's a chance to find out more about the policy of "Doi-Moi" - new thinking." "But old thinking reasserts itself as our cameras are ordered off." "0ur still photographer keeps going." "They're not interested in cricket." "They're interested in us." "England have to cope with fierce Indian bowling and a Vietnamese military build-up." "The officer-in-charge calls for reinforcements." "International diplomacy is brought to bear." "The British embassy is informed." "India House is put on red alert." "The Pentagon will call us back." "The Vietnamese arrive in force." "We retreat." "The only pitch where they can play in Hanoi is actually on land owned by the Vietnamese air force, and filming the cricket match was deemed to be a threat to national security." "The Vietnamese do not look warlike, yet they've fought like tigers for the last 50 years, against the French, the Americans and their allies and the Chinese." "Now they can live the way they want to." "Banners proclaim the message of socialism, but shops proclaim the message of the market." "In the Vietnam War, this prison - where Americans were interrogated - was known mockingly as the Hanoi Hilton." "Now it's part of a property development on which a real Hanoi Hilton may one day rise." "Where Americans were once tortured, they will one day come to be pampered." "Despite the changes, an air of wartime austerity still hangs over Hanoi." "The railway station undoubtedly smacks of a more "comradely" era." "Which way to the train for Saigon?" "This way?" "You don't want it?" "OK." "(VIETNAMESE ANNOUNCEMENT)" "I'm leaving on the Reunification Express southbound for Ho Chi Minh City, which most of those who live there still know as Saigon." "Its average speed for the distance is 25 miles an hour, so there's no rush." "The Vietnamese coast curls along the South China Sea." "The railway follows it for 1,250 miles on the long haul from Hanoi to Saigon - from where, God willing, I shall strike east to the islands of the Philippines and Borneo." "(SOFT, SLOW MUSIC)" "At mid-morning next day, various delicacies are prepared." "Pork is unwrapped from banana leaves." "There are prawn fritters and raw vegetables and something in a bucket." "We're crossing the Ben Hai River - the border of the old demilitarised zone." "We're now in what I grew up calling South Vietnam." "The scars of war have been covered by this fertile landscape, but the highway is still woefully inadequate for a country that hopes to become a Pacific tiger." "This railway - the main link between north and south - is still only single track." "(TRAIN ANNOUNCEMENT)" "400 miles south of Hanoi we pull into the city of Hue." "Tourists are welcome in Vietnam, but fare dodgers are definitely not." "The old imperial city lies on the Perfume River." "0ne of the fiercest battles of the war took place here and the central span of this bridge was bombed." "Today it's busy all day long, as is every other thoroughfare in this crowded land." "If you want some peace, try the Forbidden Purple City - seat of the emperors." "What happened to the royal family?" "Are there any of them still alive?" "Actually, no." "Our last emperor, he's still alive in France now." "He's about 83 years old." "And does anyone in Vietnam want him back to rule the country?" "I don't think so." "According to my opinion, I think he is only now, in our mind, he is the king of the past." " King of the past." " Yes." " This is good." " Here is the bell." "Made at the time of the second king, Minh Mang." "Miss Hong explains that this was the religious and cultural centre of all Vietnam." "But as we move through to the heart of the temple, I'm in for a shock." "Now we are at the centre of the Forbidden Purple City." "The royal family used to live inside here." "There's nothing here at all." "It's all gone." "The French started the destruction and the Americans finished it." "It's as if the Forbidden Purple City had sprouted wings and flown away." "The Perfume River is Hue." "People drink it, wash in it, fish in it and live on it." "I've hired a sampan to take me out on it." "Progress is picturesque but pretty slow." "It's not as easy as it looks, is it?" "That's difficult." "Difficult for someone to understand all the turning." "You can start the engine now if you want." "Start the engine now." "No, seriously." "You can now start the engine." "Director says, "Start engine now!"" "What do I have to say?" " Where is the engine?" " In here." " Can you start it now?" " Yes." " Now?" " Now?" "Yeah." "Right." " In here there's a motor." " Yes." " I'll go here and you start it." " Now?" "(ENGINE CHUGS)" "0nce we're underway, there are no problems." "That is, until we have to stop." "Can we turn the engine off?" " Kill engine." "Stop engine now." " Yes." "OK." "No..." "Good." "Stop engine." "Yes?" "Stop it now." "OK?" "I can't do this." "Er..." "Will you stop engine now?" " Yeah." " I'll move this." " Here?" " Yeah." "That's right." "Move this." "Yeah." "That's it." "Can you turn it off?" "My destination is the Thien Mu Pagoda that has stood here for 400 years." "But in the Buddhist monastery next door, I discover something newer and infinitely more macabre." "This is probably the most famous Austin car in the world today because it was in this car that a monk from this monastery was driven to Saigon in 1963, and he set alight to himself in protest at the way Buddhists were treated at the time." "A world-famous photograph was taken of the monk and in the back of the photograph there is a picture of this very car." "It's weird to see it here, a photo that one knows so well." "It's strange because my father had a car exactly like this - same colour, same make." "I went to school in a car like this." "Next morning the heavens open in style." "80 days away from the Arctic Circle, we're in monsoon country." "Today we continue our journey on the next Reunification Express southbound." "When the French were booted out in 1954, they didn't leave much behind, but they did leave a railway, and their word for railway station - "gare" - has survived." "The train slows as it toils up from the narrow plain to Hai Van - the Pass of the 0cean Clouds." "The mountains come close to the sea here, and at Da Nang is the most famous " "Marble Mountain." "It's at the foot of Marble Mountain that I meet Miss Tanh." " Would you like to buy something?" " What are they?" "Little marble..." " This is Marble Mountain." " I'd like to see the mountain." " Yeah." "This way up." " I just keep going?" " Yeah." " Will you show me what to do?" "This way." "There are 157 steps up." " I may not buy anything." "I'm very mean." " Don't worry, be happy." "Yeah." "I'll be happy!" " Where do you learn your English?" " At school." "It's very good." "I don't know many Vietnamese who can say "lovely jubbly"." " Lovely jubbly!" " What else can you say?" "You want to learn Vietnamese?" "Yes." "I'd just like to be able to say hello." "Cingow." "Hello is "Cingow" in Vietnam." " Cingow." " That's right." "How often do you do this?" "How many days a week?" " Six days a week." " Every day?" "All day?" " Not all day." "We go to school in morning." " Of course." " Tell me how old you are?" " 16." " And when will you leave school?" " 22." "That's a long education." "At the same school or will you go to university?" " University." " Where?" " In Da Nang city." " And what do you want to do?" "I want to be a doctor." "I can see daylight." "Looks as though we're nearing the summit." "Is that right?" "It's not a big mountain but it's where it is and what's next to it that's important." " That's spectacular." " Spectacular." "As we say in English mountaineering circles." " Here you see Fire Mountain." "Metal..." " Metal." "Wood." "The small one." "Fire." "Earth." "And this is Water." "So having got up here, have I done some good for myself?" " Yes." " Will the gods smile on me?" "Here you sit down in king's chair." "Very lucky and long life." " A long life?" " Yeah." "For you, old man." "I think I've had enough, don't you?" "52 years." "Quite enough." "I might get another ten years out of it." "I feel like a drink anyway." "OK." "Let's have a sit." "Thank you." "The king's throne, adaptable for all sizes." "That's better." "I feel revived already." "I feel at least ten more years I could go on." "Yeah." "Let's make this a 25-part series." "In Cinemascope." "Get rid of those mountains!" "Anyone got a beer?" "Thank you." "This country will be a great success." "There's always someone around with exactly what you want." "Miss Tanh is very likely to be a future president." "Her fluency in English makes my dumbness in Vietnamese shaming." "And she's incredibly well informed." "Marble Mountain is much more than it seems." "It's a holy place and a military stronghold, but Miss Tanh will not let me leave until she's shown me its darkest secret." "Wow." "I see what you mean." "I need your hand." "It's pitch black and very slippery." "Here we are." "I can see now." "God." "You see four gods - two good and two evil." "The good will go to heaven, the evil to hell." "These are the guardians at the entrance to a Buddhist temple?" " Yeah." " So people come and worship here?" "Yes." "Many people come to worship Buddha." "And there's the altar." "That's extraordinary." "And this hole was American bomb." "The hole was American bomb." "So the American bomb made that hole?" "Yes." "Before this was a hospital and after America bombed down." " There was a hospital here?" " Yes." "Before." "After that, I need some fresh air." "I take a walk on nearby China Beach - once a haunt of off-duty American troops." "Now there's only the roar of the ocean for company... or so I thought." "American forces may have gone, but a lone Westerner without a seashell or a slice of mango is too much for the local children to bear." "I tell you..." "I've got 5,000... 15,000." "There we go. 15,000." "There we go." "There's 20,000 and I'll have his as well." "Thank you." "Thank you, kids." "Bye." "Make sure she gives you the money." "I'm on my way to Vietnam's deep south and one of the world's great rivers - the mighty Mekong." "After its 2,500 mile journey, the Mekong forms a huge delta here." "The river deposits enough mud on Vietnam to increase its size by 200 feet a year." "What's more, it's high quality, well-travelled mud." "There are a few grains of Tibet in here because it rises in Tibet, rather large chunks of China, huge bits of Laos, chunks of Cambodia, but now all this mud belongs to Vietnam and it's one of the most profitable agricultural areas in the world." "(NORTHERN ACCENT) So where there's mud, there's brass - as they say in southern Vietnam, not in that sort of accent but you know what I mean." "This being Vietnam, a bit of water doesn't stop people buying and selling." "These dug-outs become shops and shopping baskets." "And this being Vietnam, you can find almost anything you want." "How much are the snakes?" "Are they pets or are they to eat?" "Getting into difficult water here!" "(MICHAEL) $100 for each?" "$200." "Well..." "I think we'll keep looking." "I don't just want to buy a snap snake without checking out." "Are they poisonous?" "They're not poisonous?" "Why would I want them?" "Apart from to eat." "From this little delta town dominated by a Catholic church, it's a short hop to Tay Ninh province, home of one of the world's newest religions." "It's called Cao Dai and it was invented by a civil servant in 1926." "This splendidly designed religion is a spiritual curry, containing a little bit of everyone else's religion." "The writer Graham Greene was so taken with it, he considered becoming a convert." "(SOFT SINGING)" "In the foyer of the great temple, there's a mural depicting three of Cao Dai's patron saints." "Chinese statesman, Sun Yat-sen," "Vietnamese poet, Nguyen Binh Khiem and Victor Hugo, author of "Les Miserables"." "Spirits play an important part in Cao Daism." "Messages have been received from Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare" "Louis Pasteur and Lenin." "Despite this all-star cast, Cao Daism has not made much of a mark outside Vietnam." "Nor, to be honest, outside Tay Ninh province." "As we draw closer to Saigon, we pass an extraordinary relic of war." "And this area here, this underground area, it has a hospital." "What else does it have?" " What other facilities?" " The meeting room..." "These are the Cu-Chi tunnels - a 100-mile underground network, built for guerrilla armies fighting the French and Americans." "Despite being blasted with bombs and raked with defoliant, they were never destroyed in 35 years of warfare." " What was this?" " The fighting bunker of guerrilla forces." "How many people could be hidden underneath the earth at any one time?" "Probably about 5,000 guerrilla forces can stay inside the tunnel at one time." " Can I explore a little on my own?" " OK." " Is that allowed?" " Yes." "Please." "I won't go far." "I'll try this one down here." "This leads to another bunker?" "Come to another..." "Not fighting bunker." "Another room." "All right." "I'll see what that's like." "Here we go." "People lived here for up to two weeks." "Two minutes are enough for me." "I head straight for the emergency exit." "Hello, Ratty." "Hello, Moley." "I'm obviously not cut out to be a guerrilla fighter. 0therwise I'd have closed the door." "I find little resentment among the Vietnamese about the war - maybe because they won - but this Museum of War Crimes in Saigon shows they won't forget." "There's one particularly gruesome exhibit - a guillotine." "Bequeathed by the French, last used against the Vietnamese in 1960." "If I ever made a series of great post offices of the world, this one would be included." "Uncle Ho beams down as I write all those postcards I've been putting off for weeks." ""Dear Helen, dear Rachel, dear Tom, dear Will." ""0nly nine months to go." "Happy Christmas."" "It's time to leave Vietnam, if I can." "My impression is of a crowded country riding a high tide of energy and confidence." "A country where there's no point in shouting stop - no one'll hear you." "A thousand miles from the heaving crowds of mainland Asia are the heaving crowds of the Philippines, whose capital, Manila, with a population of 12 million, is one of the Asian Pacific mega-cities." "This is what happens when bicycles become cars." "The gridlocks are enlivened by the "jeepney" - a Filipino conveyance evolved from American jeeps left here at the end of the war." "They're brightly painted and often eccentrically named." "Well... not always." "Manila has about every problem a big city can have - too many cars, too many people, too little space, too few houses, not enough money, not enough jobs." "There's no income support to fall back on here." "If things are bad, these people club together to pay an agency fee so that one of them can go abroad to earn money and support the family back home." "I'm outside the headquarters of the Friends of Filipino Migrant Workers." "So we were discussing about labour export." "And the export of labour generates about $2.5 billion... 0ne of this country's most profitable exports is its young women." "Just imagine how big the amount goes to our country." "That's why we are considered as "new heroes" by our government." "There is a price that the "new heroes"pay." "In the newspaper today was the story of a Filipino maid under sentence of death in the United Arab Emirates for stabbing her employer as he tried to rape her." "The women are warned in their own language" " Tagalog - of what to expect when they go abroad." "(SPEAKS TAGALOG)" "These women cheerfully expose themselves to a life that is often not far short of slavery." "Before they go, they must listen to the problems that lie ahead in countries where they will be second-class citizens." "I asked some of them where they're going." " Qatar." " Have you been to the Middle East?" " Brunei." " You're going to Brunei." " Bahrain." " Bahrain." "For how long?" " For two years." " I'm going to Taiwan." " What sort of work will you do in Dubai?" " Housekeeper." "Domestic operative, because that's an easy way to go there." " Caretaker." " Caretaker?" "I just want to earn money and I just want to support my family and my parents also." "I want to work in Taiwan, sir, because I want to support my family - my father, mother, my brother and sister." " Who will look after your family?" " My husband." "I am a college graduate and a major of English." "Colourful as the traffic jams may be, I'm itching to get out of Manila." "I do so in style on a quiet Sunday morning, high above where the traffic jams would have been any other day of the week." "Luzon is the largest of the 7,000 islands of the Philippines." "Its northern end is composed of mountains where we hope to find the eighth wonder of the world - the rice terraces of Banaue." "But the highland weather is turning bad and Luis, my pilot, is not a happy man." "The cloud base is too low for him to land near the rice terraces, so he puts down on a village football pitch... during a game." "Leaving the teams to take half-time early, Luis organises alternative transport." "He's just hailing a passing jeepney." "There's no way we're going to get up another thousand feet above the clouds, so we've landed in the middle of a school football pitch." "I think there was a game on when we came down." "The jeepney's stopped." "Do you think he's on?" "Good." "Transfer to... more primitive technology." "He's got the Union Jack on the back!" "Too good to be true." "Well, within five minutes of landing, we're on our way up there." " How long does it take to the terraces?" " About one hour, sir." "One-hour drive." "We'll see much more this way." "More slowly, anyway." "0ur new driver, Rodolfo, has other ideas." "He's clearly had Grand Prix training." "We start to climb - through 2,000 feet, through 3,000 feet." "If it's rice terraces we want to see, Rodolfo will get us there." "And he does." "(SOFT PIPING)" "But the terraces themselves are at 4,000 feet." "This makes all the difference." "Hello." "Come to see the rice terraces." "Well..." "Behind..." "We made it." "This is the viewpoint." "And behind me are the world-famous Banaue rice terraces." "You'll just have to take my word for it." "They are there." "But, unfortunately, as you know, there were problems with visibility, so..." "Well, just close your eyes and imagine some rice terraces and..." "I'll read from the guide book." ""The Banaue rice terraces, rightly called one of the eighth wonders of the world," ""stand at an altitude of 1,200 metres." ""It took the Ifugao tribespeople, with their primitive implements, over 2,000 years" ""to create this imposing landscape."" "Oh, dear!" "It's taken us so long to get here." "Helicopters don't come cheap." "We've come all the way from Manila to see the rice terraces and it's hard to see." "(MICHAEL LAUGHS)" "It's all rather embarrassing." "I make my excuses and retreat to the highland city of Baguio, where strange things happen, but in much better visibility." "We're heading for 114 Lourdes Grotto Road to witness surgery performed with bare hands, without anaesthetic and without instruments." ""Psychic surgery" has its roots among the forest peoples of the north." "The surgeon who operates from number 114 is called the Reverend José Segundo." "His hands, he claims, are guided by God." "Amen." "Lord have mercy." "Espiritu Santo." "Amen." "Lord have mercy." "He and his assistant are operating on a man called Gustav, who has an arthritic limb." "I'm surprised to hear a distinct pop, then blood appears." "Psychic surgeons claim the blood appears through the skin by a form of magnetism." "Now the other leg..." "And that noise again." "This is surgery stripped of all the trappings." "No lights, no masks, no rubber gloves, no machines that go ping." "Just fingers that go pop." "To me, it looked as though there was some sleight of hand." "You were perhaps popping a blood capsule." "I could see no way that blood could come out of Gustav's leg without piercing the skin." "There was no mark on the skin at all." "Were you actually popping a little pill?" "You cannot see what I am doing in the operation unless you have the third eye." "This is one, two and then the third eye here." "If the third eye is open for you, then you can see what is done." " I could see with my two eyes..." " With two eyes you can never see." "To get a second opinion on my eyesight, I go to another address in Lourdes Grotto Road." "The consulting rooms of Mr Ambrosio Pelingen." "As I arrive, his patient is summoned in for what is known as "the bloody operation"." "The patient's wife waits outside." "Ambrosio has no assistant." "He asks me to help him." "It looks as though you're making a hole with your fingers in his chest, and that's just not possible, is it?" "What are you doing now?" "Are you being guided to something?" "In his hand is a small piece of slime which he calls "black toxin"." "Throughout, the patient remains fully conscious." "I've had no training so I'm not sure what to do." "Have you trained medically?" "No, sir." "Because I think I have er..." "I take it from my ancestors." " Really?" " Yes." "It does look as though there's a hole, but there is no hole because there's no mark on the body." "So I don't know quite where this red stuff, this blood, comes from." "That's..." "Perhaps someone could analyse that." "My fingers are completely unsterilised and they went into his wound." " Never mind." " Why will that not infect the wound?" "I will soon explain this." "There will be no contamination or anything as long as healer is the one working on it." "As long as the healer is working on it." "So you create a sort of spiritual antiseptic?" "Yes." "That is the use of garlic." "Now I'm beginning to get some secrets." "It's easy to be sceptical about psychic surgery, but if you believe it works, it works." "Ambrosio and the reverend are busy seven days a week." "Philippine history, they say, began with the Spanish and ended with the Americans - 300 years in the convent, 50 years in Hollywood." "These mountains, with their ancient forms of healing, leave me with the impression of something more powerful." "700 miles south, it's all so different." "It's hot and tropical and it's December." "# I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" "# Just like the ones I used to know" "# Where the treetops glisten and children listen" "# To hear the sleigh bells... #" "Next day, the director decides it's time I learned scuba diving." "My instructor is called Louie." "Put the mask on." "Make sure there's no hair in it." "Now repeat the exercises." "That's good." "Louie tells me the worst that can happen." "It's a dangerous world of embolism, ear squeeze and nitrogen narcosis." "But by next day, I'm ready for the reef." "0nce you realise that your role model is a fish, a whole new world opens up." "I'm enjoying it so much, I decide to join some fellow divers for lunch." "You can't understand anyone but it's all pretty obvious." "I've reached the last stage of my Philippine journey." "I'm aboard the ferry, Princess of the Pacific, heading for the port of Zamboanga." "(COCK CROWS)" "I'm not sure if I'm hearing things." "I decide to take a closer look below decks." "I hadn't realised that Zamboanga is one of the cockfighting centres of the Philippines." "(CROWING)" "And here they all are." "Arranged, packaged, labelled and probably pretty fed up." "(CROWING)" "This is Zamboanga - our home until we can find a boat out of here to Borneo." "The dockside is not for the faint-hearted." "As we fight our way off the boat, I wonder where those cockerels are going to end up." "The answer is places like this - the Galleria, Zamboanga's largest cock pit." "The Spanish conquerors introduced the sport 400 years ago." "There's a cockfest here about every other day." "The fights may last only a few seconds." "It doesn't seem to matter." "It's all about betting." "This provokes strong passions." "How much money is bet in each bet?" "Is there a minimum?" "Minimum for people in the ringside, 500." " 500 pesos." "That's about $20?" " Yes." "That's correct." "And how is the bet recorded?" "No one writes anything down." " The Cristos, we call them locally..." " The men in pink, yeah." "They can remember faces - who bet and who bet against, so nothing much is recorded." "It's an ugly sport to watch, but there's huge local enthusiasm." "0ne man told me this is the Philippine's number one pastime." ""But," he added sadly, "basketball is catching up."" "How many fights?" "Say it survives one fight, how many would a good cock survive?" "More than 15." "More than 15 fights." "And then they are given back to the owners for breeding purposes." "As others wait to fight, the vet patches up those who already have." "But this is the Philippines and alongside the gore is the glamour." "(OPERATIC MUSIC)" "The beauty competition is widely held and widely revered." "Imelda Marcos was a Miss Manila." "Winning one can be an important step in a girl's career." "Judging one could be important in my career." "Tonight, beside the sea at Zamboanga, my fellow judges and I will choose Miss Bella Pacifica." "(DRUMS AND CYMBALS)" "It's not just vital statistics that will win prizes here." "I didn't hear any vital statistics." "A winner must be beautiful but she must also show intelligence and a strong moral sense." "This is a very Catholic country." ""If your husband told you he was going away for a year" ""to film a documentary series in many far away countries," ""would you try to stop him?" "If so, why?"" "Although I haven't been married, I will not stop him because I believe that true love is tested by time and as long as you love and trust each other, nothing can stand in your way." "Thank you very much." "I believe that trust is the key to a successful relationship, so I will allow my husband to go to other countries." "Besides, it's his job." "He's not going there to go girl-hunting!" "Absolutely right." "Certainly not." "Tonight, of course, is an exception!" "(PRESENTER) Thank you, ladies." "I really can feel the tension mounting." "(FANFARE)" "There are many things of beauty in the Philippines, but if I had to choose one object that represents the spirit of this country, it would have to be the jeepney." "It's pure Filipino." "Completely exuberant and wild and not totally in touch with reality or practicality." "I'd love one." "I've been longing to drive my own jeepney since I first set eyes on one in Manila." "They were all stuck in traffic jams there." "In Zambo, you could be on a racetrack." "That's not a bad idea." "I could inaugurate the first Zamboanga Grand Prix - for jeepneys only." "(HORN BLASTS)" "0n second thoughts, I might just take it to Borneo." "Zamboanga, on the southern tip of the Philippines, is difficult to leave." "This is partly because it has charm and partly because the sailing schedules are completely unreliable." "After several days of delay, we are booked aboard the Danica Joy, bound for Borneo." "Her bigger sister ship should do this run, but she's laid up after a fire in the engine room." "Still, beggars can't be choosers." "Political tension between the Philippines and Malaysia meant until a year ago there was no passenger service across these seas at all." "I'm sorry to be leaving Zamboanga - not just because it's a very friendly, hospitable city, but because I'm leaving it via the Sulu Sea, which has a fearsome reputation." "The Sulu Sea is a frontier not just between the Philippines and Malaysia, but between Christians and Muslims." "They've been fighting over this area for 400 years and it's still going on." "In the paper yesterday, there were three incidents provoked by Muslim-Christian tension." "Add its reputation for piracy and smuggling and... actually, I'm quite looking forward to it!" "There are no real grounds for my optimism." "This is the dangerous end of the Philippines." "Islamic terrorists are active." "Foreigners are warned to stay clear of the offshore islands." "There we are." "I just?" "I'm watched every inch of the way on board." "Sure, yeah." "Passenger, traveller." "Moving on." "Thank you." "The head of the shipping line greets me." "You're the boss!" "Is it me or is his smile a little nervous?" " Full ship, is it?" " Yeah, yeah." "The Filipinos love families and they love farewells." "A departure is never something to be taken for granted." "It's always an event." "Amazingly enough, some of the other ferries make our old tub look smart." "It is, as the owner confirmed, a very full ship." "I find myself a peaceful spot, complete with local alarm clock." "(COCK CROWS)" "Most of my human fellow passengers are Filipinos going abroad to look for jobs not available in the country they're leaving." "0n the horizon, I can make out the islands that travellers are warned to steer clear of." "They run in a line across the Sulu Sea." "They provide shelter for pirates and resistance groups and mark our south-western course to Sandakan in the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo." "The Danica Joy was originally built for placid inland waters." "As the wind builds up on the open sea, she begins to roll and pitch like a drunk." "(RAPID GUNFIRE ON TV)" "There isn't a lot you can do to take your mind off it - except watching violent kung fu videos or curling up and trying to sleep." "(RAPID GUNFIRE ON TV)" "Being somewhat cowardly, I make for the bridge to reassure myself that we're in good hands." "Is it OK if I come in?" "Just to have a look and see where we're going, how fast we're going." "When we're going to get there." "Indications are not promising." "There's not a uniform to be seen." "I ask some searching questions." " So we're going..." " Two five-zero." " Course five-zero." " Right." " This ship, I notice these are all in Japanese." " Yes." " It's a Japanese ship." "Is it easy to steer?" " It's easy, it's easy." "You seem awfully young." "Excuse my asking." "How old are you?" "I'm 21." "Only apprentice." " Apprentice." " Apprentice, apprentice." "Apprentice to who?" "Who's in charge?" " That's our chief here." " Ah, you're the chief officer." " So you're learning." " Yeah, yeah." "When will you..." "How's he getting on?" "He has been to school three years." "He will be on board one year to finish." "It's four years' course." "Night falls." "Fortunately, there's no queue for the bathroom." "(GUNSHOT ON TV)" "Then it's either more video nasties or bed." "That is, if I can find it." "Next morning, the good news." "My first sight of Borneo." "The skyline of Sandakan exudes an air of prosperity we never saw in Zamboanga." "We take a bus south across the island, but it's the monsoon season and progress is slow." "Walking isn't any easier." " (WOMAN) You are tall, so at least..." " Not tall enough." "It's going into my boots!" " I'm concerned about snakes..." " (MICHAEL) What?" "Snakes, because normally the ground-dwellers, like snakes, scorpions and so on, they would all be floating up." "Keep your fingers crossed that we don't come across any of them." "(MICHAEL) I'll keep everything crossed!" " How long has it been raining for?" "24 hours." " (WOMAN) Almost." "This is the pathway to one of the world's very few orang-utan rehabilitation centres." "When the rainforest was plundered for timber, many of these orang-utan were taken out of the forest and sold as domestic pets." " A much older female." " Slightly different technique." "Different technique." "They're now an endangered species." "This centre has been slowly teaching tame animals to be wild again." "(WOMAN) She's pregnant." "You can see the genital swell." "That's the only way to detect." "So probably from a wild male." " (MICHAEL) So that's good news for you." " It's good news." "(WOMAN) I think I'm going to be a grandmother now!" " What are they eating?" " Bananas." "I think that's their normal menu." " How long is the gestation period?" " Eight and a half to nine months." " Like a human." " Almost like a human." "As Sylvia, my guide, tells me, orang-utans normally live high in the trees." "This rope that leads to their man-made feeding platform is the orang-utan equivalent of a wheelchair." "(SYLVIA) Most have been used to humans." "To take that away from them is the difficult part." "What the centre is trying to do here is very different from what the zoo does." "The zoo sort of like..." "Wild animals are made to be tame, but the centre here..." " In reverse." " It's the reverse." " That's much more difficult." " Are they still coming in from people?" "Right now, it's not so much people keeping them as pets, but they come from disturbed areas." " Land that's going to be cleared or?" " Yes." "When they go, do you see where they're going to?" "No." "It stops when an individual has been reintroduced." "Our job stops." "As long as the centre survives, the orang-utans and this stretch of rainforest are safe." "Borneo is our stepping stone between the Philippines and Java." "It's divided between three countries - Indonesia has the south and east," "Malaysia, the north and west, which it shares with Brunei." "The jewel of the Malaysian west coast is the city of Kuching, capital of Sarawak." "Kuching has a quietly affluent air." "It's an Asian-Pacific crossroads, bringing together Chinese, Indians, Malays and local tribes in apparent harmony." "It was run by the British for over 100 years." "It was they who created the racial mix still evident in quite unusual ways." "Like this Indian healer with a great cabaret act." "Don't try this at home." "A short walk from the bazaars, I come across a passable imitation of Henley Regatta." "That is until I look a little more closely." "These are descendants of the Dayak warriors, whose war canoes terrorised the coast until the British got here and told them about regattas." "(DRUMS BEATING)" "For the British, it was quite a successful move." "I can't see these people terrorising anybody." "It wasn't the British government which created all this, but a family called Brooke from Bath." "In 1841, they bought Sarawak off a local sultan and ran it until the Japanese invaded 100 years later." "Stephen Yong, a former minister, shows me round the Istana, official residence of the family who built Somerset on the Sarawak River and called themselves the White Rajahs." "From here Charles Brooke, the second rajah, ruled for 50 years." "(STEPHEN) He regarded all his subjects as his children." "He never encouraged higher education." "He had the idea of "ignorance is bliss"." "He drew the line at head-hunting, didn't he?" "Head-hunting is one of the crimes which the rajah introduced, much against the tradition of the Ibans." "An Iban was taught that head-hunting was one of their... ways of life." " Um... but..." " What was the penalty for head-hunting?" "Head-hunters normally would be executed." " Beheaded, probably!" " Yes." "Head-hunters would've lost their heads at Fort Margherita, named after Brooke's wife." "The Brookes' legacy lies in buildings like this, another of the great post offices of the world." "0r these law courts." "And perhaps, most poignantly, in the single surviving public likeness of Rajah Brooke, dressed in the style of the people he ruled for so long." "It's quite difficult to get round Borneo by road, largely because they tend not to exist." "The pattern of life here still revolves around the rivers which run from the interior down to the ports." "I'm doing it the other way round - going from Kuching upriver towards the mountains, to spend a few days with the Iban people at one of their longhouses, which certainly, for me, is a journey into the unknown." "It'll take the best part of a day to make our way upriver almost as far as the Indonesian border." "As the rainforest closes in to become jungle, the rivers grow narrower and shallower." "We're on the edge of the great, inhospitable heart of Borneo, one of the secret places of the world." "Without the help of the local people, it would be hard to find our way in or out of here." "The Iban live on the rivers, which they navigate with skill and prodigious physical effort." "Nevertheless, this is as far upstream as we can go." "We've reached the village of Nanga Sumpa." "The centre of the community and heart of their nomadic culture is the longhouse." "This one has been here all of 12 years - making it almost an ancient monument." "It's a 28-door longhouse, meaning 28 families share it." "Money and food are not shared, but the large open spaces such as this are communal." "Many of the elders are profusely decorated." "Hello." "Morning." "Just admiring your tattoos." "Emong." "I was just..." "I was just admiring these." "What are they meant to be, first of all?" "(TRANSLATES)" "(EMONG) This is... creeper." "(MICHAEL) Yeah, creeper." "How would it be done?" "(THEY SPEAK IBAN)" "(EMONG) How do you call it?" "Soot?" "(MICHAEL) Soot." "They mix it with... (SPEAKS IBAN)" "They mix it with sugar-cane juice and then they use a pin to get it in there." "(MICHAEL) They just jab it in." " Does it hurt?" " (TRANSLATES)" " (MAN ANSWERS)" " Yes, it's quite painful." "I got that." "Hurt like hell, he said." " Have you got any?" " I don't." "Just on your T-shirt." "It's not the same." "Weed." "The Iban are not isolated." "The young men are encouraged to travel." "These woven blankets are quite likely to end up in Los Angeles or London." "There's little mistrust of the outside world." "They're curious about our curiosity." "You can get your finger through it." "It's always useful, to get your finger through your ear." "Hope I live to be as old as you and look as well." "I asked the headman and another elder, both in their 80s, about the issue of head-hunting." "What was the importance of having a head?" "What was the value of the head?" "(THEY SPEAK IBAN)" "They said, not really." "It's just chopping people's head, take it back, and smoke the head and keep it to show the whole people how brave they are." " So it's just how many people you can clobber?" " Yeah." "And after that, they have to celebrate Kenyalang festival, which means hornbilll festival, to ask for a longer life." "They ask for longer life from God, or else they have a short life, if you don't celebrate." "They pray for the people whose heads they've chopped off?" " Yeah." " (MAN SPEAKS IBAN)" "He said today is very good." "Today there is no more fighting." "So he said that is very good." "The other thing that's very good is that I've discovered the bathroom." "There are one or two fewer pigs around this morning." "There is to be a feast." "It's to be held in honour of the visit of a famous government minister." "I'm looking forward to seeing him." "If he doesn't come, then I, as second most important visitor, have been asked to kill the ceremonial pig." "0n another fire, rice is pressure-cooked inside branches of bamboo." "I breathe a huge sigh of relief when the top man's canoe is at last sighted." "The top man is James Masing, the minister of tourism." "He's the first Iban ever to hold such a high office." "Some politicians have to kiss babies, but if you want to win votes in Sarawak, a passing knowledge of butchery is more useful." "After a word with the spin doctor, the minister prepares to do what a minister has to do." "(PIG SQUEALS)" "Between ceremonial duties, he seems happy to talk." "You were born and brought up in a longhouse." "How similar was it to this one here?" "What are your memories of longhouse life?" "Yeah, I was born in a longhouse in another part of Sarawak." "My memories are very good." "I have very fond memories of my childhood." "I spent the first six years actually living in a longhouse." "After that, I went to boarding school." "I think this longhouse we are looking into now is one of the most traditional longhouses that you can get in Sarawak." "My feeling is that not many of them are left." "The longhouse structures are still there throughout Sarawak, but the design's slightly different and the wood they use is slightly different." "A more modern design, but still the longhouse structure." "So what you're seeing now is one of the very few left." "(MICHAEL) What are the religious beliefs?" "The Iban - people call them animist." "They practise animism." "They believe that every living thing has spirit." "Animals have spirit, trees have spirit, the rivers have spirit." "So that because of that, before you clear a farm, for instance, you do an offering to pacify whatever spirit there is." "So that is an Iban belief." "(MICHAEL) The passing of a white cockerel back and forth is believed to pacify the spirits." "So before the eating and drinking can begin, the minister must do the honours." "(CHANTS IN IBAN)" "To be honest, the drinking has already started - around breakfast time." "The Iban love contests - like this hard, fast drumming round in which the first one to lose the beat is out." "In fact, Iban hospitality itself is a contest." "It's the host's duty to provide far more food and drink than the guests need." "(EXCITED CHATTER)" "I've seen this being prepared lovingly all day long." "Thank you." "And it's the duty of the guests to polish it all off without falling over." "And a little bit of fish." "Yeah, it is good." "Thank you." "There's some bits there." "Some choice bits." "Like some?" "Everything is done in a most egalitarian atmosphere." "In Iban society, everyone, whatever their rank or status, sits down together." "(METALLIC DRUMMING)" "I wonder what sort of place there will be for this pleasure-loving, unauthoritarian people in the stern, purposeful, industrialised new Malaysia." "600 miles due south of Borneo, I'm across the equator and into the southern hemisphere." "Java is one of a chain of Indonesian islands." "I hope to find a sailing ship to take me through them and on to Australia." "I'm driving across Java in the company of Eko Binarso, a trekking and mountain guide." "It's the start of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and self-restraint." "Jakarta, largest city in the southern hemisphere, is hot, wet and quiet." "0ur plan is to drive the length of the island to the port of Surabaya." "The road soon winds up into foothills and as cool and moderate a climate as back home." "In fact, I'm dying for a cuppa." "Eko says he knows just the place." "This is the Gunung Mas tea plantation." "Hello." " After you!" " Sorry." "Hello." "Michael." "Can you tell me what's going on here?" "These are obviously the teas." " When were they picked?" " This is the tea produced today." " This is to test the quality." " They're being tested for quality." "How can you tell a good-quality tea?" "The good quality, for example..." "We test the appearance." " There is the particle." "Is it clean or not?" " Particles." " Size of particle." " Yeah." "Second, we test the smell." "What do you do with these?" "Do you pour hot water through them?" "For the testing, water..." "This is water from here." "Oh, I see, yeah." "Can I have a little sniff?" "Yeah." "The smell." "And the good tea smells... this." "Um... the same." " What's a good smell?" " Good smell." "The good tea is the good smell." " Is it strong?" "Is that what you're looking for?" " Yeah, strong." " And then the taste." "We taste the tea." " Can I try and taste some myself?" " So which should I taste?" "Which is a good one?" " Good one." "This one here?" "Just take a little bit, rather like soup." "(MAN SLURPS) You must shoot." "(MICHAEL SLURPS)" "(MICHEL) Try a bit more." "(MICHAEL SLURPS)" "(MAN) Yeah, that's good." "Oops." "I've swallowed it!" "Lovely cup of tea." "(MALE GR0UP) # I love coffee, I love tea" "# I love a java jive... #" "The tea pickers look serene - effortlessly bored with the job." "In fact, they're experts." "# A cuppa, cuppa, cuppa, cuppa, cuppa" "# I love java, sweet and hot # 0ops, Mr Moto, I'm a coffee pot" "# Shoot me the pot and I'll pour me a shot" "# A cuppa, cuppa, cuppa, cuppa, cuppa #" "It looks easy enough, but it is quite a skill." "You've got to get these little top bits." "I've noticed the way they're doing it." "Anything lower down doesn't taste very nice." "These little succulent tips are the ones you have to get." "Custom-made shears - very nice." "I don't think you can get these at home." "They have to be bought here in Java." "And I presume the more little succulent tips you get the more you get paid." "Do you get a bonus for, you know, getting the best?" " (WOMAN) Yes." " Yes?" "Good." "Well, I'll stay here a while, then." "There's one." "I do look a bit like a butterfly collector." "There we are." "Ah!" "There's one." " There's a cup of tea!" "Ahhhh!" " (WOMEN LAUGH)" "# Coffee, tea, and the java and me" "# A cuppa, cuppa, cuppa, cup... #" "Java is the mostly densely populated island in the world." "110 million people live in an area the size of England." "Increasing affluence is bringing increasing traffic to roads never much wider than this." "As the road system is largely free from motorways, so much of the countryside is free from huge farms and agri-business." "This warm, wet land is still farmed by local people with incredible delicacy and precision." "It's tempting to stop in every valley and village, but we have a tight schedule." "I insist we only stop if Eko sees something I really mustn't miss." "Just outside Yogyakarta he spots something." "It's a fruit that, despite its startlingly foul odour, is one of South-East Asia's most sought-after delicacies." "Can I have a look at one?" "The famous durian fruit which is so smelly that they won't allow it on aeroplanes." "I saw a hotel the other day that said, "No durian fruit allowed on the premises."" " Apparently it tastes good, does it?" " Yeah." "Can I smell it?" "Oh, yeah, it smells pretty rich." "Now, how do you eat it?" "They will open it." " You can..." " Yeah." "Pretty strong." "Soft like banana." "Well, this is a first." "You don't see durian-tasting often." "Are you going to have some, as well?" "I'll 'ave some if you 'ave some, Eko." " OK, here we go." " One, two, three." " Yummy." " Mm." "Oh, God." "That is a very strange taste, isn't it?" "I really can't describe it." "The first taste is a bit nauseating, I have to say." " Yeah." " It does make me feel sick, the very first taste." " What about the second?" " I haven't been sick, so I feel more confident." "I know it makes a terrible smell wherever it's stored, but do people really prize it?" " Yeah." " So it's quite expensive." " The price also depends on the smell." " It's like a rich custard." "Like rich, smelly custard with a bit of sort of burnt rubber tyre in it." "One each." "The main road winds on deeper into the heartland." "It's impossible to hurry, but that doesn't stop people trying." "(BEEPS HORN)" "The row of volcanoes that forms the backbone of Java is never far away." "I feel they're benevolent - guardians keeping an eye on us at the end of a long day." "They call Yogyakarta the cultural capital of Java." "It's a bit of several cultures - Dutch colonial buildings and a street named after the British Duke of Marlborough." "We've been asked to a private home to hear some gamelan music and watch the puppet show that goes with it." " A fighting scene." "This is hitting." " Yeah." "You're moving both arms as you do that as well." "How many different puppets would you use in a story like that?" "Say, in one night, at least 35 to 40 puppets." " In one night." "Usually." " Really?" "At least 35 voices." " Male and female voices?" " Yes." "Like this, for example." "(SPEAKS INDONESIAN)" "For example." "(SPEAKS INDONESIAN)" "Something like that." "Has it sort of been affected by the age of television?" "Has television kept people away from the puppet shows?" "Some people say so, but now there is a private television which broadcasts the wayang kulit every Saturday night." "So they haven't beaten them, they've joined them." "They've got their own puppet channel." "Wayang kulit, as they call the puppet show, is not for the faint-hearted." "Loosely based on the great Indian epics, a full-length performance lasts eight hours." "The puppet master works without a break to bring 40 or 50 different characters to life, accompanied by the soft, strange tinklings of the gamelan orchestra." "(EERIE, TINKLING MUSIC)" "Soon my brain falls into a trance-like state, from which it is only rescued by a full-scale battle." "(MUSIC JANGLES)" "With its in-jokes and subversive references, many Javanese regard wayang kulit as essential viewing and children still grow up wanting to be puppet masters." "A little way off the road out of Yogyakarta is one of the world's great monuments." "It's enormous, yet easy to miss, squatting amongst fields and coconut groves like a half-finished mountain." "This is the Buddhist temple of Borobudur, built in 800AD and rediscovered 1,000 years later half submerged in volcanic ash." "Borobudur represents the cosmos - a model of the universe set in stone." "We have to walk round all these levels." "Follow Buddha's progress." "What's happening along here?" "They all look rather sort of... slightly racy things going on." "The terraces form a path to enlightenment that runs around the monument for a distance of almost two miles." "The relief panels show details of the Buddha's journey, complete with setbacks and seductions." "(MICHAEL)... 99... 100." " 60 more." " 60 more?" " (MICHAEL) Is this still the story?" " Still the story of Ramayana." " Where are we now?" " We are on the third level." " You are almost in heaven now." " The lotus position." "300 years ago, Islam swept into Java and the Buddhists retreated." "(MICHAEL) Our search for enlightenment." "As I've already found on other sacred mountains of Asia, enlightenment requires effort." "It's only when you get to the top that you're aware of the location of this place, the plain with a circle of volcanoes all around." "Was that intended?" "Borobudur was built just absolutely at the centre of the area, surrounded by five mountains." "(MICHAEL) So it's significant where we are - in the centre of the temple, in the centre of the mountains, in the centre of the universe?" " Yes, of course." " OK." " Centre of galaxy." " Yeah." "Well, I think we deserve a drink." "Sorry." " You are the guide." "You brought me here." " You first." " No." " OK." "Whisky, please!" "Not far from Borobudur is a thousand-year-old Hindu temple, another man-made image of that key to life and death on Java - the volcano." " It's hot today, Eko." " Are you ready for climbing, Mike?" "Yeah, yeah." "Anything to get off this road, I tell you." "Eko is determined that I should climb a volcano, preferably one that's still active." "He suggests Mount Bromo." "He says it's just round the corner." "Eventually we find the turn-off and begin the long climb towards Bromo." "Farming is precarious here - in every sense of the word." "The locals are descended from Hindus who were pushed to this far end of the island by the Islamic conquest." "Surprisingly for the tropics, they can grow crops like cabbages, onions and leeks." "To my great relief, another long day on the road ends, successfully, at the door of Mount Bromo's only hotel." " Ready for the horse?" " I'm ready." "I haven't ridden for a while, but..." "Let's see." "That's good." "(MICHAEL GROANS)" "Why do we have to start at this extraordinary hour of the night?" " (EKO) Let's go, Mike." " It's 3.30." "On a horse for the first time in 20 years!" " How far do we have to go, Eko?" " It's about three kilometres." "Three kilometres." "We're going down into the crater?" "Yeah." "The great thing is it's a clear night." "Fingers crossed." " It looks as though it could be a good sunrise." " Yeah, I hope." "Looks like." "How long, do you reckon?" "An hour?" " Looks like the end of the trail." " Yeah." " Where do we go now?" "We walk from here?" " Yeah." "We're going up steps." "Right." "(MICHAEL SIGHS) OK." "Thank you, faithful steed." "OK?" " I'll get on your back now and you can take me..." " (EKO LAUGHS) No way!" "The journey has been worth all the effort." "The dawn light reveals an extraordinary landscape - oven fresh and still steaming." "When did this blow?" "When was this hole made?" "How recently?" " A hundred years ago." " A hundred years ago?" "So it was that new." " Very new landscape, isn't it?" " Yeah." "Presumably, what we're seeing now, that means it's still active, there's still energy under there." " Could it blow again?" "Has it erupted since?" " Oh, yeah." "The last eruption is..." "last year, October." " Last October?" " Yeah." "They closed the area." " For visitors, tourists." "Horse." " Yeah." "I think we should go back, Eko." "I think we should leg it." "Come on!" "We've reached Surabaya, where they moor the pinisis, the boats that still carry most of the trade between the islands." "Now we must find one going our way." " Do you want to go to Timor or Lombok?" " Lombok, Lombok." "OK, we'll try down here." "I'm still hopeful." "The boats remind me of the dhows of the Persian Gulf." "There's the same sense of family loyalties and local skills operating outside the normal system." "But there are problems." "We're in trouble here because none of them will take us." "None of them will take us east towards Lombok and Timor, the direction we want to go towards Darwin." "They say at this time of year the weather is bad." "It's too dangerous to go." "So... we have found one which will take us tomorrow morning towards the end of the island of Java." "We'll just have to try and get somewhere on through the islands from there." "This is as far as we go, Eko." "Goodbye." "Goodbye, but I'll see you again sometime." "Thanks very much indeed." "I really appreciate your help and patience." "I'll send you a card from Darwin, if I ever get there." " (EKO) Bye." " Bye." "We leave Surabaya not quite sure where we're going and how we'll get there." "For a while, it all seems to be going so well." "With sails hoisted and a fair wind, we make our way majestically southwards." "The inescapable reality is that our ship cannot risk the open sea with monsoon winds about." "But if we stay inshore, the wind gets weaker and the sea gets shallower." "After less than a day's sailing, our captain has no choice but to arrange for local fishermen to take us off the boat and ashore." "I don't like having to abandon ship." "It's the first major setback since we missed our Coast Guard flight in Alaska." "But we survived that and I'm sure we'll survive this." " (ENGINE SPLUTTERS)" " Well, I think I'm sure." "(ENGINE RUNS NOISILY)" "Wherever this village is, they seem very friendly." "In fact, our arrival feels like a homecoming - as if we've just been round the world." "I daren't tell them we only left Surabaya this morning." "I wish there were another way of looking at it, but there isn't." "After 17,000 miles of travel, we're up the creek." "Thanks for getting me to wherever I am, wherever it is." "Cheers, guys." "I'm riding a road train called Lazy Lady - 180 feet of truck and trailer." "We're 200 miles south of Darwin and about to witness a unique phenomenon - the only set of traffic lights for 1,000 miles." "My driver Scotty drops me off in the town of Katherine." "I'll be seeing him later, but first there's business to do." "Katherine is a small, bustling oasis in the middle of a vast empty land." "I have an appointment with someone who'll show me the country." "His name is Peter Trembath and he's a vet." "He operates out of the local airport." "Well... mud patch." "Peter flies his own aircraft." "Up here, it's almost as common as driving a car." "We head out over the Katherine Gorge." "How wide an area do you cover?" " All over there." " So thousands of..." " A thousand Ks across, I suppose." " Right." "But it's sparsely populated." "There'd only be..." "Including Katherine town, there'd be maybe 15,000 people." "Maximum in the whole area, maybe 20,000." "I don't know if they really know." "Do a lot of people come here because they want to get away from cities, live an independent life?" "I think they come 'cause they want to get away from the law!" "Either that or they want to get away from their wife or some broken business or... 0ur first stop is Coolibah airstrip." "It's green and muddy, a reminder that the top end of Australia is in the tropics and they call this season "The Wet"." "(PETER) We're on the ground, Coolibah, the strip's OK." "We're here to see a farmer called Bluey Pugh or, more specifically," "Bluey's dear little animals." "(HISS AGGRESSIVELY)" "Bluey farms crocodiles, mainly for the French market." "You could be looking at next year's Gucci or Cardin handbags." "He also risks life and limb to collect crocodile eggs from outlying swamps." " They just poke their nose out." " Yeah." "Wow!" "Amazing!" "Ahh, it's alien!" " Wow!" " He's gone." " Can it still bite you?" " Yeah." " What have I got to do?" " Just get him out." "Any way you like." "He's going..." "Ah, ah, well... (BLUEY) He could take a digit at any moment!" "You're a father!" "(MICHAEL) Honey, it's a crocodile." "Boy or girl?" "I don't know yet." "It's still in the egg." "That is just..." "That is amazing." "Are you going to be all right?" "The wonderful world of handbags beckons for you." "Come on." "There you go." "There it goes." "Ahh." "Oh, look at that." "Well, I never." "Comes out with the jaws open." "Comes out fighting." " (BLUEY) Able to defend themselves." " Out you go." "Whoo!" "Ahh!" " Where do you want to put it?" " In there." "You're good at this, I can see." " How long do they take to hatch?" " About 85 days." "85 days." "You could go round the world in that time." "Or less." "It's a family business." "Bluey's wife helps out." "He's probably hoping his daughter will, too." "Somehow I can't see her as a crocodile farmer." "Whoo!" "Ahh!" "Oooh, ooh!" "That was a good one, eh?" " Grab him!" " Got him!" "Oh, look, I've got him!" " Into the basket." " I want that on camera." "I'm holding a crocodile." "I've held a crocodile now for more than five seconds." "I wouldn't touch this one." "He's a 70-year-old breeding crocodile called Mumbles." "Bluey's been kind enough to let me feed him some brumby - that is wild-horse meat." "Will he know where the horse meat ends and my arm begins?" " He doesn't seem to love you much." " No." "(BLUEY) There you go." "(MUMBLES BELCHES)" "I've nothing to say apart from..." "how's he going to eat all that with no teeth?" "I don't know." "He can give you a nasty suck." "The reason we're here is because another of Bluey's crocodiles is feeling off colour." "He's not keen to come to the surgery, either." "Bluey takes no risks." "A weapon changes hands." "Right." "Bluey's worried about an abscess on its snout." "It's affecting his breeding potential." "Grab him now." "Jump on him." "Grab his legs." " Where's my Telecom rope?" " It's on the fence." "Peter prepares to cut away the diseased tissue." "Not as radical as it sounds." "The croc's snout is devoid of sensation." "The flesh no longer has any feeling." " We have to look after him." " This is a breeder, so he's worth a bit." "Yeah." "Can you put a figure on how much he's worth?" "Nah." "He's not worth as much as we are." " (PETER) I'll just trim him up a bit." " Just take?" "Take the bits off, let it heal up a bit." " Do you think it hurts as much as it looks?" " No, it's desensitised." "It goes dead when they get damaged like that." "You can cut in there." "That's why I reckon he can't submerge." " Ever been frightened by a crocodile, Bluey?" " Do I get frightened?" "Oh, yeah." " That's what keeps me alive - fear." " (MICHAEL LAUGHS)" "A quarter of the population of the Northern Territory is Aboriginal." "In the last 20 years, land-rights acts have given them potentially rich areas of influence." "Next on Peter's rounds is a 300-mile hop to the Aboriginal settlement of Manyallaluk." "(PETER) We'd better get into it." "Peter's here for routine veterinary work - spaying, spraying, delousing, worming, and giving a jab to anything that moves." "(PIG SQUEALS)" "All creatures great and small are pleased to see him (l)" "(CAT SNARLS)" "(DOG SQUEALS AND YELPS)" "You deserve the money!" "I ask Peter and his assistant Trish if they're ever bitten." "Do you wanna see the scars?" "(MICHAEL) How many dogs are there?" "There are more dogs than people." " Oh, about two or three hundred." " Two or three hundred?" "Dogs are important to the Aboriginals." "They use them to hunt porcupine, snake, even kangaroo." "The diseases the dogs get can easily be passed on to humans." "(DOG YELPS)" "The short ones grab you by the ankle and the tall ones grab you by the!" "(DOG YELPS)" "Craziest dog I've ever seen." " Have you ever needled a dog, Mike?" " No, I've never needled a dog." "Not much call for it in my work." " You've got to be a bit like a javelin thrower." " (MICHAEL) Jab it in a bit hard." "Experts." "Years of practice." " That one, we'll give it another 15 minutes." " 15 minutes after the jab..." " Then we do the operation." " How long is it before they come round?" " You've got a rabbit?" "Right." "An hour or so." " We'll be gone by then." " Come round and find you've no balls." " Got a rabbit." "Do you encourage them to be castrated and spayed?" "Yeah." "You should've seen this place when we used to come." " Dogs everywhere?" " The dogs are better now." "I know it's all in a day's work for Peter, but I'm affected by near-terminal squeamishness." " If you're going to faint, find somewhere soft." " Not with these dogs around." "If you faint, you'll die." " The dog population is less than it used to be?" " Oh, yeah." "As a result of this..." "Is there any resistance to having them cut?" " No." " The owners don't mind?" "Not at all." "As Peter's handiwork takes effect, a post-operative calm descends over the village." "It's been a traumatic time for all of us." "I know just how this dog feels." "I rejoin Lazy Lady for the long haul south from Katherine to Alice Springs, the 700-mile commute she makes two or three times a week." "Scotty's been driving the Stuart Highway for seven years." "He relieves the tedium with a good book." "As we head for the bone-dry heart of Australia, what better than a tale of the sea?" "(TAPE) "...he looked through his glasses with the pointer fixed on the silhouette of Bismarck." ""'Firel' he said." ""Then came the incredible roar and concussion of the salvo." ""'A hit, a hit, at the second salvol I told you the old ronnie would do itl'" ""The Bismarck lay a shattered, burning, sinking hulk," ""as Dorsetshire approached." ""Bismarck rolled over and sank," ""leaving the surface covered with debris and struggling men."" "Alice was the wife of the superintendent of telegraphs." "These springs were the site of a vital connection her husband built for the telegraph line in 1872." "It reduced contact time between Australia and London from three months to seven hours." "The town was supplied by camel trains." "When real trains came along, they were released into the wild." "Now they're trying to find them again for zoos, game parks and breeding." "This is camel country." "I'm driving deep into the heart of it - to a remote outback station called King's Creek." "I meet lan Conway and his team of jackeroos - men and a woman who capture wild camels." "Tomorrow they'll show me how it's done." "Tonight, like any other swagman, I'll camp out by the fire." "Are there any dangers about sleeping out here under the stars?" " Definitely." "Don't sleep with your mouth open." " (LAUGHTER)" "If you've got a salty mouth in the morning, you know what the dingo's done." "I don't want to endanger any wildlife." "It looks really idyllic out there." "It's fairly deadly." "I wouldn't camp out here." " Where do you pitch your four-poster, then?" " I've got an air-conditioned room back there." "The night passes comfortably under cool, clear skies." "I awake to a wonderful smell hanging in the desert air - breakfast, full English breakfast." "Cooked the Australian way, of course." " How do you like your eggs?" " Can I have sunny side up?" "I've had strange dreams about camel mustering, but I've a feeling none of them will be stranger than reality." "I'm right." "As soon as the spotter helicopter moves the herd towards us," "I'm in a world which nothing I've ever experienced has prepared me for." "I'm also clinging for dear life onto the back of lan's four-wheel drive with a Dane called Gunnar." "I'd only asked lan if I could watch." "I'm gonna get ready for this now." "Now I know lan won't be happy until I've lassoed a camel." "It looks easy, but it's their terrain, not ours." "The camels toy with us, knowing just when to turn, when to slow and when to lead us off into the trees again." "After a while, lassoing seems a complete irrelevance." "All my energy goes into staying on board." "A choking cloud of dust rises around me." "The camel stops, twists and turns away again." "My ribs crack the bar as lan stands first on the brake, then the accelerator." "Eventually, we're lucky." "Well, HE'S lucky." "I've missed it again." "We've got a camel." "Now we've got to persuade it to come quietly." " Now go round it." " Shall I take this?" "Yes, you can hang onto that, mate." " Pull on her." "Pull on her now." "Pull on her." " Thorns all over from the bushes." "Pull on her." "Pull her!" "Pull her hard!" "Go back around!" "More." "Wrap it more." " Do you want me to sit on her?" " Yup." "Oh, my God!" "I tell you, I've never done anything like that in my whole life!" "In all these damn fool series, I've never done anything as, oh, bloody silly in my life!" "Christ!" "(MICHAEL) They go on about the adrenaline high." "I've got it now." "Just as I'm wondering if I can go home, lan spots another prospect, and we're into action again." "Righto, Michael, she's yours!" "All yours, Michael, all yours!" "All yours!" "Right, now!" "Go!" "You've got him!" "You got him!" "(IAN) Fantastic!" "(MICHAEL) Sorry!" "Sorry!" "Pull on her." "Pull on her now!" "The whole process of roping is messy and undignified, but we see no camels hurt." "Ian knows that the better he can look after them, the better the price." "I don't think he's quite so worried about me." "You've done a wonderful job." "Good job you picked this one out, or we'd never have had this." "Look how docile it is." "You wouldn't think she'd come out of a wild herd." "You could kiss her." "Only thing you've gotta watch is they suck very hard." "I'm not gonna get too close to that little one." "She's got a lovely face - tolerant, patient." " I feel I want to apologise." "Sorry, old girl." " Why don't you?" "Sorry." "Just..." "There you are." "Lovely." "The camels will go to lan's farm for a few weeks'pampering and then they, like me, will have to move on." "Ironically, their memory is kept alive by one of the railway trains that made them redundant." "It's called the Ghan, after the Afghan camels and their drivers who helped build the first railway line across the desert." "The overnight ride to Adelaide gives me a chance to rest my bruises in comfort and to meet others with worse problems." " I hope the rest of your journey is safe." " Thank you." "Don't break the other arm." " Prost." " Prost." "Adelaide is 900 miles from Alice and a very different lady." "(CHURCH BELL RINGS)" "Unlike Sydney, Adelaide was never a convict colony." "Its wealth, like its respectability, was acquired slowly and soberly." "It's just what I need - a quiet day or two in a good hotel." "A book, a drink, a chance to recover from too many nights in the bush." "But it is not to be." "My arrival has coincided with one of the biggest social events of Adelaide's year." "The Desperate and Dateless Ball." "The rules of the event are simple." "Participants must be under 40, wearing evening dress and desperate for a date." "They come as singles and leave as couples." "I find a seat and keep my head down." "Around me, the lobby is filled with the human cost of computer dating." "Hundreds of people looking for a sign of recognition from hundreds of other people." "My hotel is only the place where the couples meet." "The ball, fortunately, is a cab ride away." "Just as peace is beginning to descend, I receive a strange proposition." "I'm over-age, under-dressed and badly bruised, but, well, what can a gentleman do?" "(UPBEAT POP MUSIC)" "# Desperate, I'm feeling desperate!" "I've got a feeling I've got no date... #" "We're getting on so well, I think we might go on a camel-mustering holiday." "# Totally dateless, lonely and mateless... #" "Over there, there's my date!" "Look, I'm sorry!" "# Lonely and mateless... #" "Not to worry." "My book's getting rather exciting." "Just outside Adelaide, they have the world's only cow race." "At least it's a chance to get away from camels." "For a moment, my heart freezes." "But we're soon into the serious business which has brought all these people to the little farming community of Mount Compass." "(TANN0Y) "Udderley"good and could come with a rush." "That says it all." "125!" "Gotta be careful with the flies!" "(MICHAEL) Before you can race a cow, you have to buy the right to ride it at an auction." "At $130, it's down here now!" "135!" "40!" "145!" "50!" "150 now!" "$150!" "5!" "At 155!" "Waiting there at 155!" "60!" "160 it is!" "$160!" "Are you all done?" "5!" "165, 70!" "Are you finished?" "I've got it on the ride at $170!" "Going once... (MICHAEL SNEEZES) 5!" "Sold to the strange gentleman here!" "I don't know his name!" "You've got it, sir!" "Come on." "Come on down!" " I'll explain later." "It's just a big mistake." " Very good bid." "Thank you very much." "Come on down, sir." "Well bought." "Thanks to a heavy cold and $175, I've bought the right to ride my very own cow." "Take it easy." "She's called Udderley Yours." "I do my best to encourage some pre-race bonding." "0thers don't seem to have bothered." "(TANN0Y) And they're offi And they're not gonna get on." "That's Maxi Milker running there." "What's she doing in the race?" "Breathe Your Last is coming up... (MICHAEL) Udderley Yours does everything I ask of her, except move." "(TANN0Y) We've got Reliable right alongside the commentary stand... (MICHAEL) The Udderley Yours team decides on a more long-term strategy, mainly involving staying on the cow." "(TANN0Y) There's no rider on Diana." "There's Diana going down." "There's no rider... (MICHAEL) This proves to be a highly unconventional tactic." "(TANN0Y) We've got St John's Ambulance." "There's one fella down in a bad way." "0h, is that Michael Palin over there?" "(MICHAEL) 0ur next master stroke is to develop a special racing diet." "(TANN0Y) There goes Dun Fling, thinking, "What a bunch of mugs these people are."" "Dun Fling. 0ne down over there." "What's going on with 12 up there?" "That's Daisy." "What a muck-up there." " He's hanging on for dear life." " He's gonna be on TV... (MICHAEL) 0ur fuel injection system is working wonders." "Now we're motoringl" "I can get my oats later on!" " (WOMAN) Oh!" "Thanks!" " Lovely!" "Just what I wanted!" "(TANN0Y) We've got someone down." "I think that's one of the Mount Barker fellas." "(MICHAEL) Whilst more eager riders are carried off, I romp home in second place, twelve and a half minutes behind the winner." "This is the Indian Pacific." "Now we've crossed Australia from north to south, it'll take us on a 24-hour ride east to Sydney and back on course to the Pacific." "A few miles up the Pacific coast is one of Australia's booming exports - a soap called "Home And Away"." "I came to see what makes it so successful." "They're short of an actor." "We might just even out that skin tone there and we'll be laughing." "Action!" "The formula seems easy enough - good, clean entertainment." "I think I might change all that." " Oh, that's good, yeah." " A bit of rubber." "Something like that might be more the go." "Action." " There he is!" " Where?" " Over there." "That's Dylan." " No." "As the characters loved by millions go through their paces, I slip into something subtle." "Now, where's my dialogue coach?" "Action!" "I may have only been given two lines, but they're pretty tricky." "Sorry, I was going to head in for a bit of a dip..." "Sorry, I was going to head in for a bit of a dip and I thought..." "Rehearsal lasts all of 15 seconds." "Then it's time to get dressed and go for it." "The tension mounts perceptibly." "And... action!" "Yes, I'm having a dress made." "I went into the decorating store and they had the most amazing selection of imported wallpaper." " It was all from overseas, too." " It would be if it was imported." "And I saw the most perfect wallpaper for your flat." "Not too masculine, not too feminine." "I just know you're going to..." "I hope they get to my lines before the tide comes in." "Sorry, I was about to head in for a bit of..." "Sorry I was just AB0UT to head in..." "Sorry..." "Too latel" " Yes?" " Sorry, I was going to head in for a bit of a dip." "I suddenly thought, are there sharks in there?" "Sharks?" "No." "Jolly good." "Thanks awfully." "Plenty of jellyfish, though!" "Oh... thanks." "Thanks for the warning." "I model the voice on Hugh Grant, the walk on John Cleese." "I wonder if anyone will notice." "There's an extra touch of glamour about the harbour today." "The 0riana, here on her maiden voyage." "I smuggle myself aboard." "(SHIP'S HORN BLARES)" "This seems a perfect way to remember Sydney and, after all I've been through, a perfect way to say goodbye to Australia." "(APPLAUSE)" "(MUSIC: "WALTZING MATILDA")" "(SHIP'S HORN BLARES)" "New Zealand is separated from Australia by 1,000 miles of the Tasman Sea, named after the first white man to see these islands 350 years ago." "Auckland is a city of sailing boats and businesses." "It has the comfortable appeal of a little big city." "It's a place where you can relax, knowing each day will be much like any other." "Which may explain why some people throw themselves off buildings." "Rap jumping is the latest example of New Zealand's quest for what it thinks it lacks - excitement." "Maybe Auckland's too comfortable." "Across the Cook Strait, South Island looks more formidable." "300 miles from Auckland, a ferry runs across from Wellington into a sparsely populated land of fjords and mountains." "Surely here, where dark cliffs plunge into the sea and summits rise to meet us, excitement cannot be far away." "As I board the southbound train in Picton," "I've a feeling that I'm soon to experience something remarkable." "I'm not far wrong." "(CHANTING)" " (CHANTING) People on the boat say..." " Step to the side!" "The other occupants are a dragon-boat team and their supporters returning from a regatta in Wellington." "(CHANTING) Step to the side!" "You'd better run and hide!" "Move to the side!" "Everybody is alive!" "(MAN) Everybody in the boat, come on, I wanna hear you say, "Boat!"" "Everybody in the boat, come on, I wanna hear you say, "Boat!" "Boat!"" "(MAN) Don't stop paddling, baby!" "All that paddling drives us crazy!" "(GROUP) Wiggle, wiggle!" "Wiggle, wiggle!" "(MAN) Don't stop paddling, baby!" "All that paddling drives us crazy!" " (RHYTHMIC CLAPPING)" " Wiggle, wiggle!" "Wiggle, wiggle!" "By the time we reach the town of Kaikoura, they've worn themselves out." "To be honest, it's positively refreshing to be amongst shy, retiring New Zealanders again." "That is, until I meet the Maoris." "The Maoris have a distinctive way of making you welcome." "Before they can trust you, they have to issue the Maori challenge." "(MAORI CHANT)" "The Maoris arrived in these islands over a thousand years ago." "The challenge is still issued when an outsider is received into the tribe." "Today it's my turn." "The branch of peace is laid on the ground." "0nce I've picked it up, I and my Maori sponsors can advance towards the marae, the Maori meeting place, for the next stage of the ceremony." "This I'm not looking forward to." "Every outsider is required to give a speech and sing a song." "My mind goes blank and then spins back to my childhood." "You talk about traditions here and about a feeling of place being very important, a sense of where you belong." "So I thought I would sing you, very briefly, a verse from a song that was written at the founding of the school that I went to in Shrewsbury in England." "And it was written in the year 1552 for the founder of the school" " King Edward." "My only apology is that it's in Latin." "I don't know if anyone can translate." "Maybe Rik will be able to translate into Maori later." "Anyway, I'll only inflict one verse upon you." "It is the school song of Shrewsbury School." "(SINGS "REX EDWARDE TE CANAMUS")" " Thank you." " (SPARSE APPLAUSE)" "I was able to go on to the "hongi", the rubbing of noses which marks the acceptance of the stranger." "This may look like a quaint tradition, but the reality is that Maoripower and influence has never been stronger." "In Kaikoura, they own and run fishing and tourist operations." "They're building a new harbour." "Next morning, I join one of their enterprises." "I've hired a boat and a guide called Snow." "We're looking for sperm whales attracted inshore by favourable currents, deep water and abundant food." "Just looking out for that spout, for a starter." "Yeah, there he is up over there." "(MICHAEL) That was quick." "(SNOW) He's come up from a dive." "He's been down for the last 50 minutes hunting for food." "He's breathing every 15 seconds - getting rid of the carbon dioxide and nitrogen in his body that he's accumulated over that last dive." "Now he's re-oxygenating his bloodstream, ready to go down for the next 50 minutes." " How do you know when he'll dive?" " He'll do a shallow dive, take a last breath." "Blow out and he's away down." " (MICHAEL) That's beautiful, isn't it?" " Magnificent." "The further south you go in New Zealand, the more like home it becomes, and the more I'm tempted to regress to the erratic days of my youth." "An outing on the river in Christchurch is like a dream sponsored by the British Tourist Board." "(BAGPIPES PLAY "SCOTLAND THE BRAVE")" "Every cliché is ripened by the soft summer sun." "(PLAYS "SCOTLAND THE BRAVE")" "(MICHAEL SIGHS CONTENTEDLY)" "The clichés don't stop here, as I discover when our coach heads on across the island next day." "It's almost as if someone somewhere knows I've been away from home for too long." "Near the southernmost point of our circle, the number of people on the Pacific Rim is dwindling fast." "They seem to have been replaced by sheep." "For every man, woman and child in New Zealand, there are 14 sheep." "They fill up the wide empty spaces until it gets too wild even for them." "Ahead of us is Mount Cook, highest peak in Australasia." "We don't wanna stand on there, but we can stand here... 0n the Tasman Glacier, I'm taught how not to fall down a crevasse." "Then we can just take a big step across." " Ahhh!" "A giant step for mankind..." " We can carry on to the next one." "This is the easy bit." "Not all the 17-mile-long glacier is walking country." "We need help." "This is tough country." "Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Everest, perhaps the most famous New Zealander, trained among these ice fields and rock walls." "A demanding environment like this strikes a deep chord in the New Zealand psyche." "Which brings us back to excitement." "In Queenstown, it comes in a marketing package labelled "adrenaline activities"." "It's not a New Zealand phenomenon." "People from all over come here to be nearly killed." "For 30 quid, you can be driven at a rock." "The great thing about jet-boating is that if you wet yourself no one will ever know." "If you survive this, and most people do, you can still throw yourself off a bridge and be home for dinner." "People throw themselves off the Kawarau Suspension Bridge at the rate of 50 a day." "Five, four, three, two, one!" "See ya!" "Wahoooooo!" "(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)" "(MEN) Five, four, three, two, one!" "I talked to AJ Hackett, the man who sold bungee jumping to the world at the place where it all began." "One of the things I made a point of doing was making sure anybody could do it." "The last thing I wanted was it was just a thing for men with big muscles and big... penises." "You know, for me, it's not what it's about." "(HACKETT) So we encouraged from day one, first of all, women to jump, then anybody who had a physical handicap." "We would encourage them to jump, spend time harnessing them up, so they'd be nice and comfortable." "We've had a policy from day one where anybody over 60 jumps for free." "Do you want to touch the water?" "You want to?" "You're crazy." "Good luck." "Good luck." "Can you go like this?" "Go like this?" "Go like that all the way down." "Strap 'em on." "Look into the bridge in front, Keith." "There's your target, OK?" " Just a nice, comfortable dive out." "Here we go." " (MEN) Five, four, three, two, one!" " Magic!" " That should do something." "Over here we have a video camera on you." "A little wave over here." " OK." " Ohhh!" "It's OK." "It's OK." "Look over here to the bridge." "Big push on one." "Here we go." "(ALL) Five, four, three, two, one!" "One more?" "We've had the trial." "Here we go." "Look into the bridge straight ahead." "Don't look down any more." "OK, here we go." "Let go of this." "Five, four, three, two, one!" "(GIRL SCREAMS)" "They don't get many people over 36 jumping." "I suppose it's fear." "(SPLASH)" "But I like to think it's wisdom." "Dunedin station on a wet, grey day." "Robbie Burns' statue confirms Dunedin's origins." "This is Scotland in the South Pacific." "It's also the possessor of what is considered New Zealand's leading university - the University of 0tago." "I visit Selwyn College to see what pulls the cream of New Zealand's youth to this far corner of the South Island." "(SHOUTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT)" "I've arrived at the start of the academic year." "Already new undergraduates are learning some valuable lessons in life." "(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)" "There's a freshman's run." "I need the exercise, so I ask if I can join them." "I feel like the Monty Python definition of a medieval king - the only one who hasn't got shit all over him." "(STUDENTS CHANT)" "The run starts normally enough, then takes an interesting turn." "Righto, guys, we're enjoying it!" "Then I'm told the awful truth." "I've got myself into one of the oldest initiation ceremonies at the university - the Leith Run." "(GIRL) Oh, no!" " (MAN) Let's go!" " (CHEERING)" "(MAN) It's every man for himself!" " Coffee, two sugars." " Right away!" "The Leith Run isn't a run at all, more of a hobble." "In case the students are enjoying themselves too much, their elders and betters are on the bank adding eggs and flour to the recipe." "We know what we did last year!" "Oh, no!" "Oh, God!" "(GIRLS SQUEAL)" "Higher education!" "It's been a chance for me to meet" "New Zealand's philosophers, brain surgeons, judges and prime ministers of the future." "I only hope they remember me." "I shan't forget them." "(STUDENTS CHANT) Selwyn, Selwyn, Selwyn!" "So how's the journey going so far, Mike?" "Having had a public-school education, I understand pain and pointless exercise." "Second to camel mustering, that's the most uncomfortable hour I've spent!" "10,000 miles of unbroken Southern 0cean separate New Zealand from this, the southernmost point of the American continent, a place feared and respected by generations of mariners" " Cape Horn." "Commander, is this the real Cape Horn?" "I know it as a place of mountainous seas and shipwrecks." " It's like a millpond today." " It is real, but we have been very lucky." "This is very unusual to have this fine weather, really." "So it's true that, normally, it's a pretty rough place to?" "Yes." "No more than 20% of the time the weather is like this morning." "So we'll get across onto the..." "onto Cape Horn itself without any trouble." "Cape Horn is a place few people ever see, let alone visit." "Antarctica is only 500 miles away." "This is the one place on earth where the Atlantic and Pacific 0ceans meet." "Commander Merino and the Chilean navy are our hosts and saviours." "They know these unpredictable waters better than anyone else." "Apart from its security role, the navy supplies scattered communities, saves lone yachtsman, and, just this once, a not-quite-lone television presenter." "So there's just the three of them here?" "The three, I think, and a couple of dogs." " Think they'll be pleased to see us?" " Yes, I'm sure, yes." "They don't receive visits very often." "Do they get many visitors?" "So it is that at four o'clock on a May afternoon, I land on Cape Horn." "(DOG BARKING)" "Buenas tardes." "Hello." "Don't you start. (LAUGHS)" "Hello, boy." "Obviously hasn't seen anyone for a while!" "Go on." "Right, take us to your master." "So how long do these guys spend out here at a time?" "They stay for two months here." " Every two months, we have to change them." " Yeah." "And do they see other people?" "Do they get visitors?" "Not very often, really." "Could be..." "Cape Horn is, in fact, a tiny island no bigger than Diomede where my journey began." "The few buildings here are a surprising mixture." "A lighthouse I expect, but not a church." "Is this chapel just for the three people who live here?" "Yes, only for them." "Normally, every two months, we send a priest from Puerto Williams when we are changing the people and then they have a service then." "0utside Antarctica, this is the southernmost place of worship in the world." " Someone obviously looks after it, don't they?" " Yes." "Such a bleak place." "It's beautiful." "It's still." "Still and peaceful." "The extraordinary thing about coming to Cape Horn, besides being a lifetime's dream realised, is that it is the end of the American continent." "Those are the last few yards of America over there... or the first few." "For me, they are the first few, 'cause now I turn north to follow that spine of mountains which winds up to the Bering Strait and Diomede from which I started." "But another 10,000 miles to go." "Before I set out, I can't resist sending a card from Cape Horn post office." "So this will have the Cape Horn stamp on it and be sent from Cape Horn?" " Yes." " Great." "How does it get out?" "We will have to send it... go with..." "take it in the ship and send it from Puerto Williams." " Oh." "Which ship?" "Our ship?" " Our ship." " Oh, there you are, then." " OK." "Thank you." "(MICHAEL LAUGHS) I thought there was a post box somewhere." "Maybe I'll institute one." "The Palin Memorial Post Box." "We turn north for the first time on our journey, picking our way round Tierra del Fuego, aiming for Punta Arenas where the road begins." "0ur route follows the Beagle Channel." "It's a safer alternative to rounding the Horn." "It's called after HMS Beagle, a British ship which discovered and charted these waters in 1831." "Charles Darwin sailed on the Beagle." "His "Theory 0f Evolution" was shaped by his observations of this dramatic, ever-changing landscape." "Darwin called this "nature's workshop"." "There is a real sense of scenery being created, of solid rock under remorseless pressure." "Next morning, the weather has changed." "We're through the Beagle Channel and putting ashore at a small bay." "There is a unique record here of the price paid by the first British sailors." "Commander Pringle Stokes RN captained the Beagle on its first voyage." "He never returned home." "A simple cross reads "In memory of Commander Pringle Stokes RN" ""who died from the effects of the anxieties and hardships" ""incurred while surveying the western shores of Tierra del Fuego."" "The truth is he committed suicide." "At Punto Arenas, I renew acquaintance with two old friends," "Patricio from "Pole To Pole" and Magellan from Geography 0 level." "Magellan - the man who first called the Pacific the Pacific." " (PATRICIO) Yep." "Nice monument." " It is, isn't it?" "(PATRICIO) Yeah, quite powerful." "And the good thing, at least for me, is that this is one of the few monuments in Chile that is not related to the military." "I suppose not, although he did wipe out the Indians." "Well, he didn't." "Others did." "This is the lucky toe." "If you kiss this, you come back." "I did that before." " That is why you are back here." " I should do it again, I think." "Just a quick peck!" " People still believe in that, do they?" " Oh, yes, yes, still believe." "0ur first northbound road runs 160 miles out of Punto Arenas and no further." "This is our first sight of the Andes, the Torres del Paine mountains, a foretaste of what lies ahead of us all the way to Alaska." "They're stupendous up there." "I don't think I've ever seen peaks quite so jagged and so tall as the towers through there." "They're probably very new geologically." "That must be kind of early." "(PATRICIO) It's probably new, but when I was here the first time, they were here!" "(MICHAEL LAUGHS)" "0ur only way north from here is by boat from a place called Puerto Natales." "It's evening when we reach our destination." "There's a cargo ship, the Puerto Eden, leaving at midnight." "It's rough and ready and smells ominously like a farmyard." "(SHEEP BLEAT)" "Islands litter the southwest coast of Chile like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle." "0ur route dodges between them to the island of Chiloe." "It will take half a week to get there." "Sunrise reveals that overnight the Puerto Eden has become a Noah's ark." "Sheep and cattle are squeezed onto trailers that are squeezed onto the cargo decks." "The animals look healthy enough in the fresh sea air and the morning sunshine." "The truth is that for four days and nights they will have nowhere else to go." "The human cargo may have more room to move, but not much more to do." "I try to remember how to play chess and beat myself quite convincingly." "There's excitement as we approach a shallow and dangerous narrows called the Kirke Pass." "With so few passengers aboard, it's easy to get a grandstand view." "As our captain cuts speed to negotiate the pass, we become a welcome diversion for the local seals and sea lions." "They follow us with the joyful expectancy of those who've been waiting for a ship to run aground for years." "With less than six feet to spare beneath her keel, the Puerto Eden sails through the Kirke Pass with aplomb and a blast of self-satisfaction." "(SHIP'S HORN BLARES)" "The island of Chiloe has a reputation for poverty, superstition, independence, black magic, music and rain." "To find out if this was earned, I talked to Catherine Hall, an American living here, on a typical Chilote day." "My guidebook did say that Chiloe was renowned for rain." "It's chilly!" " Accurate today." " It's usually like this in the winter." " It also said it's renowned for witchcraft." " That's true." "The people here say, "No creo en brujo, caray!" "Pero que los hay, los hay."" "That means, "I don't believe in witches, but they exist."" "They do exist." "There are witches here." "I believe there are, too!" " Have you ever met one?" " Not that I know of." "But I think maybe." "I'm not sure." "This is the thing about the witches." "They only reveal their identity one to another." "They're a very, very secret society." "We believe that this form of operating secretly is from the days of the Spanish conquest." " It was a kind of a resistance to scare them." " What are the characteristics of the Chilote?" "It's hard to explain the Chilotes." "I'll have to get you to meet them." "I'm gonna take you to meet them and then you'll know how they are." "They're very special." "Catherine's right." "No sooner have I arrived at a local festivity than I'm put to work." "Peeling the potatoes." "Sonia's done 153." "I've done four." "Sonia is my host at a curanto, a sort of traditional do-it-yourself barbecue." " (SONIA SPEAKS RAPID SPANISH)" " I know." "Trouble is I belong to that softy world of people who buy Marks and Spencer's ready-peeled." "I haven't seen potato peel in our house for years!" "Actually, that's not true." "Not at all true." "My wife won't thank me for saying that." "It's just I don't see much of it, as you can tell." "I do more cerebral things." "Habla ningún poquito de castellano, de español?" "No?" " Um... hablo un poco español." " Si?" "Yeah." "Poco." "Poquito." " Poquito, poquito." " Yeah, but I like the patatas." "Patatas that may well have originally grown on this island." " This is where they came from." " Hola." "Estamos pelando papas." " One of the original world spuds." " Ella es una gringita igual." "It's not like any barbecue I've ever been to." "Some of the preparations are alarming." "Se le pone un poco de manteca de chanco." "Mm, that's a bit of shaving cream." "What's that?" "That's fat?" "Some bits of pork and fat." " Don't try this at home." " Todo se amasa." "The fire is kindled with special slow-burning wood." "These slow-burning properties are enhanced by the start of steady but generous rainfall." "At which point, the guests start to arrive." "Despite the downpour, the stones have heated nicely and are ready for the clams." "Inside, dancing begins." " (SINGING)" " The cueca is one of the oldest dances of Chile." "The man plays the strutting cockerel and the woman the playful hen." "(ACCORDION MUSIC)" "By now, the barbecue resembles the scene of a serious accident, but still more food goes on, bedded down beneath strips of fresh-cut turf." "(COUGHING)" "(UPBEAT SONG)" "At last the curanto is ready." "Somewhere under here, apart from my rissoles, are clams, mussels, pork chops, salmon, ham and strings of sausages." "All we've got to do now is find theml" "(CHILEAN MUSIC CONTINUES)" "(SINGING IN SPANISH)" "Chiloe is an eccentric place, but they do know how to have a good time on a rainy afternoon, and where else could you learn to play the horse's jawbone?" "(TOOTH DROPS)" "E flat?" "E flat - gone for good." "It never did stop raining on Chiloe, but by the time we move on to Chile's capital Santiago 650 miles north, it is dry and warm and suddenly, shockingly, full of people." "Five million of Chile's 13 million people live in Santiago, where the most popular name seems to be 0'Higgins." "(CAR HORNS)" "Bernardo 0'Higgins, illegitimate son of an Irish immigrant, liberated Chile from the Spaniards in 1818, and they haven't forgotten him." "There's even a street named after Bernardo in the cemetery." "Santiago's General Cemetery is a city in itself." "Its long avenues cover 220 acres." "The remains of two million people lie here, lodged in every kind of property from an earth mound to a marble palace." "Such is the demand for space that a rental system operates." "It can cost up to $200 a year to be dead here." "The cemetery has a haunting and powerful presence." "Miracles have been known to take place." "Away from the tombs of the rich and famous are those who died in the repression that followed the military coup of 1973." "They were murdered methodically and secretly and their bodies dumped outside the cemetery." "Their names are still not known." "This dark, unhappy period of Chilean history is remembered by the most powerful memorial of them all." "A wall of marble bears the names of those victims who have been identified." "From the president of the republic himself down to the most ordinary people some of them children as young as two years old." "These are the names of the dead and disappeared." "Another 2,000 remain to be added." "The iron grip of military dictatorship has loosened." "General Pinochet and his army may wait in the wings, but Chile is again regarded as a well-behaved democracy." "In the Plaza de Armas, life goes on." "Men without women cluster round the open-air chess boards." "If you're lonely, this is the place to find a partner." "For chess, of course." "Spurred on by my great success against myself on the boat up from the south," "I decide it's time to put my new-found skills to the test." "Er..." "It's a bloodbath." "He wins before I've even got the hang of the clock." "Finished already!" "I was just getting warmed up!" "I know." "Next time I'll put my glasses on." " Thanks, Gustav." "So that's really..." " That's because you lost the game." "But you're allowed five minutes." "How long did we have?" "We are already playing chess for maybe three minutes." "Shhh!" "As evening falls over downtown Santiago, the hilltop park of Cerro Santa Lucia offers a quiet getaway from city smog and traffic." "0r so they tell me." "(MAN SHOUTS IN SPANISH)" "They didn't tell me it's also the pitch of a local evangelist, who turns up every night to give vent to his passionate feelings." "He's not the only one." "(HE CONTINUES SHOUTING)" "Next day, we set out on an adventurous, some would say foolhardy, mission." "400 miles due west of Valparaiíso is one of Chile's most remote possessions, a volcanic speck in the Pacific called the Juan Fernandez Islands." "This is the start of the Chilean winter and our flight has twice been postponed." "It's fine for now, but any rain will turn this dirt airstrip to mud." "If that happens, we'll be stranded." "The runway will accommodate a light aeroplane if the wind's in the right direction." "We all breathe a sigh of relief when we're safely down and heading for the terminal." "Though it seems unlikely at first, the islands are home to 4,500 people, one of whom is my guide Marietta." "(MICHAEL) It's in the lap of the gods." "Depends on the weather." "This is our car to go to the bay." "You can take the boat to the town." "OK." "I'll just join you in a minute." "Just got to pay a call." "The facilities are not geared up for tourism." "Some of the flights have been delayed indefinitely." "The main road from the airport starts well on the hard volcanic rock, but peters out at a rocky bay full of basking seals." "From here, with a bit of luck, a local boatman will take us around the coast to the only town." "These islands are world famous." "A man called Alexander Selkirk was abandoned on this coast in 1704 and lived alone here until his rescue in 1709." "Daniel Defoe was inspired to write a book of his story." "He changed Selkirk's name to Robinson Crusoe." "300 years on, we retrace Selkirk's first slippery footsteps." "OK." "Pair of mountain goats here." "They've tidied up the cave from which he must have scanned the Pacific for four and a half years." "He lived here with only goats, rats and wild cats for company." "In reality, there was no Man Friday." "In "Robinson Crusoe", Defoe makes it all sound rather romantic." "I've got my little book here, which says something about him." ""I fancied myself like one of the ancient giants" ""which was said to live in caves where none could come at them."" "This was the exact cave and hole in the rock." " Somebody could come into here." " It's tiny." " It's very small." " Mm." "It's actually warm, isn't it, once you get in the middle here." "Alexander Selkirk was a thoroughly unpleasant character who deserved all he got." "But after spending four minutes in a cave where he spent four years," "I come away with a sneaking admiration for the old bastard." " How long have you lived here?" " I've been here for five years." " Where did you live before?" " In Santiago." " Don't you miss Santiago?" " No." "I miss the cinema or the newspaper, but... that's all." "What brought you here?" "Why did you come to this lonely island in the middle of nowhere?" "I came like a tourist for five days and I never left the island." " Did you marry an islander, then?" " Yes." "And I have two kids." "This is a very nice place for the kids because it's very safe." "They can go everywhere they want." "There's no danger." "There is something appealing in the seclusion of this dot in the ocean." "Unlike Selkirk, I'm in no hurry to leave." "(DRUMMING)" "It's my last day in Santiago." "In La Pintana, one of the poorest parts of the city, a group called Caleta is working with the young children who grow up in these tough surroundings." "(DRUMS BEATING)" "Caleta, which means refuge, tries to create an alternative to poverty that doesn't involve drugs or crime." "Everyone mucks in and learns something - even if they feel foolish." "I'm in my element." "Caleta, with few resources except energy and enthusiasm, is committed to helping these children." "Very few others are." "It's time to move north again, from the fertile centre of Chile to the bare and spectacular landscape of the Atacama Desert." "Trapped between the high Andes and the cold, rainless offshore current, there are places in the Atacama where no rain has ever fallen." "This is what I imagine it must be like to drive across the face of the moon." "Before and after me, there is utter silence." "Nothing moves in this petrified landscape day after day after day." "But not far below the surface, there is plenty going on." "At El Tatio, in the mountains above the desert, the earth's crust bubbles and boils and geysers belch steam like factory chimneys." "Well, contrary to appearances, this great jacuzzi of a landscape is actually set in a very, very cold part of the Andes." "My wonderful gadget here says it's about minus 10 and we are at 4,270 metres which is - wait a minute " "14,190 feet." "Which is, I think, the highest I've ever been in my life." "And, fortunately, the earth has provided its own natural warming device, which is just a blowhole." "Now for an Atacama breakfast - an egg boiled on the earth's crust." "Oooh!" "Ahhh!" "Ow!" "Oh, God!" "Ooh!" "Ooh, gawd!" "Ahh." "Brilliant, just brilliant." "It's a long way to come, but it's worth it." "As in many great wildernesses, of the Pacific Rim, from Siberia to Australia, the rocks beneath the Atacama contain some of the most valuable minerals on earth." "Chuquicamata is a company town built on copper." "In the last 80 years, an amphitheatre 2.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide has been gouged out." "Every week a controlled explosion blasts more rock away." "This week, there's a special guest countdown." "Cinco... cuatro... tres... dos... uno... fuegol" "Chuquicamata is a world of giants." "It's the largest open-pit mine in the world." "Shovels lift 60 tons at a time and fill dump trucks high as a two-storey house." "Each of these tyres that are rolling over our cameraman cost $12,000." "But this is only half the operation." "I'm taken down to the smelting plant where thousands of tons of rock are turned into tiny amounts of pure copper." "Chile is the world's largest copper producer." "These furnaces have been working continuously for seven months." "Despite pollution problems and recent scares over arsenic poisoning, neither Chile nor the world could afford to shut down Chuquicamata." "Arica is Chile's most northerly town." "It's nearly 3,000 miles from Cape Horn." "It has a church designed by Eiffel, of Tower fame, and a rail link with Bolivia." "(TRAIN BELL CLANGS)" "This isn't it." "Twice a week, a railway service leaves Arica for the Bolivian capital La Paz." "Gonna take for ever." "Do you want a hand?" "Can I help?" "There's only two of you to do all..." "It's gonna take two hours." "OK." "You've got a system." "Captain Hook up there and you down here." "I've rarely felt quite as embarrassed at travelling with 45 cases." "Each one must be hoisted up by hand and stowed on the roof." "The train is quite small." "In fact, it's a lot smaller than most of us had expected." "Some passengers are local, some have come from countries far away." "None have come quite as far as the train itself." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "We're to cross the Andes on a rail bus built for the branch lines of Munich 30 years ago." "From the world's tiniest galley, two of our three-man Bolivian crew produce the first of several hot dinners." "This line was built by the British in 1911." "The chief engineer, John Roberts Jones, died of malaria during its construction." "At one point, it climbs a thousand feet every three miles." "All this land used to belong to Bolivia, but Chile seized it in 1884." "Now Bolivia has no link with the sea, except by arrangement with Chile and Peru." "0ur engine needs constant cooling." "Water is pumped through a plastic pipe which runs the length of the track." "In this shadeless, treeless desert, the nine o'clock from Arica has developed a considerable thirst." "Three and a half hours after leaving the Pacific, we're at 10,000 feet and still climbing." "Freight wagons from the mineral mines of the Andes are a reminder of how vital this railway is." "In a land of harsh climate and impassable mountains, this is the only lifeline." "It's also my first taste of the altiplano, the high plateau of the Andes, where the air is thin and simple things suddenly become difficult." "The main feeling is just... shortage of breath, shortage of oxygen, and also a slight wooziness in the brain." "I feel... even more than usual..." "I just want to sort of quietly sink off to sleep..." "as I'm sure does the entire crew." "As if to confirm I've arrived on the high plane, herds of llamas are everywhere." "They're the Andean beast of burden domesticated by the Incas." "They're perfectly adapted to this rarefied air." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "Oh, yes!" "Six and half hours and a few llamas after leaving Arica, we've reached the Bolivian border." "It's only 130 miles from the Pacific, but everything is different." "It's the poorest country in South America - the walls are made of mud and the soldiers' uniforms are a shocking contrast to their crisp counterparts in Chile." "Maybe it's Bolivia or another miraculously produced dinner, but everyone's started talking to each other." "You're very adventurous" " New Zealanders." "All over the world, there's always New Zealanders." " Why's that?" "What's the reason for it?" " I don't know." "I guess because we're so isolated, it's good to get out and..." "So you come to Bolivia!" "That figures!" " How are you feeling?" " (AMERICAN) Terrible, terrible." " Is it the altitude?" " It gives you the headache, nausea." "And it's hard to breathe." "You start to wheeze." "Did you not expect this?" "Guidebooks tell you about this." "The book said there'd by oxygen on the train and I was hoping there would be, but when I asked him was there oxygen, I said (SNIFFS) like this, and he says, "No, Colombia" and I said, "No, I don't want that." "I want oxigeno."" "So..." "So now I got coca tea." " Oh, coca tea!" " The coca tea is helping." " Is it working?" " Yes." "If you keep drinking it." "The problem is that you drink it and you gotta run and pee, so you're drinking and peeing..." "Does it make you feel a little high?" "Yeah, a little bit light-headed..." "light-headed, but you still have the headache." " Is it the journey of a lifetime?" " It's the journey of everyone's dream!" "Coca-leaf tea is illegal in Chile, but up here, two and a half miles high, it's a tried and tested way to soften the effect of altitude." "A few hours later, the lights of La Paz twinkle below us." "The end is near." "(SCREECHING BRAKES, SCREAMING, GLASS BREAKING)" "Having climbed all the way up over the Andes, we saw the lights of La Paz in the distance." "Beginning to feel a little bit complacent." "Suddenly there was juddering underneath." "We actually have ridden the points here." "We're still about an hour from La Paz." "Lots of people are trying to help out." "People are emerging from the darkness all the time." "They're trying to get it back on the rails by putting stones down, reversing back up so it'll reverse up over the stones and back onto the railway line." "Sounds extremely unlikely to me, but..." " (GRINDING)" " Can you hear it?" " Ah." " (CONVERSATION IN SPANISH)" "(TRAIN ENGINE STARTS)" "(HARSH GRINDING)" "(ENGINE RUNS)" "(TRAIN'S ENGINE RUNS)" "(DISTANT SHOUTED INSTRUCTIONS)" " Whoooo!" " (APPLAUSE)" "The rock theory of how to re-rail a train - it obviously works!" "Gotta have a derailment where there's plenty of rubble." "The delay is much less than we'd expected." "After all, what's one hour on a 14-hour journey?" "But the new mood of euphoria is misplaced." "Trouble awaits at the next level crossing." "The gates to La Paz are opened for us, but no one's been told we're coming." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "As you can see, we've got a right-of-way problem here." "This is the railway line and this is the road." "Our conductor's trying to get people to clear out of the way." "He's cleared them out so we can go on." "Getting to La Paz is not easy." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "(MICHAEL) Go on, off you go." "Barring a few drunks, dogs and rubbish, the rest of our journey to this, the highest capital in the world, is plain sailing." "(DRIVER SPEAKS SPANISH INTO RADIO)" "To our relief, the lights are still on at La Paz station when our heroic vehicle finally pulls in." "We've crossed the Andes at 16.4 miles an hour." "Is it a baggage trolley or a hearse that's come to meet us?" "Quite frankly, either would suit me." "(PASSENGERS CLAP AND CHEER)" "The surface of Lake Titicaca covers 5,000 square miles of the Andes." "It's the highest lake in the world." "The lakeside town of Copacabana is a half-day's travel north from the Bolivian capital La Paz." "The Spanish colonised Bolivia 450 years ago." "As important as the wealth they took away was the religion they brought with them." "Copacabana is a very important place for Catholics." "Miracles happened here." "There's a shrine to the Virgin in the cathedral back there." "Also you're expected to do a pilgrimage if you come here in honour of the Virgin..." "past the stations of the cross - this is number three - up to the top of the hill, Cerro Calvario." "And as I started at just over 12,500 feet, it's a test of faith, I tell you." "A test of other things, too." "My body is not happy living life at two and a half miles above the sea." "At this height, oxygen is less easy to absorb." "Every step I take requires 40% more effort than at sea level." "The scenery, mind you, is at least 40% more spectacular." "My efforts are rewarded by a personal audience with the Dark Virgin of the Lake." "Her miracles brought fame and fortune to Copacabana." "The Spanish Catholics were not the first to sense the spiritual qualities of this place." "Before them, the Incas believed that the sun god, creator of the world, sprang from the bottomless blue waters of Lake Titicaca." "The lake straddles the two countries of Bolivia and Peru, and at San Pablo Tiquina, its narrowest point, there's a ferry service." "Vehicles go on one boat and foot passengers on another, both under the beady eye of Don Eduardo Avaroa, whose likeness on the quayside must qualify as one of the world's least impressive statues." "It's a gesture of defiance rather than glory, for in the war that it commemorates, Bolivia lost its entire Pacific coastline to Chile." "People here are less Spanish than the Chileans." "More than half the Bolivian population is pure Indian." "0n the other side of the water lies the nerve centre of the Bolivian navy." "Undaunted by losing their coastline, they maintain a strong presence on the Bolivian half of the lake." "This is the Portsmouth of Lake Titicaca, and some of the fleet, at least, is in." "These patrol boats may only be needed to keep an eye on smugglers, but they're symbols of Bolivian hopes that one day their Pacific property will be returned and Lake Titicaca will no longer be their only coastline." "The boats that have plied the lake for most of its human history were made from totora reeds." "They still grow in thick, lush beds around the shoreline." "The skills of the Indian boat-builders are kept alive by the Esteban family." "The head of the family, Paulino Esteban, helped the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl construct two reed boats which they sailed across the Atlantic." " This is from the reed, as well?" " Si." "The same reed that you make the boat from, you make the twine from." "(PAULINO SPEAKS SPANISH)" "That's the before and after, yeah." "Years of experience." "Yeah, that's beautiful." "Strong enough to sail the Atlantic." "Normal ships would have rivets, but they just have this twine which holds the whole lot together." " OK?" "OK?" " Yeah." "Oh, we're going to test it?" "Yeah." "I ask if I can test-drive one of his boats." "We don't have time to cross the Atlantic, but Paulino offers me a trip round the bay." "Here?" "In about the middle?" "It's very precarious." " Bueno?" " Si, si." "Peru!" "It's like being on a great water-borne sofa." "A boat like this costs $40 - on the lake, no extras." "It doesn't waste fuel, costs nothing to run, and is made from constantly renewable resources, which I suppose explains why they're dying out." "Unfortunately, there are no boats to take us across to Peru." "We shall have to drive to the frontier at Kasani." "Then we shall run along the Peruvian shore to catch a train from Juliaca which will carry us over the Andes to Cuzco." "A dirt road gives way to a cobbled road, which vibrates us gently through the village of Kasani towards our 14th international border." "This may look like a farmyard entrance, but this chain separates Bolivia from the world or, in this case, from Peru." "In all my travelling, it's the least daunting border I've come across." "But still, chain or no chain, formalities have to be gone through." "Because we're the only people crossing out of Bolivia, they're delighted to see us and make sure the formalities last as long as possible." "Four hours later, there's nothing more they can think of to keep us here." "0ur chain is removed and we're released into Peru." "0ur first stop in Peru is Puno, home to three of the original Lake Titicaca steamboats." "0ne is being restored by an Englishwoman called Meriel Larkin." "Her family were once Clydeside shipbuilders and it's still in the blood." "She spends a few months in Peru every year and lives on board." "Hello?" " Hello?" "Anyone aboard?" " Hello!" " Hello, Meriel." "Michael Palin." " Very nice to see you." "Welcome aboard." " Thought you might be out on the lake." " Another year and we'll be there." "How did the ship originally get here to Lake Titicaca?" "It was meant for promoting the area, bringing out the local produce, and they brought it in pieces and each piece had to be designed so a mule could carry it." "The maximum a mule could carry was about 400 pounds." "Having built it and packed it in packing cases, they brought it to Arica." " So that was how many pieces?" " 2,766." " All these bits..." "Very heavy, solid cast iron." " All iron." " Went over the Andes." "How long did that take?" " It took about six years." " Can I have a look around?" " Yes, please do." "Come up to the bridge." "Meriel hopes that the Yavari, named after a local river, will soon be restored to her former glories, which were considerable." "I want to show you..." "This is the original binnacle." " Brass." " Lovely." "The wheel is in the museum in Arequipa." "We hope to get that back." "And this is the original chain steering." "This chain led out through that hole." "The other one went out through there and back to the stern." " So the wheel had direct..." " Pretty heavy wheel to turn." " Heavy wheel." " To move that chain each time." " (MICHAEL) Shall we go below?" " Yes, let's go below." "The machinery is a little more sophisticated in the engine room and only 80 years old." " Brass and copper fittings." " This was installed in 1913." "It's a Swedish Bolinder four-cylinder." " Is it a steam engine?" " Semi-diesel, actually." "It replaced the steam engine that the ship was equipped with originally." "That proved so unsatisfactory..." "It was run on dried llama droppings, the only fuel available." "When the crew reached any little port, they had to hurry ashore with their bags and fill them up and fill up the cargo hold." " They had to extend the hull..." " With llama droppings." "Sorry "yama" droppings." " "Yama" droppings." " Do they still use them in the fires?" "For fuel?" "Yes, very much so." "Let me take you to the aft deck." "The hull - we're very lucky." "Being iron, because of the altitude and because of the lake being freshwater, the corrosion is absolutely minimal, so it's in really good condition." "0n behalf of all those mules that carried it here," "I can only hope Meriel gets the support she needs to relaunch the Yavari." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "The next day we have considerable trouble launching ourselves out of Juliaca station." "0ur Cuzco-bound train seems to have been waiting for a long time." "Rumours abound." "Could be a problem." "We've heard there's..." "not a strike, but a go-slow." "If there's a strike, we can all stay at home and go to bed, but it's gonna be a go-slow." "Um... the journey's 12 hours, anyway, so we'll see what happens." "It could be a lot longer than that." "More information as it arrives." "Despite the sunshine, it's midwinter in the southern hemisphere and bitterly cold." "Men wear modern jackets, but the women keep warm with traditional shawls and layers of skirts." "An air of lethargy hangs over Juliaca station." "Nobody's going anywhere." "Then, suddenly, the stillness is broken by an orgy of shunting." "(HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE)" "Hard to tell what's go-slow and what isn't." "In this situation, it's do as the Romans do." "Climb aboard and hope that the sheer weight of demand will persuade them to run the train." "And it works." "A few hours late maybe, but we're on our way to Cuzco." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "Armed guards are a reminder that terrorism is still taken seriously in Peru." "Shining Path guerrillas were once active here." "You're never far from a market in South America, and where there's a market, there's usually a fiesta." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "Around lunchtime, we pull into a station and not a moment too soon." "This isn't the kind of train with a restaurant." "For a hot meal, it has to be platform food." "There doesn't seem to be much around." "I've been up since five o'clock." "I need more than a stuffed llama." "Feeling a bit hungry now." "Asado?" "Ugh!" "Oh, a little tasting first." "Perfectly done." "Mm." "Very good." "Roast lamb." "Can I have a little bit?" "Don't worry about them, it's me..." "Roast lamb in brown paper." "Oh, thank you!" "Sunday lunch." "How much?" "Cuánto es?" " Cuánto es?" " Cinco." "Cinco." "There we go." "Don't bother them." "Hey!" "Ooh, that's..." "Very expensive, that!" "Grabbed by a parrot!" "He's never been assaulted like that before." "There's five." "And leave him alone, please." "We are climbing steadily now towards the top of the pass - over 14,000 feet above sea level." "The dry grassland may look unexceptional, but, geographically, this is one of the key points in all of South America." "In the marshland here, just at the watershed of the Andes, is where the Urubamba River rises which becomes the Amazon." "It's the river we'll be following for the next three weeks right through Peru and, hopefully, to the borders of Colombia where it is the Amazon River." "This is where the big rivers begin." "We're now in the land once dominated by the Incas." "They were the last of a series of civilisations that flourished in these mountains hidden from the world until the first Europeans found their way here 450 years ago." "]Cuzco - founded by the Incas who called it "the navel of the earth"." "They made it the centre of their sun worship until the Spanish conquerors arrived and stamped their own mark on the city." "We've arrived in the middle of the Catholic festival of Corpus Christi." "(BRASS BAND PLAYS)" "The Spaniards are caricatured as having wide hats, long moustaches, big noses and drinking problems." "The fact remains that fewer than 200 Spaniards overthrew the Inca empire." "Now a largely Indian population parades the statues of European saints." "This is the most important Catholic celebration in Cuzco, which involves the whole population." " Yeah." " Everybody participates in the celebration." " They're each bringing their own statues?" " Each bring their own statues." "They are taken through the main square and then taken to the church, and then brought out in a procession around the square." " (MICHAEL) They look incredibly heavy." " They are." "Some of them could weigh almost one ton." " (MICHAEL) What are they made of?" " They are made of wood and plaster." "But the support is silver." " (MICHAEL) Right." "A silver base." " Yes." " Who carries them?" " People from the different parishes." "People who stay close to the church." "They think that by participating in this they are going to be blessed and going to be protected." "(MICHAEL) Are they vying with each other?" "The band seem to be playing... (MAN) They seem to follow the rhythm of the band." " (MICHAEL) Extraordinary thing to see." " People fight to be one of those." "(MICHAEL) Just then we were being pushed out of the way." "It's a very serious business." "Ironically, much of the weight that makes these effigies so painful to carry is made up of the precious metals that the Spanish once looted from the city." "When the saints have been paraded to all the churches, my companion Wilbur and I have the square more or less to ourselves." "Quite out of breath after all that." "That was a great stroke of fortune." "But now we can see the square cleared a bit." "What does the square sort of mean?" " Was this originally Inca?" " Yes." " This was the former square of the Incan city." " Yeah." " And, you know, Cuzco was the capital." " Yeah." "So the palaces of the Incan rulers were arranged around this square." "What we've just seen, the Incas would've made their own ceremonies like that here." "Yes, something similar to what we have seen." " Different religion." " Different religion." "The Spanish not only grafted their festivals onto existing ceremonies, but built their churches on top of Inca temples." "The Inca walls have withstood all the great earthquakes to shake the city and many of Cuzco's streets are still built on Inca foundations." "(CHURCH BELL RINGS)" "Spanish colonial architecture is better preserved in Cuzco than almost anywhere else in South America." "I'm leaving all this behind for the day and taking a taxi ride beyond the city to the old Inca heartlands." "Granjas." "Granjas?" " Muchas granjas aqui." " Si." "Ah, si." "I've got my phrase book working." "Granjas." "Farms." "We're heading towards the Sacred Valley, a fertile buffer zone between Cuzco, the mountains and the jungle beyond." "Watered by the Urubamba, fields produce 360 varieties of potatoes and rich crops of maize and barley." "Farming here is not high tech - horses are still used for threshing, though sheaves of barley have been successfully fitted with legs." "At the end of the valley, where the river disappears into ravines, the Incas built granaries on the side of the mountains where the grain would be kept cool, dry and safe." "They built a temple, too, and a system of terraces from which, in 1536, the army of Manco Inca gave the Spaniards a rare bloody nose." "All this served an empire that lasted little more than a century." "Up a side valley, a road laid less than two years ago leads to villages where the purest descendants of the Incas still live." "They raise llamas or "yamas", as I must learn to call them." "They live in stone-walled houses with thatched roofs." "They dress as they have done for hundreds of years and speak the language of the Incas." "This must have been how it was before the Spaniards came." "(DOGS BARKING)" "The women here use modern dyes to enrich the colours, though the method of spinning and weaving hasn't changed for centuries." "Things will change faster now the road is built." "Electricity has arrived and a new school is promised." "The outside world has found them out and for the people here, the future could be different." "The Pacific coast of Peru is largely barren and thick with cold sea mist at this time of year." "So we've chosen to go north by an inland route." "It will take us up the Amazon River system to the jungle city of Iquitos and from there, by boat, to Colombia's borders." "Then we'll cross the Andes one last time to reach the north coast of South America." "We're going to need a lot of help." "I've been given the address of a pub in Cuzco run by an Englishman living in Peru." "In between pulling pints, Barry Walker runs a travel outfit, and he's prepared to take us on." "What are we in for?" "A lot of adventure." "It's going to be a bit arduous, I think." "We've been in mountains up to now almost all the way up from Cape Horn." "I suppose we're going down to sea level?" "We're going to slide over the east slope down through the cloud forest." "A major Amazon tributary, but it's very little travelled." "Very few foreigners do the route." " And what are conditions like?" " Hot, humid, sticky, buggy." " You know it well?" " But beautiful." "Well, no." "I've never been down that river before and I'm quite looking forward to it." " It'll be a new experience for me." " I've been here before." "This is someone who's never been there." "Well, cheers, anyway." " Here's to it." "We'll both learn something." " If the boat doesn't turn over, we'll make it." "0ur adventure begins - almost conventionally - on a train out of Cuzco bound for Quillabamba a hundred miles north." "(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)" "Not that any train in the Andes is ever conventional." "The line runs out of Cuzco in a series of zigzags, for the sides of "the navel of the earth" are very steep." "The city itself lies at 11,000 feet and we have to climb another 1,000 feet just to get out of it." "0ur speed is so leisurely, local children have time to get on and off and work the coaches." "The city slips away and village life takes over." "(PERUVIAN MUSIC)" "All human life is here, Barry, on this train." "Local train to Quillabamba - everyone uses it." "It's the only means of transport on this stretch." "I wish they had smella-vision." "There's a wonderful sort of odour of onions pervading the coach." "Why's that?" "Is it a local speciality?" "We've come through the onion town, Antor, which is famous for the onions it produces." " They're loaded on here to go down the line." " Most of them are up here." " I think most of them are around our seats." " So we go on to Quillabamba?" "Yep, end of the train line is Quillabamba." "That's where we leave the train." "After that, we've got seven or eight hours on very rough roads to get to our boats." "You say that with a slight smile, Barry." "(BARRY) It's a rough road." "It's a rough road." "(RHYTHMIC PERUVIAN MUSIC)" "The railway runs alongside the Urubamba River, following its twisting course through gorges that grow steeper and steeper." "70 miles from Cuzco, there rises above us one of the great cities of the world." "A city where no one lives." "This is the Inca stronghold of Machu Picchu, hidden beneath the forest for hundreds of years until an American, Hiram Bingham, stumbled across it in 1911." " Incredible location." " Certainly is." "Why did they build up here?" "Extremely difficult to get everything up here." "One reason is because the sacred Urubamba River down here does almost a complete loop right around the ruins here." "This promontory looks out over this astounding mountain scenery in the cloud forest." "What are we standing on now?" "Would these terraces have been used for growing food?" "It's not really sure what was grown here." "It's presumed that the sacred foods were here." "For example, maize for brewing sacred chicha." "Chicha being the corn alcoholic beverage of the Incas, which is still drunk today." "Take a look at this wall here." "This is some of the finest stonework you can find." "If you look down the course of it, it's flared out at the bottom, which is an anti-seismic device." "Yeah." "So obviously they live in an earthquake zone." "That's right." "They were very conscious of it and all their buildings reflect it." " What was this the wall of?" " Behind here is what is called the "torreón"." "It's the only round building in the complex, which was an astronomical observation centre." "Machu Picchu has a powerful presence, a sense of mystery that makes the hairs stand up on your neck as you walk amongst living quarters that seem so recently abandoned." "No one knows for sure what happened here, why the city was built and why it was deserted so soon." "It's quite dizzying up here." "This is the classic picture-postcard view." " How much of what we can see is restored?" " In fact, quite a lot." "When Bingham found it, many of the walls were tumbled down and they've been reconstructed." " Did the Spaniards ever find it?" " That's the most important thing about this site." "It's the only large Inca archaeological site known that the Spanish, in fact, did not find." "The existence of the Intihuatana, the ceremonial stone that measured the position of the sun, is taken as proof that the Spaniards never came here." "Every other one they found in Peru, they destroyed." "The mountains that surround Machu Picchu are good at keeping secrets." "0nly the cloud on their summits indicates the rainforest that lies beyond." "The railway ended at Quillabamba." "We're now on our way to Kiteni, where the road ends." "Alongside us, the Urubamba is wider and stronger." "As we drop down into the foothills of the Andes, the bare fields of the high plateau are a fast-receding memory, and the heat is back." "At the end of a long day, we reach the end of the trail." "The grubby little settlement of Kiteni, where the main street is a patch of waste ground and there's a whiff of sewage in the air." "Kiteni is the highest navigable point of the Urubamba." "From here, the river makes a sharp right turn and flows due north." "About 50 miles upstream, it passes out of the Andes and into the Amazon Basin, but first we must negotiate rapids that run through a ravine known to the Indians as the Pongo de Manaique." "We've watched the Urubamba growing from a muddy bog in a mountain field to a river that will be our way home." "The hand-picked boatmen pack all we need to be self-sufficient." "For the next eight days, we will be eating, sleeping and tackling the white water together." "So is he taking our boat?" " (BARRY) Yes, he's driving us." " Two men per boat?" "Two men per boat." "One on the front indicating the tricky bits of the route." "Right, yeah." "(BARRY) Got the spare motors, I'm glad to see." "One for each boat plus two spares, just in case." " (MICHAEL) Spare outboards?" " Yeah." " Really?" "Where are they?" " Under that green tarp there." "Nearly there, Barry." "The water is only about 10 yards away now." "This is the most nervous part of the trip for me." "I've read so many accounts of early explorers." "I'm a bit nervous, going down here, but the boatmen say it'll be OK." " Well, I'm excited." "I am excited!" " So am I." "Closer and closer." "I just wanna go." "Soon after ten in the morning on a grey, rain-beckoning day, my wish comes true." "We set out on what are for most of us completely uncharted waters." "Just to make me feel more nervous, Barry makes me don a life jacket." "It's very narrow." "Landslides come in here, so this is a bit... a bit dodgy here." " Yeah." " Here we go!" "Ohhh!" "That's the side that's just come away." "Look at this!" "Whoa!" "Big wave!" "Conditions on the river can change quickly from docile to lethal." "If there's too much water, boats can be swept out of control." "If there's too little, rocks and shoals close to the surface can flip us over." "(BARRY) Wow!" "We just missed a rock by the skin of our teeth there." "Whatever the state of the water, Gustavo looks reassuringly calm." "A tiger heron couldn't care less." "There seem to be a few more rapids than we were promised." "When I ask if we've reached the Pongo," "Gustavo smiles inscrutably and shakes his head." "Halfway through the day, we pass into the territory of the Machiguenga Indians." "They stand and watch us from villages built where the rainforest has been cleared." "I wave, but they don't wave back." "Maybe it's understandable - on tributaries higher up the river, there are Indian tribes who've only just come into contact with white men." "As we draw closer to the Pongo, the clouds build up, the trees grow taller, and Barry comes over all ornithological." "It's a bit of a bird safari for you." "Is that the main reason you're so excited about doing this new bit of river?" "Not particularly the birds, doing a new river, but the birds are very interesting." "Right here, there are more species of bird per square mile than anywhere else on the planet." "Peru has about 1,700 species and a lot of them are concentrated in this forest here." "Are there any bird species that are "intelligent" in the sense that they interact with man?" "Is it..." "Perhaps the parrot family are more intelligent than the rest." "They seem to catch onto things pretty quickly." "Hello, miss." "I 'ave this parrot that I bought not 'alf an hour ago in this very boutique." "Yeah, we know all about that." "Ahead of us, the Pongo looks more and more like the entrance to a dark, threatening tunnel." "The river turns from glassy smooth to fast and slippery, as the level falls sharply and we begin to slide down the last few miles of the Andes." "Then, just as I think we're being incredibly brave..." "(BARRY) That's the way to go!" "Look at that." "We've taken the soft option." " He almost went down." " It's probably our wake." "He's completely unanchored just on a four-pole balsa raft." "I don't think I'd like to go that way." "Just balancing himself." "Well I feel more secure now in a wooden boat." "I'm glad YOU do!" "Oh, no!" " These are still the approaches, is that right?" " (BARRY) Yeah." "(BARRY) And it's like this." "15 minutes of whirlpools and turbulence." "(MICHAEL) Here we go." "This is the start now." "These great, tall, sheer walls." "It is extraordinary." "It's a sudden change of the landscape." "It's suddenly sheer and it's raining." "Look at that." "Isn't it incredible?" "As if to offer us one last warning of mortality, one final reminder of who's boss, the elements mix together a fierce cocktail of wind, rain and foaming current." "Glistening granite walls loom ahead like slowly closing doors." " Tricky one." " He's got to get it just right." "If he messes up, we could be into that rock or that rock." "Very narrow now." "This whole river just squeezed in." " It's getting narrower up ahead, too." " Yeah." "This must be just incredible in the rains." "(MICHAEL) The rock is black, the weather's clouded over, it's drizzling." "Someone described them as the gates of hell." "I expected the Pongo to be dangerous, but never to be so beautiful." "Rocks, which look as if they've been blasted apart, rise from the river like the buttresses of some half-submerged cathedral." "After the noise and chaos of the rapids, the river has fallen still and quiet." "The only sound is from the water pouring out of the jungle, carving a weird and wonderful architecture on the canyon walls." "In the Pongo de Manaique, I feel I've come as close as I ever will to a lost world." "The dramatic beauty of the Pongo passes in less than half an hour." "The current that was so angry now sweeps us imperiously past the last two granite portals and out of the Andes." "Gustavo, magnificently unimpressed, is already looking for a campsite." "I'm afraid I'm not much help." "A sandbank, hopefully free of jungle creepy-crawlies, is chosen as our home for the night." "River travel, I've decided, is one per cent beauty and 99 per cent practicality." "The need to eat, sleep and dry out plays havoc with your sense of wonder." "As darkness wraps itself around us and our camp seems to shrink to a tiny speck in the Amazon rainforest," "I feel a distinct need for the cocktail cabinet." "Barry, let's celebrate the passing of the dreaded Pongo." " Yes, indeed." " You know how things are built up in your mind." "I've been worrying about it for the last three nights." "Ridiculous." "For a while, I labour under the delusion that I'm through the worst, then the doubts come flooding in." "Are there any nasty things lurking about in the bushes or in the forest?" "Wild animals." "Crocs, anything like that here?" "Yeah, we have caimans here, which are members of the alligator family." "But they're normally in the water in the evening and come out on the beaches during the day." " And I definitely wouldn't provoke any jaguars." " How do you not provoke a jaguar?" "Hello, you're an extremely nice jaguar." "Of all the animals, I think you're severely underrated." "Leopards get all..." "Panthers get all the publicity." "Black panthers, leopards." "All you've got is a car firm that almost went into liquidation - saved by Ford." "Or now sold to BMW." "I don't know, maybe it's sold to McDonald's since I was away." "(BUZZING)" "It's like "Insect Corner" in here!" "Hello." "On "Insect Corner" tonight, we have 43 types of moth, four bugs..." "Anyway... cheers." " Here's to a good first day's travel." " Here's to getting through the Pongo." "Ooh, actually, rum and horsefly's damn good." "We've come out of the Andes and are following the Urubamba River into the hot and humid rainforest of the Amazon Basin." "There is no other way through the forest and we have nearly a week of river travel ahead of us." "0ur guide, Barry Walker, can barely take the binoculars from his eyes." "If you're a bird-spotter like Barry, then Peru, with 2,000 species, is a land of opportunity." "The forest is attracting attention for more than its natural beauty, as I'm soon to find out." "Here we are in the Camisea River, Michael." "See over here." "Here's one of the old oil exploration centres." "Abandoned now, of course." "First piece of modern equipment I've seen on this stretch for a long while." " Looks like a painted palm tree." " Badly painted palm tree." "What is the significance of that?" "Was the drilling abandoned here?" "They've done the exploration." "They've got some capped wells in here." "For the last few years, everything's been abandoned around here, but very soon the crews are gonna come in and start getting the gas out." "Has the exploration damaged the environment much yet, or will that happen later?" "We'll find out round the corner." "There's a settlement we'll call in at." "It will give us an idea of how much influence the exploration people have had." "I'm sure that when they start getting it out, it remains to be seen whether it'll be negative or not." "We pull in at a Machiguenga Indian village." "There is a definite protocol for visiting." "We must first find the headman and ask his permission." "The village is being swept for the feast of St John the Baptist." "Missionaries must have come through here as well as oil men." "Has he encountered many foreigners like this, coming out of the blue up the river?" "No." "He's quite surprised to see us." "Initially he thought we were the advance party of the petrol people, who donated, when they left, these sheets of corrugated iron." "We were saying that it's much better using that than thatching." "You see the odd thatched building here." "It's a lot of work to put it together." "The headman has another role today, as referee in an inter-village soccer match." "(SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE)" "The whole of South America is mad about football and the Amazon jungle is no exception." "The match is one of the feast-day attractions." "Oh!" "Nice try." "Man with no boots on." "The boots seem rather unevenly distributed, but it makes for some interesting tackles." "In the next match, between the women, there's not a football boot to be seen and the game's a lot more exciting." "Children here grow up hoping that one day they'll be as good as their mothers." "Half-time refreshment is a bowl of masato, a festive tipple made from the fermented juice of the yucca plant." "It's a bit like giving Manchester United martinis." "I decide a drugs test is in order." " How's it made?" "They ferment it and..." " It depends." " Put other stuff in?" " I'm not sure how they make it here." "In many communities the women chew it and spit it into a pot and the enzymes from their saliva start the fermentation process." "But in more contacted places where they have access to sugar, they prefer to use sugar." " Do they have sugar here?" " I'm not sure." "Doesn't look like it." " Cheers." "I'm game for anything." " Cheers." "Here you are, Nigel." "Looks lovely, doesn't it?" "Hint of a dry, slight raspberry-ish taste." "Like a mildly alcoholic raspberry yogurt or something." "That's sort of '96 saliva, that." "At the festive meal, the families gather round, grace is spoken and they tuck into the day's delicacy, tapir meat wrapped in banana leaves." "The presence of plastic bowls, containers and T-shirts show the village is modernising." "The old ways are looking increasingly out of place." "It's time for us to leave the party, get back to the river and find a camp for the night." "The morning dip looks idyllic but could be dangerous." "If you pee in the river, there's a small fish with barbed teeth which latches onto the urine stream and swims up your penis." "Give me a piranha any day." "The tropical rainforest is one of the richest natural environments in the world." "I find out it doesn't take kindly to intruders." " Do you want the traditional machete?" " No, I think we can get through." "It's just over to where the trail widens out down here." " Do people still use machetes, or just in movies?" " People do when they're cutting trail." "When you're in known territory they're not really necessary, although they might be here." " Lend it me a second." " Yeah." "Thanks." "Oh!" "Cor blimey!" "Nearly knocked myself out." " Here we go." "The trail widens here." " Right." "Barry is a man with a purpose." "He's here to find rare and exotic birds." "I think I'm an embarrassment." " Looks like..." " I've been bitten." "By what?" "I just rested my hand on a tree and there must be an ant trail." " A bit more like it." " This is good primary forest here." "This is very good indeed." " (BIRD CHIRPING)" " What's that one you can hear?" "That's a plain-winged ant-shrike." "That lives in the sub-canopies." "Quite vocal at dawn and dusk." "No white-browed ant-birds." "There's a few other callers, but they're not..." " I think we should try further down the trail." " Don't touch any trees." "(BARRY) Let's see if we can get through here." "The trouble with such a fertile environment is that you can't actually see anything." "The birds have the same problem." "They stay way above us where they can fly around without banging into trees." "After a while, one day becomes much like any other." "The forest seems endless, the climate it generates hot and uncomfortable." "It's six days before we reach a settlement." " Is this it?" " Sepahua." "Sepahua." "Civilisation." " (BARRY) Lots of boats." " Not sure about it." "I bet you can get beer here." "(MICHAEL) Cold beer, maybe." "Not the 90-degree beers we've been drinking." "(BARRY) The biggest place we've seen for a while." " Hotel, or are we under canvas again?" " (BARRY) Under canvas, I think." "Sepahua fits the description by the Amazon explorer Colonel Fawcett of somewhere that "looks a dump on the way in and a metropolis on the way out."" "It's a place of convivial and infectious idleness." "But it does have an airstrip and there are no queues at the terminal." "A Russian-built cargo plane puts down here every now and then with military and civilian supplies for this jungle outpost." "It could be our way out." "As refuelling begins, we look around for an airline official to talk to." "Barry finds the co-pilot, who bears a passing resemblance to a certain film star." "He seems to have a grip on things." "He promises to squeeze everyone in, so long as we don't mind sitting on the cargo." "After a week on the river, we'll sit on anything." "Barry." "Time to go." "Thanks ever so much." " I'll see you..." " Great times." "From Cuzco onwards." " If you're in London, come to my local." " What's the local pub?" "(INDISTINCT)" " Have a great trip." " Take care." "It's been a pleasure." "We fly north over a vast, largely unbroken swathe of forest." "It's a 600-mile journey that would have taken ten days by boat." "0ur destination is lquitos, capital of the Peruvian jungle." "By now, the Urubamba has become the Amazon." "It's the dry season and the world's greatest river is low, scarcely reaching the bank on which the city's built." "For a place surrounded by jungle and with no road communication with the rest of Peru, lquitos is surprisingly stylish." "It owes most of its faded charm to the rubber boom of the 1880s." "The new houses of the rubber barons showed 0ld World taste." "Iquitos is two towns in one." "The Europeans live up on the hill and the Indians down by the river, in a shanty town called Belén, short for Bethlehem." " It's a great street-vending city." " Definitely." " We have a good market." " That's rather nice." "This is a bandstand that was brought from France in the early 1900s." "Yeah." "My companion, Jorge, comes from uptown lquitos but clearly loves the bustle of Belén." "It doesn't always look like this." "When it floods, how much of this is going to be under water?" " Where we're walking now?" " Somewhere like about two metres." " The big boats come directly to the plaza." " This becomes a canal." "This is what we call the Peruvian Venice." " Let's get a gondola!" " You see canoes here and there all the time." "There are plenty of things for sale." "The stalls are full." "What about the services here?" "Does the town provide sanitation or electricity?" "Yes, the city provides electricity, as you can see here, the wiring." "They also have potable water, but there is no sewage system here yet." "Everything is down onto the floor." "You can see on the other side, all those outhouses." "There's a lot of rubbish." "It must be bad for disease." "We have a very high per cent of infant mortality." "Somewhere like 18-20% infant mortality in the first five years, caused mostly by parasites." "This is one way they make the conditions tolerable." "A do-it-yourself distillery makes aguardiente, sugar-cane spirit." "The city council wants to move people out, but the locals refuse to go." "They like their shops and their market, and there are things you'd never find in Safeway." "When the river lowers, you're going to see catfishes here." " Yeah." " Vicious piranhas here." " That's a piranha?" " Look at the teeth." "Sharp as a razor blade." "The Indians in the Amazon use the piranha's jaw for sharpening their darts, to shoot the animals with a blowgun." "A lady called Julia is a one-woman cigarette factory." "She rolls about 3,000 pieces of this tobacco here." " 3,000 pieces a day?" " Yeah." "This roll has 100 pieces." " It costs about four soles." " Wonderful tobacco." " Can you buy these elsewhere in the city?" " No, you have to come here." "You can buy it by units." " Are they strong?" " Very strong." "You want to try?" "I don't smoke." "I'll probably blow my head off." "We can try." "You can try." "You'll like it." "No." "You've got to smoke a little." "The future shaman of the Amazon." "God, it is..." "Very strong." "Very bitter." "The closest comparison would be with the Gitanes from France." "Bless you all!" "You have to walk quite a way in the dry season to find the river." " It's almost a kilometre and a half." " Down that street." "This is a tributary of the Amazon, called the Itaya." "Now it's very low, but it gets much lower too." " Lower than this?" " Yes, but this is a main entrance to the city." "River transport remains basic." "Goods are carried on backs, and passengers squeeze on public ferries called collectivos." "Though you can splash out on a water taxi." "The rise and fall of the river each season does not encourage an air of permanence." "Ten years ago, Frenchman Didier Lacasse came to the rainforest to research the healing properties of jungle plants." "He stayed, set up a medicinal garden and has become a shaman, a traditional healer." " A leaf from this bush here." " Yeah." "He uses the leaves of many plants, but the most effective of all his potions is the root of the ayahuasca, which is pounded into a paste." "It's then boiled up into a powerful brew." "Is it important for the healing that there is a hallucinogenic experience?" "Yes, it's very important." "It helps you to see." "When you see, you have the power to heal, basically." "The seeing is a basis for healing." "Didier's herbal surgery has many elements of religious ritual." "He's the high priest." "The ayahuasca is the sacrament." "Despite the intensity of the experience, Didier has allowed us to film what goes on." "Now he's drunk the ayahuasca, I ask him how long he'll feel able to answer my questions." "Five minutes, ten minutes." "You will be hallucinating, so presumably you will be seeing things that we can't see." "But can you control that?" "You have them in their place and you're aware of the situation here at the same time?" "There is a certain amount of control, obviously." "It's..." "It's the skill of the shaman to be able to control this flow of energy, of hallucination, that would turn someone else crazy, probably." "So we learn how to control that craziness, if you can say that." "Didier's style may be unfamiliar, but the powerful properties of the plants are not in dispute." "The rainforest is alive with drug companies looking for the secrets." "But Didier prefers to treat and cure local people." "(CHANTING)" "Eventually it's time for each patient to come for a consultation." "(CHANTS)" "The consultation is like a seance in which the shaman uses his new-found insight to sense what is wrong with the patient." "Then he asked for me to come forward." "The chanting sets up a pleasant aura of spiritual relaxation." "I feel comfortably out of place, as an Amazon Indian might at choral evensong." "You can carry this with you on your many journeys that you will be taking." "It's for good luck..." "Didier gives a blessing, wishing me good luck on my journey and the hope that when I meet people, they will always be good friends." "This seems the right note on which to leave." "The El Arca, a British-built riverboat, first sailed the Amazon in 1882." "Today she's taking us out of Iquitos." "She makes a weekly trip downriver and will take us to the Colombian border, now only 300 miles away." "It's hot, it's cramped, but a childhood dream has come true." "I'm on the Amazon." "The people from a local village come out to meet us." "0ne of them carries something I've rarely seen in the Amazon." "A wild animal." " What is this?" " This is an ocelot." " They don't grow too big." "Just this size." " Yeah?" " This is like two or three months old." " Yeah." " Can I hold him?" " (SPEAKS SPANISH)" "Oh, yes." "There we are." "That's a first, isn't it?" "You poor thing." "You're very sleepy, aren't you?" "I know the feeling." " This species are in danger now." " Yeah." "They are always chasing away because people are killing them." "They are always hiding." "People from Iquitos are coming down here looking for this skin." "They pay cheap." " They're hard to find now." " You have to go way into the jungle." " Walk hours, days to get them." " Oh, look." "Oh, yes." "What happened to its parents?" "I think they already killed its parents." "What will happen?" "He wants to sell it?" "200 dollars." "Anyone want an ocelot?" "I can't take it." "I'm going to Alaska." "You'll die of cold there, won't you?" "Near the village is a lagoon which seems as close to a Garden of Eden as you'll get." "Everything from giant lily pads to giant spiders seems to flourish here in extraordinary profusion." "And for once you can actually see the birds." "I'd like the Amazon to stay like this, as I'd imagined it." "But it's changing." "Deforestation has reduced rainfall here by 120 per cent in a generation." "And if there's oil and gas to be found, more trees will have to go." "The unceasing heat of the days and the hothouse stickiness of the nights saps the energy." "Before the river lulls us into total lethargy, it's time to move on." "After three weeks on the Peruvian river system, we've now reached a crossroads." "The Amazon has brought us to Peru on this side, Brazil over there and Colombia over there." "The Amazon goes on 2,000 miles into the Atlantic." "We're gonna head north through Colombia and back up towards the Pacific, wherever that is." "There are only two ways out of the Colombian frontier town of Leticia." "By river or by air." "A river journey back to the Andes will take two weeks." "A flight will take two hours." "We board a plane to take us across the equator to Bogotá." "We could be said to have swapped one jungle for another." "Colombia's capital is the biggest city we've seen since Sydney." "It has a reputation as one of the most violent places on earth." "To find out why, I go to see Tim Ross, a British journalist living and working here." " Hey." " Hi." "Pleased to meet you." " This is Herman, the driver." " How do you do?" "This is the car we use for the streets." "It's the most unobtrusive." "I'm told you do a great city tour." "The city is great." "I think it's fun, but it's not a city with tourism." "That has ended because of the dangers." "One of the world's highest per capita homicide rates." "100 murders per 100,000 population here." "50 times the British murder rate." " So it's not exaggerated." " No." "This really is a dangerous city." "Not just for murder and major violence, but petty things." "The pickpocket, the snatch artist, the man who grabs your glasses." "People try to grab them..." "Anything they can sell for drugs." "It has a major drug problem, which is crippling it." " You've worked here a long time?" " Yes, a long time." "We work the streets, usually on foot, but for filming we take Dodge Dart." "It takes us out there unobtrusively." "It's big enough for cameras." "It's great." "The troubled streets to which Tim takes us are only six blocks from the presidential palace in the heart of downtown Bogotá." "His advice to us generally is to stay in the car, but this corner, he says, is safe enough." "Let's go round here." "Tim is well known here." "He's reported on these streets for 20 years." "Death squads watch this area and kill people at night." "This next street, they've put posters up." "Who are the death squads?" "Who do they compose?" "What justice are they dealing out?" "Justice?" "Bullets in the head." "It's shopkeepers, off-duty policemen, private security guards." "People who have been mugged go back with a gun and kill street people." " Vigilante groups." " Yeah." "At what sort of rate do they kill people?" "Sometimes four, five, six cases a week." "Two or three people a night killed." "Armed police patrol neighbourhoods reduced by the drug trade to war zones." "Tim knows many of the casualties." "(THEY SPEAK SPANISH)" "It was a knife stab." "They had to open it up and stitch him up inside." "(THEY SPEAK SPANISH)" " It touched the heart." " Who did that and why?" "(THEY SPEAK SPANISH)" "On the main street, to rob him." "He's a street person, a drug abuser." "Those are the stains of drug use." "They're bright orange." " You're lucky to survive that." " (SPEAKS SPANISH)" "Look at the scars." "That's typical of the transvestite male prostitutes, the self-mutilation." "He has Aids." "He has to go back to the foundation for Aids patients." " Will he do it?" " Yes." "He wants to persuade his friend." "The trouble is to persuade the friend." "He doesn't want to leave him." "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" " Have you got a small bill?" " (SPEAKS SPANISH)" "I've only got a small bill." "That's all I have." "(THEY SPEAK SPANISH)" " Bye-bye." " Bye." "Back in the car, we head for the most notorious street of all." "Calle Cartouche" " Bullet Street." "This is where they start recycling." "See all the recyclers here." "Grimy people all over these streets." "One of the main activities is consuming drugs and obtaining money with which to consume them." "Their lives revolve around it." "They get high, come down, find a way to get high again." "Round the clock." "They sleep for only the time necessary to recover enough to get on with another day of obtaining scrap and garbage, selling it, getting their drugs." " The people we're seeing..." " See this guy smoking there in the cap?" "And the people next to him." "They're all basuco addicts." "(SPEAKS SPANISH TO DRIVER)" "The left-hand side here is stronger." "If you can shoot across Herman's shoulder, you'll see these people there." "(SPEAKS SPANISH TO DRIVER)" "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "The man on the left just warning us." ""Be careful round there or they'll rob you blind."" "If they see someone like this going through, do they see it as a target?" "Yes." "They're already yelling insults at us." "Now they're throwing rocks." "Whoops." "They've started getting hostile." "They assume we're a death squad or police or something." "Stabbings are frequent." "They use broken bottles on each other's faces." "A squabble can start for nothing." "A squabble over 50 cents' worth of marijuana." "Why is it so particularly bad in Colombia?" "It's a producing country." "Wherever you get drug production, you get drug consumption." "The United States and Europe are blamed for the drug trafficking problem because of demand there." "What the Colombian government ignores is the level of substance abuse, drugs and alcohol." "A million alcoholics in a country of 36 million." "An estimated 900,000 solvent abusers." "That means sniffing gasoline, petrol, glue." "Legal things." "It's a vast problem." "Basuco, cocaine base." "Nobody's done any proper survey work." "The desolation is matched by political inertia." "There is money, but those who have it are not prepared to share." "Tim, I've been recommended a rather eccentric restaurant called Margarita del Ocho." " Do you want to come?" " I'm not going there." "It's owned by the Ochoa family who are renowned for their involvement in the Medellin cartel, drug traffickers." "I was warned against them when there was an attempt to kill me for another documentary." " Sorry." "I was only gonna buy you lunch!" " Thanks." " It's a serious drug connection?" " Serious drug connection." "It's run by old Fabio Ochoa, the Fat Man, as he's known." "One of his sons just got out of prison after five years, to the great distaste of the US, where he would have served life." "He's one of the biggest drug traffickers." "(APPLAUSE)" "The sign says "restaurant", but once inside, Don Fabio's priorities are clearly elsewhere." "It's easier to get a horse than a waiter." "The Spanish legacy seems to have created an obsession with horses." "There are 700 on the premises." "Children learn to ride before they can walk." "Don Fabio's daughter sets an example." "Then comes the moment I'm not sure I've been waiting for." "Don Fabio has granted us a rare interview." "I keep the questions friendly for my own safety and because I'm overawed." "As would anyone be interviewing Marlon Brando for the first time." "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" "The place, he says, symbolises a tradition." "100 years of tradition for the 0choa family." "From it have come some of the finest horses in the world." "(MICHAEL SPEAKS SPANISH)" "I ask if a demonstration of horsemanship is on the cards." "He seems delighted to be asked, though it throws his bodyguards into a spin." "They appear from all sides and rush to help him up, at least two to each limb." "The raising of Don Fabio is not an elegant sight, but once he's in the saddle, he's a changed man." "(SINGS IN SPANISH)" "Lucky diners can watch the paso fino performed by a magnificently trained horse whilst enjoying bits of other less fortunate animals." "This is a family business run by the family." "Don Fabio's new wife flashes the sweet smile of success." "They're opening similar places up and down the country." "It's clearly big business." "And it's legitimate." "It's not recommended to drive through the mountains west of Bogotá." "There are believed to be a dozen armed guerrilla groups operating there, each seeking to control its own area of influence." "0ne of the bitterest battles was fought for control of this mountain, Cosquez." "3,500 people lost their lives in the fighting, but then the stakes were high." "This is the Colombian Wild West, the largest, richest, most dangerous emerald mine in the world." "Cosquez mountain is being slowly and painstakingly ripped apart in the search for emeralds." "They call this "black land", and a lot of hard work goes into finding very little." "We're here at the right moment." "Unlike diamonds, which have to be fashioned, an emerald comes out of the ground bright green and fully formed." "So that's what it looks like?" "Yeah." "That's good." "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "This, I'm told, is a good piece, worth around $10,000." "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "At the bottom of the mountain, beyond the company fences, a stream runs out of the mine." "Here the guaqueros, the scavengers, can sift through the crumbs from the rich man's table." "6,000 people live on the mountain." "0nly a third of them work for the mining company." "In almost intolerable heat and discomfort, men, women and even children scour the black silt for a glimpse of something that might change their lives." "Crowds cluster round the head of the stream like rescuers at the scene of a disaster." "The guaqueros search largely in vain, but always in hope." "Surprisingly, I see no fights or arguments amongst them." "Though these people may be desperately poor, they help each other out." "0r maybe I just came on a good day." "At the top of the mountain, the guaqueros have a shanty community, with shops, bars, kitchens, cafes, brothels and banks." "It's up here that the most important part of the process takes place - the buying and selling." "Hundreds of emerald dealers in four-wheel drives grind up the mountain each morning." "Those who've struck lucky bargain with the hard men from Bogotá." "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "Experts." "So I can find out what to look for." "It's just..." "That's a good one?" "(MICHAEL SPEAKS SPANISH)" "Serious money is changing hands here." "It's worth remembering that 50 per cent of all the emeralds bought from scavengers here will be sold abroad as the last word in luxury." "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "(MICHAEL) Más verde es más bueno?" "I feel the pressure building." "They want me to put my money where my mouth is." "(SPEAKING SPANISH)" "(MICHAEL) Ten thousand dollars." "American Express?" "(ALL LAUGH)" "I think that means that won't do nicely." "Not all Colombia is a battle zone." "The guerrillas and drug barons don't seem interested in what Colombians call the Zona Cafetera - coffee country." "I hitch a ride in one of the American army jeeps they call Willys." "They use them to carry coffee beans from the plantations to the markets, and occasionally to help travellers down from the mountains to the sea." "The coffee country around Armenia lies about 3,000 feet above sea level." "It's lower and warmer than Bogotá, but positively chilly compared to the thick tropical heat of our next destination, Cartagena." "Cartagena de Indias is one of the best-preserved colonial cities on the continent." "The Spanish treasure fleets loaded up here en route to Europe." "These mighty walls were built to protect their cargo." "Cathedrals and churches were built to thank the Almighty for being on Spain's side." "With wealth came a desire to run their own affairs, and the first South American state independent of Spain was set up here by Simón Boliívar, the Liberator, in 1811." "Protected by its great sea walls, the houses of the old town haven't changed much in 300 years." "It's a shock to find that it's like this because of neglect, because the developers could make more money building a new town nearby than by messing about with the old." "Much of the hard work of preservation has been done by enlightened individuals." "What was the house like when you got it?" "Was it like this?" "Jacqui Basile is from an old Cartagena family." "She and her husband have eschewed the comforts of a modern apartment and moved back into the heart of the city." "You had to start from scratch, did you?" "Yes." "You buy the facade and inside it's an old, crumbling house and you have to start from scratch." "Most cities have changed a lot and modern buildings have gone up." "Did somebody deliberately stop Cartagena from changing?" "No, I think it was just we were lucky that the mayors and all the governmental people didn't think about the old city." "They wanted new places to be developed." "So they saw this city like a church, like an old thing to be left there, and then about 30 years ago, only, the city started to be looked at." " Nobody had looked at it before." " As someone who's just passing through here, what would you recommend for me to do to get the feel of Cartagena?" " Well, to start warming up, maybe a Chiva tour." " A Chiva tour." "What's that?" "A typical bus that we have in all Colombia." "They run from the south to the north." "Here they've become a place with music, drinks, where people from all over meet." " It'd be good for an inhibited Englishman?" " No, for everyone." "Colombians get together and afterwards they know what to do." "(B0TH LAUGH)" "(SINGING IN SPANISH)" " Do they have just one bus or lots of buses?" " No, a lot, like ten." "Ten buses?" "Do they get full?" "One night you can have ten of these noisy, drunken parties going round the city?" "At the end of the evening, what do they do?" "Dump you all?" "By one o'clock you start having fun." " What's the time?" " It's ten." " Ten?" "Three hours before I start to have fun." " Three hours to go." "I'll just stay quiet." "Anyone got a book to read?" "(SINGING IN SPANISH)" "Nine weeks and a day since setting foot on Cape Horn, we've reached the other end of South America." "The last lap of my journey is in sight." "That is provided I survive tonight." "These men are more than just wrestlers." "In Mexico City, they're heroes." "They're mean, moody and macho." "And like everywhere where men throw each other about, there are women who love to watch." " How many years has she been watching?" " 40 years." "40 years?" "These are the Lucha Libre, or free fighters." "Inspired by comic-book heroes, they have names like Satan and The Ghost." "Amongst the oppressed of Mexico City, they have a legendary status." " What are they all shouting?" " "Kill him, kill him."" "(SHOUTING)" "Grandmothers watch appreciatively as groins are clutched, faces punched, arms wrenched." "Their grandchildren can't wait to grow up and get in there too." "For everyone else, it's just a great day out." "I'm sure there are Mexicans who stay at home in the evening, but this is not the land of the introverted." "If you like company, Mexico is the place for you." "Mariachi bands will serenade you wherever you want to go, whether you like it or not." "Under pretence of selling cigars..." "And if you want to know if you're a real man, there are machines on hand to prove it." "Yeah." "I do this." "You put electric..." "Ah!" "Ooh!" "Yeah." "I see." "Yeah." "It's supposed to test your macho-ness, isn't it?" "There's a definite tingle." "Ooh!" "OK." "Ooh!" "It's like those machines at the fair that said, "Kissable, very kissable, explosive."" "Yeah." "Higher?" "What's that going to?" "Three?" "30 volts?" "No, I don't think so." "All I need is a lampshade on my head." "That's quite enough." "Stop." "That's quite enough!" "He's a sadist, this man." " Ah, ooh, OK." "Ow!" " (CHILDREN LAUGH)" "I've broken his machine!" "Oh, dear." "(SHOUTS IN SPANISH)" "(SHOUTING)" "(SINGS)" "Mexico City has quite a pedigree." "0nce it was a dazzling Aztec citadel, full of canals and palaces." "Then the Spanish conquerors built the centre of their American empire here." "Today it's the world's largest city." "16 million people live in a polluted bowl 7,500 feet above the sea." "For the few lucky ones, there has always been prosperity at the centre of it all." "Today huge investment, mostly from the USA, has taken the place of the wealth the Spanish left behind." "Cathedral bells sound over the Zocalo, the square that is the heart of the city and a good place for a quiet start to the day." "But, this being Mexico, there's no such thing as a quiet start to the day." "(DRUMMING)" "The Aztecs may have been gone for nearly 500 years, but fortunately for the tourist board someone remembers their dances." "In the centre of the square there's more topical activity." "A local radical group is painting temporary hoardings as a protest against the government." "(CHANTING IN SPANISH)" "Their caped crusader is a character called Super Barrio," ""barrio" meaning a poor district, the sort of place from which most of his support is drawn." "(CHANTING IN SPANISH)" "Super Barrio had the bright idea of turning the masked wrestlers into political activists." "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" ""The situation in Mexico is hopeless," he says to the crowd." ""There is no work, no future." ""This state of affairs is forcing thousands of people" ""to risk their lives crossing the border" ""to find even worse conditions in the USA."" "Super Barrio's words are noted and reported." "(CHANTING) Super Barrio presidente!" "When he's finished painting, the government moves in." "They have only one colour, but it does the job." "Soon the tourists in the Zocalo will no longer have to be bothered with Super Barrio's views." "As befits the world's largest city, there's something for everyone." "A shop entirely full of loofahs, for instance." "And across the square, a restaurant promising "comida exótica y precolombina"." "The food they ate before Columbus found America." "I have to find out what this is." "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" "Before the Spaniards brought over sheep, cows and goats, the staple food seems to have been insects." "Delicacies include baby grasshoppers, mosquito eggs, fried beetles and the chef's speciality, gusanos." "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" "Get out my phrase book." "Now, then, let me see." "Gusanos." "Ahl Here we are." "Gusanos... maggots." "So I eat it with this." "A bit of tortilla and a bit of guacamole to help the maggots slide down." "There we are." "Let's try one there." "Two." "Just try two to start with." "There they are, nestling out." "Not the best maggot I've had, but pretty damn close." "It's good grub!" "Mexico City is behind us, but there's still a long way to go to complete the circle." "With nearly 40,000 miles on the clock, fatigue is creeping in and dreams of home are becoming more frequent." "Mexico is split between the Hispanics, whose ancestors were European, and the Indians, whose predecessors were from Asia, and who, many believe, crossed the Bering Strait when it was still land." "More often than not, it's the Indians who get the rough end of the stick." "Guadeloupe and her family are Indians." "Her husband, Don Antonio, works a smallholding." "This year he can't afford to grow anything other than maize." "Maize is the basis of tortillas, the staple diet of rural Mexico." "With ten mouths to feed, Guadeloupe must make 80 a day." "But she still has time to give cookery lessons." "(THEY SPEAK SPANISH)" " OK." "Water first." "Agua más importante." " Si." "Agua." "And then..." "I think mine's a bit wet." "Yours looks nice and dry." "Oh, dear." "Look at that." "Serrated edges!" "In normal cookery programmes they cut to one they made earlier." "They don't keep going!" "Jolly difficult, actually, isn't it?" "It took her 30 years to do this." "I'm expected to do it in 30 seconds!" "Most of this, Guadeloupe, is in my hand." "I wouldn't give that to a dog!" "Oh, dear." "Despite my appalling performance, Guadeloupe would not let us go without tortillas, nor Don Antonio without a sackful of corn cobs." "From their village north of Mexico City, we head across the country to the Pacific coast and the American border, 1,000 miles away." "Tijuana is always painted as the victim, a town of easy virtue." "Its cultural heritage is all too often ignored." "The guidebooks are disparaging about architecture but they never mention this." "The lady over there is a house." "Not your typical two-up one-down, but that was designed by an architect and modelled on his wife." "Before it was finished, he divorced his wife." "He lives there with his second wife, who resents living in the first one's body." "It's wonderful that they were allowed to build it." "A message for Britain's planners." "Barratt Homes, estates of naked ladies across Surrey!" "Get on with it, Britain!" "Take your example from Tijuana!" " (WOMAN) Adiós, señor!" " Bye!" "This is the US border." "A ten-foot high steel barrier made from landing strip sections from the Vietnam War." "It's called the Tortilla Curtain." "Those who cross illegally are known as "pollos" - chickens." "You have to pay about... between 300 to 350." "It all depends." "Dollars, you know." "To pay to the coyote." "So, I tell you, many people has not one nickel." "So they have to do for themselves." " Do you know of anyone who's been over?" " Yes, me." " Really?" "You've tried it yourself?" " Yes, I did." "Twice." "Tijuana is a magnet for the pollos." "From here, it's no distance to Los Angeles." "If you're determined to go, the Tortilla Curtain can look a very flimsy obstacle." "Do people swim out and round it, or is that too dangerous?" "I think it's too dangerous because it's very..." "Sometimes the sea is very great, you know." "Some people cross, but..." " What does that mean? "Cuidate..." - "Cuidate, paisano."" ""Take care, neighbour."" "Meaning dangerous to go beyond..." "That's right, because just crossing the border, they find many, many problems." "What's the view of the Mexicans of this fence?" "It shouldn't be there?" "Very sad, you know, because don't forget, all this used to be Mexico." "Arturo Espinosa shows me the risks that Mexicans and others are prepared to take to climb out of poverty and into the land of opportunity." "There's a never-ending stream of pollos waiting to take their chance." " Are these all people waiting to get over?" " Yes." "They try to get some polleros." "They may go on their own, or pay guides known as polleros or coyotes." "When will these guys go, do you think?" "Oh, they're going now." "Yeah, they go now." "There's a way they cross." " Yeah." " See?" "Just..." "What's going to happen to them?" "The middle of the day is a bit risky." "I think it's a big mistake, you know, but... they do." "Is it just young guys, or do women and children go under?" "Women and children and old people too." "Anybody who needs work, who needs money." " I could get under there into America." " Sure." "You can go if you want." "Look right, look left." " Here I am." "This is America." " It's America." " No passport, no papers." "No queues." " Nothing." "We are pollos already." "So are they." "Nigel, have you got your passport?" " You cheated on me!" " They look like chickens too!" " Vehicles patrol along here." " Yes." " Are we being observed at this moment?" " Sure." "Of course." "We are observed from there." "You see that point?" "More and more fellas." " We'd better leave the land of the free." " Yeah, we'd better go." "Last year alone, over half a million people were arrested for crossing this 60-mile stretch of the Tortilla Curtain." "But still they go." "The young woman I saw at the fence goes ahead to scout the ground." "(MICHAEL) There's a whole group going now." "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven people." "Eight, with the girl." " Are they with a coyote?" " I don't think so." "(ARTURO) They go for it themselves." "(MICHAEL) They're bent double, crouching to avoid being seen." "(ARTURO) These people have more experience." "A crowd gathers to will them on." "But in broad daylight and only 100 yards from the airport terminal, the attempt looks suicidal." "(MICHAEL) They don't seem to wear any dark or camouflage clothing." "Someone with a pink shirt." "Very obvious." "(ARTURO) Poor people." "They are very simple people." " (MICHAEL) Just take what they've got." " People from the country." "(ARTURO) Look." "See?" "They get to know the direction." "(HELICOPTER OVERHEAD)" "The helicopter is coming." "Right there, see?" "The helicopter is coming." "(MICHAEL) Here comes the vehicle." "They must know that they've made the break." "They must have observed them." " How many in each patrol?" "Is it just two guys?" " Yeah." "Two guys." " Are they armed?" " They have guns and everything." "(ARTURO) They go for them." "If you were in that group of people, what would you do?" "I'd run in different directions." " Somebody can escape." " Yeah." " (ARTURO) Look at the other van." " Here comes the other vehicle." "(ARTURO) It's coming in the other direction." "(MICHAEL) They're cornered." "They've had it." " And the money they paid the coyote?" " They lose it." "Wasted." " How much do you reckon they pay?" " I think 250." "(ARTURO) Look at the other cars." "There are three now." "So it's impossible they escape." "The legal border between Tijuana and the USA is the busiest land crossing in the world." "30 million people pass over it in a year and the salesmen are ready for them." "The gauntlet of souvenir stalls, row upon row of international junk, feels like an ominous warning of what is to come as I step from the Third World into the First." "(W0MAN) Welcome to the United States." "You are about to apply for admission at the world's busiest border." "Please have your documents ready." "The use of fraudulent documents is a federal offence." "Aliens attempting to enter with fraudulent documents will be detained for a hearing before an immigration judge." "Re-entry after exclusion or deportation will result in felony prosecution." "Welcome to the United States of America." "You are about to apply for admission at the world's busiest border." "Please have your documents ready." "The use of fraudulent documents is a federal offence." "Aliens attempting to enter with fraudulent documents will be detained for a hearing before an immigration judge." "Re-entry after exclusion... (MICHAEL) Before I go very far into the US, curiosity compels me to look at the border from the other side." "I'm with Ron Henley of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service." "Yesterday's enemy is my host today." "Last year, 523,000 arrests." "Um... right now we're up around a little over 400,000, so we're on a pace with that." "How many of these people have been over before?" "Do you have any figures on that?" "At a bare minimum, we have about a 40% recidivism rate." "What's your feeling about the people you pick up?" "What do you feel?" "That they're just trying to get some work, or what?" "It's a push-pull effect." "They're pushed up here and drawn up here economically." "I think if I was in their shoes, I'd be doing the same thing." "The border at night." "An expensive array of hi-tech equipment has been made available to Ron's men by a generous, if increasingly paranoid, US Congress." "Infrared cameras scan the fence." " What are you seeing there?" " There's a group on the south side of the fence waiting to cross the border." "They're still in Mexico." "They're moving around, seeing where there's a good opening to come through without being detected." " How far away are they?" " From a quarter of a mile to half a mile away." "They are in darkness." "As far as they're concerned, they're walking around..." " Yes, they are." " They're in the dark." "You can see them because of the sensor..." "which gets the heat..." "The body heat." "Yes." "Exactly." " There's a lot of activity, isn't there?" " Yes." " What's happening there?" " We have a group of 10 or 15." "They're on the north side of the fence, which is US." "It looks like they're resting right now." "They wait and look for the movement of our vehicles and see when they disperse." "They wait for an opportunity to move north." "Do you think those people are about to move?" "No." "Not yet." "They'll wait around at a different hole and see how the area looks and see what the movement is." "As you can see, there's the helicopter flying above." "They won't move." "They'll just stay there." "Unlike the pollos, we're free to go north, into California, the richest state of the richest country in the world." "For the 32 million people who live here, it's the ultimate realisation of the American dream." "(VOICES ON RADIO)" "The epicentre of the American dream is Los Angeles, one of the great cities of the Pacific." "The only way to take it all in is from the air." "(PILOT) This is downtown Los Angeles." "Just over here on the east side is the older section of Los Angeles." "My guide is Bob Tur, doyen of the LA skies." "(RADl0) New help may be on the way for women with bladder control problems." "(MICHAEL) Tur makes a living by swooping from the air to snatch the news from his rivals." "He was the first on the scene when 0J Simpson was chased down the freeways." "From an office in Santa Monica airport, his wife Marika monitors emergency service frequencies and guides the helicopter to the scene of the next crisis." "The airport's right here." "This morning's first big story is an emergency landing on a freeway." "Bob Tur goes in, broadcasting live." "(TUR) We have the aircraft in sight." "The pilot has made a safe landing on the freeway." "It appears to be not the 405 freeway, but the intersection... the 405-5 interchange." "It is a Cessna single-engine aircraft." "Four people can be aboard, but we understand two are aboard." "Looks like everybody's OK." "(TUR) We listened to this guy coming in over the Van Nuys airport frequency." "He said he lost his engines." "He was over 2,000 feet up in the air." "He couldn't make it to the airport, so he decided to put it down on the freeway." "The pilot is waving up in the air, ecstatic that he's safe." "Just an incredible situation." "The aircraft is just fine." "All aboard are OK." "Nobody injured on the ground." "This is a code 4." "Everybody's OK." "Back to you." "(MICHAEL) During a brief lull in emergencies," "Bob and his pilot give me a landmark tour of America's second-biggest city." "This is our version of the Eiffel Tower." "You can see the Hollywood sign and above it that tower that we can see so brilliantly at night." "They have to repaint it white every so often because people think it's fun to tag it and put graffiti on it." " Very clean today, isn't it?" " It is clean." "It was cleaned in honour of your presence last night." "I wanted "With Michael Palin" but they couldn't afford it." "The lettering was expensive." " Is that translucent or something, the surface?" " No." " In front of us we have Madonna's house." " In front of you?" "International rock star Madonna's home." " She's very fond of us." " Is she in?" "Will she come out on the roof?" "Make a 360 over..." "It's off to your left." "It's got the adobe roof and the tower." " Behind it is the pool." " Right." "Yes." "Bugsy Siegel, one of our notorious gangsters, owned that home." "You can see the maintenance people are there." "No Madonna." "No photographers." "The tour comes to an abrupt halt as word comes in of a serious accident." "(MAN) Southbound l-5 Hollywood Way." "Roger." "Tell me what you're seeing, Bob." "It's a car pinned between a big rig." "The car is up against the guard rail, completely crushed." "His bird's-eye view, combined with the power of a 72:1 zoom lens, gives him a range of shots rarely available to those on the ground." "His network, CBS, clears a space on the news for his report." "(PRESENTER) Bob Tur is live and above the scene." "We have a terrible accident here in Sun Valley, the 5 freeway southbound." "We have a big rig that pinned a small automobile against the central divider." "There was an explosion." "Fire swept through the area, killing the automobile driver." "(TUR)... had to use heavy equipment to pry open the automobile door to see inside." "Unfortunately we believe nobody survived that crash." "(MICHAEL) Tur is fiercely competitive, setting himself high standards." "By the time we return to Santa Monica, I'm utterly exhausted." "For Bob it's just been a routine kind of day." "Back in the office, with the help of his video library, he shows me days that weren't quite as routine." " What's this story?" " Sheriff's deputies beating up illegal immigrants." "We're a few miles away with our camera system." "They don't hear us and they continue to give these people a beating." "The only positive thing I can think about this appalling scene is that there are very few countries that would allow Tur the freedom to show that things like this actually go on." "Compared to the freeways, the Pacific Coast Highway is as quiet as an English country lane." "I could almost fool myself into thinking there's no hurry at all." "0utside Salinas I pick up the immigrant trail again." "By picking strawberries in John Steinbeck country they can earn $1.40 a box, a fortune back home." "It is no surprise that over 90 per cent of the fruit crop in California is picked by immigrants." "It suits everybody." "By the time I reach the Golden Gate Bridge, the sea mist is catching on its towers and the weather has turned from sultry Mediterranean to bracing North European." "0nly a short way from the temples of pleasure is the temple of punishment, Alcatraz Island." "Separated from the mainland by just over a mile of fierce currents and icy water, it was regarded as the ultimate in incarceration." "This is where they put the hard men:" "Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and my two guides today, retired bank robbers Jim Quillan and Glenn Williams." "Apart from spells in the punishment block, this was their view of the world for 17 and a half hours of every day." "Both were glad they didn't have a cell with this view." "It was considered unbearable." "Can I ask you about probably the most famous occupant, the Birdman of Alcatraz?" " Did you know him?" " Yes." " What were your feelings about him?" " My feelings... he was a jerk." "He was a guy that thrived on chaos, turmoil, upheaval." "He liked other people to be involved in these kind of things, but he was never a participant." "What did you think of the movie?" " Fantasy." " I refer to them as comedies." "I have seen them all." "One way or another, we have become consultants on those movies." "It isn't long before the director tells you," ""Look, we'll just ask you a couple of questions." "We'll make the movie."" "And when you see the end product, it's kinda funny." "Other people cry and we laugh." "We have this image through the media, the movies, the magazines, that there's something glamorous and macho about prison." "But you know what prison really is?" "It's tears and sorrow and heartaches and loneliness." "Bitterness, insanity, murder, suicide, death." "That's what prison's all about." "Yet when the media portrays it, these guys are heroic." "(JIM) That's about as far from the truth as you can possibly get." "(MICHAEL) Jim was one of the few who tried to escape from Alcatraz." "He says there were 14 attempts." "Seven men were shot dead, six were drowned." "0nly one ever made it to the mainland." "He was recaptured almost immediately." "Despite Alcatraz, San Francisco is best known as a free-thinking town." "To see how it lives up to this tradition," "I take a tour of one of the world's largest gay communities." "My guide calls herself Trevor." "Michael, let me tell you about this intersection." "The intersection where we are right now, of 18th and Castro, this is reputed to be the gayest four corners on earth." "That's quite a claim." "The gay and lesbian community in the Castro is over a quarter of a million strong." "Here they call heterosexuals those who enjoy an alternative lifestyle." "Trevor, who was once called Evelyn, is proud of its achievement." "The Castro is to gays what Israel is to the Jews, she tells me." "Why is San Francisco particularly tolerant?" "San Francisco's birth was the gold rush." "When gold was struck in this area, 40,000 men migrated to this area from the four corners of the earth." "With everyone arriving on equal footing, the first characteristic to develop was acceptance." " Acceptance of men with men." "Men alone." " Precisely." "The Castro seems the epitome of a well-ordered community." "Everyone seems to know and love everyone else." "...the drug culture of Haight-Ashbury..." "Sorry, Michael, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but here's Dennis." " May I introduce Michael Palin?" " Pleased to meet you." " Local bobby, as we say in England." " That's what you say?" "Trevor tells me that this is the centre of the gay community in San Francisco." " Does it help to be a gay cop?" "Are you gay?" " Yes." "So does it help in your work to be gay?" "I think as far as the community's perceptions are concerned, yes." "I think that makes one more approachable, especially over certain issues." " Are your fellow officers predominantly gay?" " No." "Not at all." "I don't think... according to the numbers that I am most familiar with," "I would say probably no more than two per cent of the department." "Maybe a little more." " Do they ask to come and work here?" " Some do." "Trevor, I think we must go." "Really nice to meet you." " I'm also glad we ran into you." " We're going to see the neighbourhood." " Look after it." " We certainly will." "Enjoy." "The rainbow flag of the gay community flutters outside one of the most significant locations." " Did the Names Project begin in San Francisco?" " Yes, it did." " When was that?" " In 1987, early spring, is when people began to make and collect panels in this very building." "What does each panel represent?" "Each of these panels represents an individual that has been lost to the Aids epidemic." "30 other countries have their own quilt with this group's blessing." "It's used as a vehicle for grief, a memorial to those we've lost to the Aids epidemic, and it also is an education to people about what the epidemic truly represents." "All this youth, talent, creativity that's being lost." "Moving on, I'm at San Francisco airport for an early evening flight to Seattle." "Z-1, rotate." "For some reason, probably because the pilots get so bored," "I'm often invited up onto the flight deck to watch a take-off or landing." "Today is an exception." "As we approach Seattle, I'm asked to do more than just watch." " Mr Palin, how are you?" " Very well." " Here?" " Why not?" " Like to try a landing?" " You must be joking." "No." "Piece of cake." "We'll talk you right through it." "Well, I think I'll probably... (VOICE ON RADIO)" " A little to the left." " 800 feet." " Is the airport in sight?" "Is that the runway?" " Straight ahead." "Small corrections now." " A little left." " Little left." " Left." "Left." " Whoa." " Back to the left." " I've lost it." "Whoa." " Left and down." "Down and to the left." " Down." " Ooh!" " 80 feet." "50. 30." "Ooh!" "Wow!" "Sorry about that, everyone." "Spilled your drinks." " Now just welcome them to Seattle." " Well..." "W-W-W..." "W-W-Welcome to S-S-Seattle." "Home of Boeing and their wonderful in-flight simulators." "Realistic, aren't they?" "After a night in Seattle we're on our way again, across another border and into Canada." "First to Vancouver, then by railway north through British Columbia." "0ur first Canadian train is pulled by one of the locomotives that used to haul expresses right across the country 60 years ago." "I'm told that because there are so few people here, you can flag trains down like buses." "We'll see." "(HORN)" "Well, it's worked, but then the Canadians are notorious for being very nice people." "Thanks a lot." "Sorry to stop you, but I was told you stop anywhere." "Ah!" "I couldn't afford the whole fare." "Where else in the world could you stop an entire express train and still get lunch without a reservation?" "This is timber country, with logjams on one side of us and sawmills on the other." "And in Canada, where there are trees, there are lumberjacks." "(TANNOY) Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Mr Michael Palin." "(MICHAEL) I once sang a song about lumberjacks." "Today in Squamish I pay for it." "The annual logging games always start with a bang, and this year I've been asked to provide it." " Has it got a kick on it?" " Just a little kick." "See that tree with the red markings on it up there?" "No excuses, now." "Ready?" "And fire." "Whoa!" "We've never had anybody miss!" "You did it!" "It was nothing." "It was nothing." " He said it was nothing." " I worked in a firing squad." "Enjoy the show." "We'll call you again a little bit later." "Michael Palin, ladies and gentlemen." "After that, thank God, all I have to do is watch as the loggers show us 101 things you can do to a tree." "(TANNOY)... get through that wood faster than they normally would go." "They saw them, climb up and down them in under 30 seconds and even, surprisingly, dance on them." "Watching their feet." "As long as they don't go over the red line, anything goes." "Ready to go." "Each one, remember, not less than eight..." "Look at this!" "Look at this!" "(COMMENTARY INDISTINCT)" "That is one man down." "Well done, Bill." "You're watching two of the best, a heck of a match." "(SHOUTS)" "(COMMENTARY INDISTINCT)" "Can he get across without falling in?" "A little encouragement again would do." "Stay up there!" "Just as I think it's all over, I make the fatal mistake of getting excited." "Pride comes before a fall." "One, two, go!" "It's fast." "Fast, fast, fast!" "It's no good." "I think I've lost the will to win." "Oh, my goodness!" "How about it!" "Let's give him..." "I want to go home!" "I want to go home!" "(TRAIN HORN BLARES)" "After that, the last lap can't go quickly enough." "The remote grandeur of the Rockies, the raw power of the Fraser River are no match for my overwhelming desire to get back to Diomede and close the circle." "The further north we go, the more limited our transport options become." "Roads run out and the ocean takes over." "This route through the coastal islands is called the Alaska Marine Highway." "There is no regular passenger boat going further north than Skagway." "We must use an aircraft to take us on, via Anchorage, to the edge of the continent." "This is just..." "This is ultimately depressing." "I've gone absolutely as far as I can go on the American mainland." "This is a little area called Wales." "That's Prince Of Wales Cape." "It's impossible to go further west in America." "And yet Diomede, where we began, is still about 25 miles out over the Bering Sea, which is choppy and cold and there's just no way of getting there." "It's so frustrating after the distance we've been." "To have got to the..." "Hang on." "Hang on!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Over here!" "The US Coast Guard, who offered us a ride down the Aleutian Islands chain a year ago, had promised to help us on our return journey." "Today they're as good as their word." "Their ship, the Munro, is in the area, winding up routine patrol duties in the Bering Sea." "Thanks, guys." "If anyone can get us to Diomede, it's the US Coast Guard." " All ahead full." " All ahead full." " All ahead full." " Right." "Be advised we will be answering a full bell." "All ahead full." "All ahead full." "We're not all that's racing to Diomede." "A fierce storm from the south-west seems determined to beat us to it." "(FOGHORN)" "Captain, it doesn't look too good." "What are the chances of getting to Diomede?" "Not very good, I'm afraid." "Winds are about 30 knots." "Seas are about 12 feet." "The fog signal's going off, which indicates reduced visibility around Diomede." "I don't think we'll be able to fly the helicopter in either." " So that's helicopter..." " Small boat." "All out." " How far are we away from Diomede?" " Only about two miles right now." "We can't even see it." "The visibility is very reduced, which means the helicopter can't fly in." "The seas are too rough for the small boat." "What's the forecast if we wait around for a bit?" "It's not looking any better." "It's looking worse." "There is a front coming through." "The winds will pick up as the front passes us." "We anticipate reduced visibility on the other side of the front." "We expect some warm air to be brought in, which is just going to bring more fog." " So..." " So I'm afraid that's about it." "It looks as though the Bering Strait has defeated us." "The most notorious and changeable and dangerous weather systems come through here." "A year ago, when I started this journey, it was flat, calm, sunny, and everyone said, "You're very lucky."" "And this, today, is the reality." "So I shan't set foot on Diomede, but I feel that I've closed the circle." "It is out there." "We've travelled 50,000 miles." "We got within a gnat's of it, and I think that's something." "There are lots of times when I feel the last thing I want to do is to get up in the morning and go anywhere and get in a bus or on a boat or fly anywhere." "Just want to sit around." "Basically, I am quite lazy, I think." "But the travelling kind of energises me, keeps me... keeps the brain ticking over, keeps the body tested." "I think my family are sort of aware now that it's better to have have a husband or father who's fulfilled rather than frustrated." "And, as I do enjoy the journeys, they accept that I'm away for a certain period of time, that's what I do." "When I come back..." "Well, I'm usually flaked out for a long time." "But I'm much happier than if I had to do something else which my heart wasn't really in." "So, on balance, the family are really good about it." "I..." "I..." "I find that having done the journey, I then have quite a long period at home writing the book or the commentary." "I probably, over a long period, spend more time at home than most people with a nine-to-five job." "So it kind of balances out, but... um I am restless, but I do enjoy the sheer pleasure of sitting at a table staring into the middle distance with a glass of beer and not having to think about anything." "When I started "Around The World In 80 Days", I took lots of phrase books with me and tried to make sure that I had a few phrases for each country." "It does make it much easier." "I found it quite difficult 'cause I got phrases muddled up." "We'd be in Greece, then in Egypt." "You'd have to have another one." "Then you're in Dubai or something like that, and then you're in India." "Um... and what I do now is I try to just have a phrase for, "Good morning", "Hello", "I'm English", "Sorry", which are all you really need to say," "rather than attempt to really learn the language or give a full frontal assault on the language." "Because that's really quite tricky and you can get very easily tripped up." "I do think it's important to be able to say, "Hello" and "Thank you"." ""Thank you" is a good one." "And, if possible, something like, "You live in a very beautiful country."" "Something disarming like that." "But I don't usually get as far as that." "...when I was so little." "It is comedy!" "Anyway, I've got to walk on the boat." "See you later." "For the programmes we're making to have a lot of... a lot of a foreign language means subtitles and translation." "I think that puts a barrier between myself, the person I'm interviewing and the viewer." "So that's why we tend to interview people who have a certain amount of English or interview people who I can understand a certain amount of, so I can translate it myself." "We try to avoid long subtitles." "It's just easier." ""Full Circle", I think, was gastronomically the most challenging of all the journeys." "We did have some very strange things to eat." "Maggots in Mexico City, and this very, very strong, smelly fruit called durian." "I think it's a delicacy in Java, I think." "Anyway, it smells absolutely foul." "Apparently, they don't allow it on airlines for that reason." "One bite of durian and the whole plane just sort of stinks for weeks." "I had to experiment eating that, and it's fine once you eat it." "It's a bit like, I suppose the Chinese and certainly the Japanese, whose standards of food are absolutely so high that you rarely have anything bad to eat there, but cheese, they don't know about at all." "So I suppose, to them, a slab of Stilton would be what durian is to us - something absolutely foul." "But, actually, once you eat it, it's OK." "Soft like banana." "Well, this is a first." "You don't see durian-tasting often." "Are you going to have some, as well?" "I'll 'ave some if you 'ave some, Eko." " Here we go." " One, two, three." " Yummy." " Mm." "Oh, God." "That is a very strange taste, isn't it?" "I think probably the most unlikely thing I ever took was a drink in Peru, in a village on the Urubamba River." "And we never really quite captured it on film." "We filmed there, but almost as soon as we'd landed..." "Everything was very unfamiliar." "This is a small Machiguenga Indian village." "And almost as soon as we landed, this old lady came up with a gourd full of pink liquid - it looked like yogurt - and handed it to me and said, "Oh, please."" "It would have been rude to turn it down, so I said, "Thank you very much."" "And she looked at me with great gratitude and pleasure." "Then I asked what it was and someone said, "Well, they make this as a special palm wine." ""It's quite strong." "They make it for a festival, the festival of St John." ""And very often they cut down almost the entire sugar crop around a village to ferment this," ""it's so important to make this strong drink."" "So I was smiling and the old lady was looking at me, and then the guide added," ""In places where there isn't any sugar growing, it's fermented by the saliva from the old ladies." ""They spit into it."" "There was a pause." "I realised why she was smiling at me." "I said to the guide, "Is there much sugar grown around this area?"" "Bit of a pause. "No."" " I'm game for anything." " Cheers." "Here you are, Nigel." "Looks lovely, doesn't it?" "I don't think I'd have drunk it if someone'd said, "Here's some palm wine with saliva." "Try it."" "I don't think I would, but I did, and that's part of the enjoyment of these journeys." "You have to sometimes forget about your inhibitions and throw caution to the winds." "The rewards sometimes are quite extraordinary." "Mayumi Nobetsu was one of the earliest fans I ever had." "Not just for the travel shows." "Right back to Python." "It was wonderful to get this Japanese girl sending these beautiful letters with little drawings of the knights of the Holy Grail and all that." "And so, when we were going to Tokyo, the director said, "It's a big city." "How on earth will we deal with it?" "We don't know anybody."" "I said, "I could call Mayumi."" "And I called her, and, as you will see, she is absolutely superb." "Without Mayumi there, Tokyo just wouldn't have worked." "Very bright, lively, funny, and we got on very well." "It wasn't awkward, as it might be between a fan and the person she idolised, I suppose." "I have to say, since we've done the programme, I haven't heard from her at all." "Maybe I was a terrible disappointment but, anyway, if you do see this, Mayumi, write and tell me if you enjoyed it or not." "The psychic surgery in the Philippines was one of the more bizarre things I've been involved in filming." "Basically, there are these healers in a certain part of the Philippines, traditional healers, so, presumably, whatever techniques or skills they have have been handed down over generations." "So, you know, they're highly regarded and... people do believe that they can actually um... take out bits of your body without cutting the skin in any way." "And this is what we witnessed." "And we went along and saw..." "They were very happy for us to film fairly close his hands working on someone's skin, and a bit of blood appears to come through the skin." "He appears to take some small... organism out." "Nothing very big, but like a sort of bit of tissue and that's then thrown away." "I have to say, the first man we went to, I really didn't believe it." "There was something about him which seemed almost too unlikely that he could do this." "The second man we went to was less of a showman." "Much quieter, more reserved, very, very soft-spoken and intelligent." "He believed this and he showed us what he could do, and people get up and they feel better and off they go." "I happen to think, on balance, it's probably a hoax, because I can't see how you can take out some part of someone's body without there being an incision on the skin." "You can't just do it with your hands." "And I have to say that we never saw any identifiable body part removed." "On the other hand, people must..." "feel better after it." "People must, in some cases, be healed, or these people wouldn't be in business." "I think this is something we don't understand much about." "In our Western ways, we believe there has to be a rational explanation for everything." "When you travel around the world, in a lot of communities, there just isn't that explanation." "It's all to do with faith and belief." "One of the things that I suppose you could say made this journey different from the others - or one of the many things - but a particular difference was that there was an emergency for me to deal with at home." "I tend to just go and, you know, I ring home whenever I can and, generally, it's me talking on about, "Oh, I've seen a volcano!"" "or, "I've been... white-water rafting" or something like that." "And my wife has had to deal with... the plumber, or the fridge has broken down." "She'll be talking about something fairly basic." "We were in Kuching in Sarawak, after about four days filming head-hunters upriver..." "They're not head-hunters now, but they were Iban people who were head-hunters before." "We got back to Kuching, got back to the hotel, and I was given a message as I checked in..." "I remember at the time, we were dirty, sweaty." "We'd been living fairly rough for three or four days." "We just all wanted a bath and to crash out." "And there was a message from Helen." "It's rare that she rings me." "Usually because it's much easier for me to ring her." "She doesn't know where I am." "In this case, a message from Helen, and also there was a message for our assistant cameraman, Stephen Robinson." "We all disappeared and I threw my gear down on the floor, picked up the phone and Helen told me that she'd been diagnosed with a brain tumour." "A benign brain tumour." "She kept saying the word "benign"." "And I'd never..." "Well, we'd never had to deal with anything like that before in the family, and we'd never..." "I'd never had to deal with it at such a distance." "I suddenly felt completely helpless." "We talked and, fortunately, she had family." "Sisters, my children were at home." "Everything was OK." "She'd been to the hospital." "The surgeon planned to operate within two or three days." "He'd given instructions for me to ring him at any time and he'd tell me what he was going to do." "There was the tiniest risk, but, basically, it was straightforward brain surgery." "Still, the words "brain surgery" and "tumour" frightened me a lot and I was stunned by that." "I went downstairs and Stephen's call had been because his daughter, who was only a few months old, had fallen from a first-floor window." "And she, it turns out in the end, hadn't been too badly hurt, but she'd been quite, you know, knocked about." "So these two double blows had happened out of the blue like that, and, you know... you feel completely shaken, 'cause your natural instinct is to want to be with your wife or your daughter or whatever," "and yet, obviously, to get home would have been probably two days' travelling." "What helped me was partly 'cause Helen said, "Look, don't rush back." ""You'll get in a terrible panic." "I'd rather you waited." "I'm being well looked after." ""Come back when it's over and I've had the operation."" "Um... and the surgeon who operated on Helen was absolutely brilliant." "I rang him up, as he'd said, two or three times, usually from completely remote places." "And, one time, we were in a place called Yogyakarta in Java." "I rang him up and he said what would happen and it was fine and he talked about it." "He said the operation would be tomorrow." "And I said, "I'm sorry." "I've got to go now 'cause we're filming a gamelan orchestra."" "I went on to say, "It's a special kind of music." He said, "Gamelan?" and I said, "Yes."" ""I'm one of the few people in England who's part of a gamelan orchestra."" "By extraordinary coincidence, the surgeon actually played in a gamelan orchestra in Potters Bar or somewhere like that, so that sort of made me feel closer to him." "And, in the end, both the operations were absolutely fine." "Helen came through it, and Stephen and I went back when we'd finished the filming in Java." "We went back home for about four days, and then flew back out to carry on filming in Australia." "Unfortunately, as soon as I got back home, as often happens," "I'd contracted some cold, probably from the aircraft." "Anyway, I got back home and Helen was virtually nursing me for four days." "She'd had this tumour removed and I'm coughing and spluttering and sneezing all over the place." "She's never forgotten." "She said, "You could have stayed there."" "The Pacific Rim, like anywhere else, really, that we've filmed in the world, does have this contrast between very rich, rich people and poor people, big cities and tiny villages." "Um... now, I always find that usually the poorer people are the people who are much more... hospitable and welcoming and more willing to share with you." "The richer the people you encounter, the more guarded they are, the more careful, the more likely to ask you where this will go out and will they be shown up?" "I remember very much in the Philippines..." "It was a small Muslim village on stilts above the water in Zamboanga, and they had the tin mosque painted." "You know, children going off to school with their bags over their shoulders." "They were living in houses that had no sanitary..." "Very basic sort of hygiene." "Very basic in terms of electrical supply." "Just a dim lamp." "Most of it was just candles and all that." "So they didn't have much, but they had a great strength." "Some of the older villages - like in China - had been unchanged for many years." "Put them beside the big cities in China and these places had no money at all, yet they were very strong communities." "They've learnt to live together and help each other out, and that very often happens with the poorest people." "I suppose, in certain areas, I don't know why in Colombia and South America, for instance," "I found the poverty there really... hard to deal with because there was no real comeback from people." "These were people, literally, at the bottom of the pile." "We were filming an emerald mine." "The emerald mine was run by people with guns." "It was a place for thugs and bullies, I think." "All right, they were producing these emeralds." "And at the very end, where the stream with the emeralds ran out into the river, there was a fence." "The poor were allowed up to this fence to see if they could find any residue." "I can just remember seeing people scrabbling in the dirt there, trying to extract something that would be worth selling, something that might make them as rich as the people up above." "The contrast between rich and poor was so strong." "If you just had one small emerald, it would make you richer than these people could ever be." "Somehow the continuity of their lives had been ruptured." "They were there with no hope." "The communities had broken down." "Similarly, in Bogotá, with the quite serious problem with drug addiction there." "There were people there, you know, who were poor and desperate at the same time." "But I think there is a danger of using words like "the poor" or "poverty"" "and you just forget it covers not only..." "Over half the world is beneath what we call the poverty line." "The exception is wealth, not poverty." "It covers many different people." "Many of the finest and most inspiring people I've met have been very poor and managing to bring up their families and survive." "I was pleased to get to Bogotá." "I know it has a reputation." "But we'd been in the jungle and on the Amazon for a couple of weeks and we hadn't had a decent bath or a cold beer for a long, long time." "Suddenly we flew from Leticia, which is right on the Amazon, in the heart of the jungle." "We flew to Bogotá and found ourselves in a wonderful hotel." "In many ways, Bogotá is a very civilised, modern city with a strong middle class." "They've got bookshops and coffee stalls and all that sort of thing." "So, in one way, I felt fairly comfortable there, but it does have a reputation for gangsterism." "There has been a problem with law and order there for a long time, corruption and all that." "I must say that on occasions I was a little alarmed." "On a Sunday morning, I walked round our local neighbourhood." "I've never seen so many security men and dogs prowling around houses." "Clearly, there's a feeling of paranoia there." "We did deliberately target the really hard drug-taking area - Calle Cartouche, Bullet Street - with a journalist from "The Guardian" who'd been there a long time." "We'd not seen anywhere like this nor had we been able to find someone to interpret it for us." "He'd lived in Colombia a long time, knew and liked the Colombians, so he showed us this area." "That was one of the few places where we've had rocks thrown at the car and, at one point, there was a gunshot heard." "So we got out of there fairly quickly." "Then on the last day, we went to interview Don Fabio, who..." "I think he was the father of two of the biggest sort of gang leaders and drug barons in..." "Colombia." "They had a fearsome reputation." "There'd never been anything associated with HIM, other than two of his children had been in prison for quite long periods." "However, there was a definite feeling, when you go along there, that he's the Godfather." "Just a sort of figure, a rather striking figure." "And, basically, we were just really filming this restaurant of his, which was sort of dedicated to the equine..." "equestrian arts." "There were horses everywhere and waiters would come to your tables." "They wouldn't serve you from a horse, but they'd nearly get knocked over." "So you'd eat your meal while horses were going along." "People cleared up the droppings." "It was a curious place to be." "Suddenly someone said, "Don Fabio has agreed to be interviewed."" "So I was suddenly thrust in there and I was given a few phrases in Spanish to ask him." "And there he was - the great... this great figure, this man, this extraordinary sort of powerful, notorious character in Colombia." "There I was bleating out my questions about whatever we asked him." "Anyway, he turned out to be quite charming." "Halfway through, he suddenly said, "Would you like to see me ride my horse?"" "People don't often say that in mid-interview." ""Like me to get on a horse?" "Well, stay sitting there." So we said yes." "This had obviously been planned, but he was a big man and he wasn't well and he couldn't get onto the horse unaided, so about 20 of his henchmen rush around and hoist him onto the horse." "Here was this great sort of Godfather being lifted on, and he goes slightly the other side, and someone steadies him." "I thought, this is just so embarrassing, really, that someone should be reduced to this." "He was in his seventies, something like that." "Then, when he was on the horse, everything was fine and he was in control and he galloped off and that was that." "The "Home And Away" sequence was shot in Sydney." "What a pleasure to shoot." "A really lovely day's filming." "They were such a nice cast." "They obviously thought it was a great laugh to have somebody like me around, coming into their programme." "They'd written a part specially for me with the surfboard, and it was indeed transmitted." "It turned out to be unexpectedly good for my reputation because my daughter, at that time, was at 0xford University, and, evidently, "Home and Away" was cult viewing there." "Forget "Panorama"." "Forget all the serious arts programmes they should have been watching." ""Home And Away" was the big cult programme for Oxford undergraduates then." "And so the fact that I was actually in it, playing to a packed house in the college bar, really, I think, added to my reputation." "She said, "Yeah, that wasn't embarrassing, Dad."" "Quite rare for my daughter to say that." "She thinks most of my career is embarrassing." "There seems to be something... that goes wrong for us at the end of journeys." "It happened on "Around The World In 80 Days" when we got back to London feeling triumphant." "Within 17 hours of the 80-day limit, we'd got back." "Nobody would speak to us and everyone was generally very disagreeable." "Finally, the Reform Club, where we'd started, wouldn't let us back in again." "They had some function on that day." "And then "Pole To Pole" - we nearly got to the end." "The great climax was going to be this ship across the southern oceans." "Suddenly it had no places." "Something seemed to go wrong as we got towards the end." "I felt that, as we made our way up the coast of America, and the last programme, everything seemed to be going very smoothly, be very easy." "You were in Canada where everything works and the train takes you along, and the last part of the journey seemed to be... as easy as it possibly could be." "We'd be taken on an American Coast Guard cutter to the island of Diomede." "Not in a rowing boat, not in a walrus boat like we'd set out on." "This was a... whatever it was - a 12,000-ton, fully equipped American Coast Guard cutter." "And then the weather came down and... even this ship couldn't get close." "And we had been filming on the coast and got cut off." "The weather came down very quickly." "People did say in the Bering Strait the weather can change very quickly, and it did." "We were marooned for a while on the mainland near a place called Wales." "The helicopter from this Coast Guard cutter came and picked us up." "That, I think, was one of the most alarming things" "I've ever known on any journey." "This helicopter then had to land back on the cutter, and the boat was pitching and tossing." "Incredible skill of the helicopter pilot to land it on the circular disk about sort of - I don't know - 50 feet across or something." "Phew!" "So that was one thing." "The captain's looked at his radar, his weather pictures and all that, and his GPS, and said" ""The weather's getting worse." "I can't get you onto Diomede."" "I remembered, really, from the first time we'd been there, how sheer those cliff walls are." "Diomede rises like a peak of a mountain out of the middle of the Bering Strait, so there's not a flat beach or anything like that." "Somehow I felt, "That's the way it is." "That's traditional for our programmes."" "The end doesn't quite..." "Something goes wrong at the end." "But, touch wood, we'd been very fortunate at the beginning and the middle." "If something goes wrong at the end, fair enough." "We had most of the series there." "Added to that, I think it gave an extra sense of sort of drama to the ending and showed just how dangerous and difficult the Bering Strait is." "When we first went there, it was millpond calm." "That happens very rarely." "So, in the end, what we experienced on this Coast Guard cutter prevented us from completing the full circle, but it did show the full anger and wrath of the weather in that part of the world." "This is the skyline of beautiful downtown Nome - the first city on our journey." "Nome, Alaska." "A place of bars, booze and Eskimo trinkets at the Arctic stores." ""Mummy, why are these two stuck together?"" "I'm going along the coast from Nome to see a very sad sight - an abandoned gold-rush railway, known and billed as a tourist attraction called "The Last Train to Nowhere"." "This is nowhere." "That's a bit more of nowhere." "Cue, Michael." "And here, abandoned in the Arctic tundra, is the train." "Take a picture of it." "You never know..." "Virgin may want to buy it." "Sad, really." "These were actually built for the New York Elevated Railway in 1882." "They were going to run through New York, and they end up in Alaska, rotting, never used." "Actually, they're rotting quite slowly." "Hello?" "Excuse me?" "We've brought the railway line." "Sorry we're late." "Here, on the island of Kodiak, off the Alaskan coast, fishing is, as you can tell, the big industry." "I try my hand, along with Filipino seasonal workers, at one of the factories that processes the fish." "This is the "slime line"." "It's dangerous work." "I feared I might never be able to pick my nose again." "A nasty one there." "A whole new meaning to fish fingers." "Excuse me?" "Toilet?" "This is one of the most haunting and haunted places I've ever visited." "It's Butugychag - a gulag that closed in 1953 in the Kolyma region of Siberia." "I'm here with a survivor who was once imprisoned here, Ivan Ilych Yakovlev." "As soon as we get there, he tosses sweets around as a memorial to all the deceased comrades." "Is that one for all the people who died here?" "This is a prison within a prison." "What would you have done to end up somewhere like this?" "(TRANSLAT0R) For the smallest transgression the authorities would put you in here." "It didn't have to be a big thing at all." "Did anybody try to escape?" "(INTERPRETER TRANSLATES)" "Several people tried to escape, but... he didn't hear if anybody succeed." "Nature didn't allow to escape." "I'd like to ask Ivan what daily life was like in a place like this." "Could you ask him what time people started work and how long they worked for?" "(TRANSLAT0R) We used to get up at six in the morning." "We had up to seven to wash, do our toilet, take our breakfast and go to work." "We would assemble at the camp gates." "We marched out in a column and worked for 10 to 12 hours." "What's this supposed to do to your body?" "Well, my body." "Does this improve your health?" "This is Igor Nosov - the late Igor Nosov, sadly - our guide in Russia." "...mosquitoes bringing rare diseases." "How does it improve your health?" "And we're in hot springs in the open air not far from Petropavlovsk in Siberia." "This was one of the best picnics I've ever had." "Everything seemed to be flavoured with vodka." "Not that that was why I enjoyed it." "Just look at that salmon." "Not that." "That's a man." "(RUSSIAN SINGING ON TAPE)" "A glimpse of hotel life near Petropavlovsk, where I'm practising the song I'm going to sing with the Russian Pacific Fleet." "This is a ryokan - a traditional Japanese inn - on Sado island." "This is Mamasan, who makes sure that everything is right." "Very Japanese." "I've got it all wrong." "What is she going to do?" "Dressing on the wrong side again." "Yes, I see." "Oh, right." "On the hips." "On the hips, yes." "Don't usually wear my belt there." "I see." "Aah!" "Yes." "Oh." "Instant fat loss." "Little does she know I'm going to the bathroom to take all this off again." "Good." "In a little bow." "(DOOR OPENS)" "OK." "Lovely." "Thank you." "It's in here." "I see." "Yup." "Lovely." "Thank you." "Thanks very much." "The bathroom contains one of the most modern, extraordinary, up-to-date and multifaceted toilets I've ever, ever sat on." "It has many, many settings - most of them in Japanese." "0h, well..." "Might as well have a try." "Better have a dry run of this, see how it all works." "A bit of high technology." "Lots of fittings there." "Let me see." "I can't see even what flush is." "It's all in Japanese..." "Oh!" "As soon as you sit on it, the seat is warm." "There's something here which says "shower"." "I don't want to press shower." " (WATER FLOWS)" " Ah!" "Ooh!" "Oh, dear." "That should come out from where it says "bidet"." "Let's press "bidet"." "That's gone a bit quiet." "Nothing's happened." "It's got "shower - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!"" "Ten goes." "So let us stop." "So I'll try "shower ten"." "Wait." "There's a pause." "Part of the hospitality in the ryokan is a most superb meal." "This was at the end of a long day's filming, which started at five - filming the Kodo drummers exercising." "It was nearly nine o'clock when this was being prepared and I could see the crew standing there slavering with hunger." "Oh, I'm still on this lot." "Please, it's all going too fast for me, Mamasan." "Mamasan was relentless." "A small snack consisting merely of seafood with garlic, bream, tuna and squid sashimi, seaweed, cooked vegetables with bean curd, abalone steak in soy sauce, fried sea bream served whole with head and tail curved upwards," "teriyaki of tuna stomach, rice pickles, bean paste and four kinds of sake." "...contrasted one with another." "Yes, I've finished that." "That is absolutely five-star." "Really good." "I shall look in my book and see what I should say." "(SPEAKS JAPANESE)" " It's "I have a motorbike."" " This bone." "Careful." "The bone." "Careful in the throat?" "Yes." "There's a lot here." "Still they come." "Think you're allowed rice?" "No sooner said than done." "Beautiful timing." "I was just wondering where the rice had gone." "I'll eat that in January." "I'll have that one in February." " Thank you." " Miso soup." "0h, miso soup." "I forgot that." "I do recommend Mamasan to anyone who goes to Sado Island." "Absolutely superb." "But I warn you, the walls of the ryokan are wafer thin." " Rice." " Right." "Lovely." "Is that all?" "In England, we just stick everything on one plate." "Veg there, meat there, gravy there." "That's it." "Still, made us great, you know." "Thank you." "Thanks very much." "For a bit, anyway." "Get on with it, Mr Creosote." "This rather medical shot shows me at work in the typical Japanese bath." "The system here is that you wash yourself thoroughly before getting into the water." "It's called an o-furo." "The water is very, very hot and very, very clear and you mustn't get any soap or dirt in it, so you have your bath and then get into the bath... 0h, I sayi" "Nigel was very insistent that I kept my arms over certain BBC1 places." "Can't show those on BBC1." "Can show bits on BBC2 and everything on Channel 4." "You were like the Beatles..." "From Sado Island on the west coast of Japan to Tokyo." "And here is my guide, Mayumi Nobetsu, who, believe it or not, is my number one Japanese fan." "You were my hero and then now here you are." "I need all the help I can get." "Fans always follow pop groups, but comedy's very different." "You don't get fans following comedians because we're against the powerful and the worshipped." "We tend to take the underdog view." "Anyway..." "I worshipped you anyway." "I put your pictures on the wall and "Michael!" like this." " What pictures?" " Your pictures you sent me." " Did I send you pictures?" " Sure." "And I stole the posters from the movie theatres." "It was you who spoiled our chances of being movie stars in Japan!" "Why didn't our films work in Japan?" ""A Fish Called Wanda" didn't even do well." "Well, they have a different sense of humour in Japan." "They don't really appreciate a satirical sense of humour." "They don't send themselves up?" "We weren't..." "That's what Python was doing, I suppose." "We could laugh at what we saw around us." "But the Japanese must do that occasionally, mustn't they?" "Finally, it's starting to be appreciated, but not at the time when I was 13." "(CHANTING AND BELLS)" "You may wonder what I'm doing in the back of a shop in Nagasaki at 5.35 in the morning." "I certainly am." "But the Japanese, with their usual generous hospitality, have offered me a place to take part in this big festival they have here." "It is the big festival of the year called Okunchi." "Enormous floats are taken through the streets and whizzed around." "It's a bit like asking a Japanese to appear in the Royal Tournament the day he arrives." "They've been practising for a long time to get this right." "So I don't quite know what I'm going to do in it." "I'm assured it will be a low-level job, carrying a flag." " It's mine." " It's yours?" " Eight years ago." " Eight years ago." "You were a lithe, slim..." "It's very kind of you." "This is Mr..." "This is Mr Takashi, who's going to be my companion for the day." "You're going to help me in the procession and tell me what to do." "Thank you." "You have a bit of a smile on your face." "I'm not sure I altogether trust you." "0h, dear." "My two toes revealed." "Let's put the other one on and then we can do the doing-up, which will take a while." "I think they fit all right." "The great thing in Japan - everything has to be just so and absolutely right." "You can't just get away with a pair of old Timberlands." "Here is the 0kunchiparade." "Mr Takashi and myself are part of the Treasure House float." "We're almost at the shrine." "And now there's a bit of a hold-up because each float has to go into the ring and do its half-hour entertainment, and we're on at about 8.30, I'm told." "The tension mounts behind stage." "I'm not sure about tension, but something's surely mounting." "I hope you notice I'm a tall person in Japan." "That's all right." "Don't worry, lads." "I'll take over now." ""It's A Knockout" had nothing on this." "See what you miss if you don't have DVD." "(APPLAUSE)" "Not quite sure why they had to take it downstairs. 0bviously no lift." "Another glimpse of hotel life." "Checking in at a magnificent hotel in Chongqing, one of China's largest cities." "A real example here of the building boom that gripped China at the time." "Unfortunately, the boom didn't extend as far as my room." "This is a train journey that I'd love to have included." "0ne of the most picturesque parts of China." "It's the ride from Guiyang to Nanning - 24 hours on the train - towards the border with Vietnam." "Lady engine driver, I hope you notice." "Evidence of the Chinese "economic miracle" everywhere." "And, of course, the best thing that doesn't change in China is food." "Look." "This is a Chinese Wanshi." " Cooking is different in different regions?" " Oh, yes." " Gan bei." " Gan bei." "Gan bei means cheers." "What's the Chinese concept or idea of Western food?" "In fact, they've really never tasted real Western food, so they don't know what Western food is." "According to my knowledge, they don't like foreign food at all." " Why not?" " Because it's so simple." "One main course, that's it." "And one soup." "(MICHAEL'S COMPANION) In China, the food is very important." " Especially for peasants." " Yeah." "If they can eat well, it means they have a really good life." "I think that's their thinking." "(MICHAEL) I know some people in the West are rather appalled by what the Chinese eat, that they'll cook anything." " Is that true?" " Yeah." " Like what?" " Like dogs, cats..." "And snacks." "Is that snakes or snacks?" "Snakes." "Snakes." "You could have a snake snack." "And, oh." "And the big mountain rats." " Rats?" "Really?" " I never taste that." "People told me they're very tasty." "I do promise you no snakes were eaten in the making of this film." "Here I am on the shores of the Yangtze River." "Just about to do a walking shot and someone chats me up." "It's wonderful how chatty people are." "Very tall." "Yes." "So little." "It is comedy, you know." "I've got to walk on the boat." "See you later." "Bye." "The gorge you can see there is called the Little Gorges of the Danning River." "These are some of the most beautiful parts of the Yangtze and all will be submerged beneath about 300-400 feet of water when the Yangtze dam fills up." "Here I am with Victor, my guide." "...the Yangtze is very muddy." "Because the tiny river is very clean because it originates from underground water - spring water." "So it's very clear." "Also, it's quite dangerous." "Are there rapids up here?" "Yeah." "On the Danning River, there are many rapids." "Victor had a wonderful way of speaking English." "0ne time I pointed out a dog on the side of the river." "He said, "Good." "Good imagination."" "Feast on these pictures because it probably doesn't look like that now." "We were there in '96." "The dam's already begun filling up." "Chinese tourists getting one last glimpse of one of their prettiest gorges." "Victor points out something that shows people have lived here for many hundreds of years - a wooden coffin up on the cliff face." "(VICTOR)... and put into that cave." "In the small yellow cliff, there are two holes, and the wooden coffin is in the big hole." "I can see it inside." "That's a wooden coffin." "That's a wooden coffin." "Have they found a body in there?" "A local farmer in the 1970s found it." "In the 1970s." "How old is the coffin?" "How many years will it have been there?" " Two thousand years ago." " Two thousand years it's been up there." "Having reached Vietnam from China, the first port of call is Hanoi, where we tried to film a cricket match." "That was brought to an abrupt halt." "And to complete our day, we went down to the boating lake." "I took my turn on a dragon pedalo." "Nothing to it, really." "Hello!" "What ship are you?" "Ah, number three." "I'm 34." "Watch out." "You want money?" "I've spent my money on the boat." "I have no money." "Oh!" "Aah!" ""Who is that lunatic?" they're saying." ""We like the cameraman." "He's much more handsome."" "0h, he's still at it." "Which way to the sea?" "We are a seafaring nation, you know." "Goodbye!" "Goodbye!" " Is that made in Vietnam?" " No." "I don't speak the local languages, so I just speak English rather clearly to them." "Actually, it works here." "That's my little black notebook." "They're very interested in trying to speak English." "When you think we were fighting against them in the 1960s, they're remarkably forgiving and uncomplicated about their eagerness to enjoy a lunatic Englishman." "I don't do pictures." "I'll do words." "I'll describe you." ""Small..."" "Yes. "Can't sit on saddle."" "Colour of shirt?" "You know what those are in English?" "Ships." "It's like a ship." "So I've told you what that word is now." "What is that?" " What's that word?" "Ships." " Ships." "You've got to be careful to get the P right at the end." "Yeah." "Very smart shoes." "Good shoes." "Beautiful shoes, aren't they?" "Let's see your shoes." " Football?" " Play football?" "Yeah." "Yes, I play football." "Very good." "Very good." "You play football?" "You play football?" " Yes." " Good." " Vietnam have a football team?" " Yes." " Is it good?" " Yes." "This is Zamboanga in the Philippines." "In the main series, we included coverage of a cock fight, but we didn't see my visit here to the cock farm, run by one of the great owners" " Boy Primalion." "He put me up on this extraordinary farm for the night." "Wasn't the most comfortable I ever spent." "Thanks very much." "One last thing, can you give me an early-morning call?" "Yes, I'll do that." "(CACOPHONY OF CROWING)" "I've never been woken by so many..." "since I was in the army." "Oh, shut up!" "Darwin, Australia." "I just had to leave the hotel I was in." "Don't know why." "It just didn't feel right." "Think it could be the owner." "So you'll drop me off in Katherine?" "It's on your way?" " Yep." "No worries." " I appreciate that." " Take me to New Zealand if you like!" " Bit hard to get across there." "Here, I'm trying to get a ride from Darwin to the town of Katherine." "I board what's called a road train." "Scott was the driver." "Lazy Lady was the truck - a lazy but very large lady." "Can you remember the first time you took one out?" "There's 50 metres of trailer behind you." "It must have been utterly alarming." "You drive it like you drive a car." "You can't go jerking on the wheel or you'll take it all out of shape." "You've got to remember you've got 50 metres of trucks behind you." "At one point, I asked Scott whether he ever hit kangaroos." ""Yes, " he said. "You have to hit them straight on or they damage your bumper."" " You get used to it after a while." " Is it complicated, the gear system?" " Yes and no." "This is an 18 speed." " 18?" "What temperament do you need to be an ideal road-train driver?" "Right." "Some people say you've got to be mad to do it because you're never home." " Never home?" " Not much." "You do a lot of hours and a lot of work up and down the road." "It all depends what you call home." "There's my home in the back." " That's your home in there?" " Yeah." " Are you married?" " Not yet." "I've been going out with Kate for a fair while now." "About seven years." " Hi." " Like to buy a ticket?" "Here I am about to put my money on a cow pat." "This is the Compass Cup County Show, south of Adelaide." "I'm putting all my money, betting on where the cow will drop its load." "So it's two dollars?" "OK." "Ten dollars' worth." "It shouldn't break me." "Covered my options there." "So I had five squares." "What condition is the cow in?" "It's not constipated or anything?" " We hope not." " We just removed the cork." "OK." "Thanks." "The tension mounts." "(COMMENTARY OVER TANNOY)" "Ah, action." "But nothing on my squares." "(ANNOUNCER) What a mess." "Dearie me." "With one thing and another, it's a cow of a day and that's no bull." "Everyone thinks of New Zealand as a land of sheep and hobbits." "True or false?" "The thing they say about New Zealand is that it's full of sheep." "It's one of those silly myths." "There are sheep, you can see here, just on the edge of Auckland." "There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine..." "There are sheep here, but there are other things in New Zealand." "There are... museums, art galleries, glaciers." "All sorts of things nothing to do with sheep and that's what I'll show you." "But I thought right at the beginning, these are the sheep." "Have a good laugh and that's the last we'll see of sheep." "There we are." "New Zealand's only sheep-free zone." "Cowl Cowl Cowl Duckl Fishl" "There are some things I love to do, and some things I have to do because the director thinks it'll be good for my career." "This is one of the latter." "Appearing in a Polynesian fashion show." ""The Solomon Islands market is at your feet, Michael, " said Roger." "After a few drinks, I believed him." "Now there's no going back." " Here he is." " Oh, there we are." " We walk on holding these..." " Basically, we're escorts for a bride." "So we walk on before her and we stand either side of the stage facing each other." "She's gonna walk down, we cross these, and when she comes down, we lift them up, they move through and we hold them up." " Is that it?" " Basically, that's it." "Yeah." "It's not too much trouble." " Is there any special stance?" " No, not really." "Still, there were some birds around." "(WOLF WHISTLE)" "(MICHAEL LAUGHS)" "Why did I ever leave Monty Python?" "(APPLAUSE)" "Bad-hair day." "All right, lads." "Form an orderly queue." "After this, I was briefly offered the part of Snow White in a Christmas panto in Invercargill." "Extraordinary. 0n the banks of one of the Amazon tributaries, the Urubamba, some interesting tourist goods on offer." "That's quite nice." "Cuánto es?" "Dos soles?" "That's nice." "Yes." "Ooh, yes." "Mm." "I certainly know about these." "Can I see the mask?" "Look at that." "John Cleese. "Hello, miss." I'll have to get that for John." "He looks like that already." "There's no point." "Cuánto es?" "Cinco?" "Good way to see Valparaiso - a big seaport in Chile." "The ascensores." "First built about 1853 and still going strong." "If a little slowly." "This is an even smaller vehicle, which takes me out beyond Valparaiso to Viña del Mar." "Valparaiso's seaside suburb." "Particularly quiet today, by the looks of things." "Nice." "Is this a major crossing point?" "Until we put the fence out 340 feet in the water, it was a big crossing." "This is the "tortilla curtain" - the border wall between Mexico on the left and the USA on the right." "Here to explain it is Ron Henley of US Border Control." "So most of the people that are coming across have their little sacks with them and everything they own is in it." "They're usually wearing two sets of clothes, two pairs of pants, so the sheer weight of trying to go round the fence with wet clothes would be a problem." " Does anybody try and get across now?" " You mean jumping the fence here?" "No." "We have a unit stationed here." "At one point this was a major problem for us, but it's not any more." "What if someone wanted to get a small boat and get round?" "We encounter those sometimes." "But over there is a Coast Guard station that has a radar station with it." "This is part of the Pacific Ocean." "This is very well patrolled - with helicopters and boats - and the Border Patrol has a boat patrol." "So if we get an inclination that this is happening, we'll take steps to counter that." "They've got a couple of people they've taken into custody and they're looking for one more." "What they do is just sit them on the ground and fan out until they find the other person." " Could someone slip through this scrub?" " Oh, yeah." "If they get in there, it's very difficult to find them." "Do you bring in helicopters?" "At times." "Evidently they don't really think they need a helicopter to find this person." "If we can't find them, we'll bring a helicopter in." "Do you have any other way of detecting people on the ground?" "Yes, we do." "All along the border fence, we have ground sensors that are seismic." "They'll have a range of about 15-20 yards and, depending on the ground, when somebody walks on it, it sets vibrations off and sends out a radio signal to our dispatcher who'll send agents to the scene." " Just like he did in this case." " Are they right along the border?" "Yes, they are." "We have over 600 sensors in the ground." "What about the people on horseback here, just ordinary people using the trail?" "We place these sensors in places where it's not trafficked by the normal populace." " Are they pretty successful?" " Couldn't do without them." "Sometimes we set 'em off ourselves." "But we know where all the sensors are, so when the dispatcher calls it out, we'll say that that's a Border Patrol agent - we have a code for that." "We have two people in custody and we have another one that we're looking for." " Is he or she probably lying down?" " Yeah." "They're pretty ingenious." "They'll crawl up in this thick brush and cover up." "When you say "them", do you mean men, women, children?" "All the above." "Yeah." "Any type." "The mode of operation's the same." "When we get after them, they hide." " Do you have many children?" " Not a lot." "But we've seen them as young as babies born a couple of months ago." "It's a pretty hard trek for all of them." "This is the centre where immigrants without papers are rounded up and details taken." "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" "Persistent offenders may be imprisoned, but most of them are put back on the bus and taken back to Mexico across the border." "Presumably to try again one day." "I think we took this out because it looked like a commercial break." "I am having a good time on the Pacific Coast Highway in a Morgan sports car - not my own." "Driving up to one of the greatest examples of conspicuous consumption on this coast " "William Randolph Hearst's castle at San Simeon." "If Hearst wanted anything, he bought it." "Bits of Europe were shipped back from Spain, Italy and France and reassembled on the shores of the Pacific." "It's a bit like our spare room at home." "Not a DVD in sight." "Ah." "Bathroom." "Who needs travelling?" "Just bring it all home." "Farewell to the home of William Randolph Hearst's great fictional counterpart " "Citizen Kane." "And in Hollywood, a Python." "Not sure which one." "This is dreadful." "The naughty life." "Now I know why you've moved to California." " Have you moved to California?" " I have." " To get away from the other Pythons." " And they still follow me." " Who's left?" "I can never remember." " Still alive?" "There's the tall one who used to do the female impersonations." "Always liked being in drag." "Did he put his hand on your knee?" " Hm?" " Oh, nothing." " Then the two little ones." " Both called Terry." "All called Terry." "They would do most of the naked roles." "And most of the directing." "It went together." "Bared their souls." "Actually, you used to take your clothes off occasionally." "Not on screen, but when we were having writing meetings." " I once played a naked batsman." "That's all." " Very good." "Great to be here again." "And there it is, look." "LA sinking away into the west." " Drinking in the sunset." " Drinking away." " It really is nice." " Have you got any questions?" "Oh, crib sheet." "When..." "What are you doing at the moment?" "How is Pythonline doing?" "Pythonline Network." "Is this a plug?" "We have a new thing called Pythonline." "If you dial that up on your little web browsers, you get Michael Palin." "He's written some funny things about him being the fattest Python." "Do we make money out of it?" "Enough to pay for this martini?" "I think we'll make enough for the martini." "We've had two million hits and we've only been open three weeks." "It's nice to have been dead so long, but people are still..." "We've been dead..." "Oh, we ran out." "So what's it like living in LA?" "Is it just?" "It's constant razzle-dazzle, Michael." "I had Sharon Stone banging on my door, saying, "Let me in for a martini."" " It's hell, mate." " She wanted me for a part." " Did she?" " Yeah." "Offered me a big part." "What was it?" "You were playing the gall opposite her Stone?" " "Life of Sharon", it was." "The remake." " You were playing Tracy." "No, seriously." "Should I move here, do you think?" "Um..." "What, and give up your day job?" "I don't know." "I like it here." "It's very..." "People have this image of Hollywood and you spend all your time..." "I live very quietly." "I have a six-year-old daughter I take to school." "Here you are on a terrace drinking martini." " You set this up!" " Blame me!" ""Eric, put on your best suit and come down to a hotel and be filmed," you said." "This is the first time I've been over the hill since we finished Python." " Thank you very much." " Can you still remember those jokes?" "I still remember some of your jokes." "I'm still constantly mistaken for you." "I'm mistaken for you, too." "I mean, do we look at all alike?" "Can people get this right?" "This is Eric and I'm Mike." " No." "That's Mike and I'm Eric." " Or am I John?" "A bit of John." "We've all got a bit of John in us." "Ooh!" "I'm giving away trade secrets!" "I went on the "Tonight" show to announce I wasn't Mike." "I wore a T-shirt of you and said, "This is Mike and this is me." I still get mistaken." "This is one of your characters." "This is Mr Gumby, who was invented by Mike." "This is the sequel T-shirt to the "My brain hurts!" T-shirt - "My friend's brain hurts!"" "(GUMBY VOICE) My friend's brain hurts." "My friend's brain hurts!" " Why they found that funny beats me!" " It beats wit." "Noel Coward didn't need that stupid voice, did he?" "Stanley Baldwin was funny without putting on a voice." "Neville Chamberlain - "I have peace in our time!"" "Didn't need it." "Just came off the plane and said, "Peace in our time."" "Winston Churchill - "We'll fight them on the beaches!" ""And in the fields..." "and on the terraces with a martini."" "You should go round the world as Mr Gumby." "The next voyage." "Mr Gumby in Australia." " Oh, dear." "I'm enjoying this." " What a lovely performance." "It's not sophisticated on this rather smart balcony." "It's very popular, though." "It's nice that you're mistaken for me because you can go to all these premieres and people say, "Michael Palin's doing well."" "When I'm mistaken for you, because you're known as the nice one, when people say, "Are you Michael Palin?" I'll say, "Yes, you bastard!"" " And get you a bad reputation." " This'll help me no end." "Toughen you up." "You won't be mistaken for Gary Lineker." "Terry gets upset that I'm called the nice one." "Terry's wife does." "She says, "My husband's very nice." Most of the Pythons are nice, apart from you." "In fact, he's over-nice." "To a lot of people's wives!" "Anyway, so maybe I won't stay in LA." "You can be Michael Palin in LA." " I'll be Michael Palin West." " I'll come here now and then." "Come through on various criss-crosses of the world with this crew of yours assembled here." " Keep Michael moving." " Can I ask you questions?" "How long have you been on the road now?" "Oh, well..." "Over nine months." " My God." " I'll be giving birth any moment." " Are you enjoying it?" " Yes, I am enjoying it, yeah." " Is it tough?" " It's tough, but I enjoy it." ""No gain without pain", as we say on the unit." "As the mosquitoes fly in." "I quite enjoyed suffering on the Python team." "You were not very good at it." "I went to boarding school longer than you." "This'll probably be a waste of film." "Let Nigel have the evening off." " (MICHAEL) I feel my sense of comedy waning." " It's difficult to do reverses." "(MICHAEL) Why don't we do silly reverses?" "Me doing inapposite things." "That would be funny." " (ERIC) You could do the one..." " Yes, officer." "No, honestly." "(ERIC) Remember the one on "The Rutles" where I crossed the line?" "(LAUGHTER)" "(MICHAEL) All right." "I'll just do uproarious laughter when the time comes." "OK?" "(LAUGHTER)" "Nigel, you've blown it." "(ERIC) Maybe he has one in him." "(MICHAEL) There's a bit of John in all of us." "(LAUGHTER)" "(ERIC) Thank God for editing." "You look like Philip Jenkinson." "No." "No, not really." "No, I know what you mean."