"Hm." "My journey begins in one of the most lawless border areas in the world - the North-West Frontier." "Many have tried to control it." "Few have succeeded." "I'm at the top of the Khyber Pass on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan." "Through here have come great armies " "Alexander the Great, Darius the Persian, Tamburlaine the Great and, in 1842, the lone survivor of the British Army's attempt to pacify Afghanistan came staggering up this road to announce the annihilation of 17,000 of his comrades." "The reason for such a concentration of history here is that from the west, this is the only way through this colossal range of mountains that eventually becomes the Himalaya." "0ur route runs the length of the Himalaya - from Pakistan, India and Nepal across into Tibet and China, south into Assam and Bhutan and into Bangladesh, where the mud of the mountains enters the Bay of Bengal." "We start on the Khyber Railway - pushed through the mountains by the British 80 years ago." " A lot of tunnels, aren't there?" " 32 tunnels." "It cost £100,000 a mile." "(WHISTLE BLOWS)" "The engine's older than the railway - it was built in 1916." "The driver's a lot younger." "70 years ago, this train would have been full of British soldiers taking a last unregretful look at one of the most inhospitable postings on earth." "Glaring heat, bare rock-faces." "Home today to the mansions of the local warlords." "Like many small, spectacular railways, it owes its survival more to love than business." "What brings you up the Khyber today?" " I am a regular visitor." " Oh, right." " I just came from Dubai." " From Dubai?" "Yes." "This morning." "Flew into the airport, hopped on the train and to the Khyber." " You must be rather fond of railways." " Definitely." "Steam is my passion." "With 34 tunnels and 92 bridges and cuttings along its 27-mile length, the railway has obvious tourist potential." "But where are the tourists?" "Is it difficult to get the train up and running these days?" "Definitely." "Just because of..." "the political situation is not stable." "We don't get enough tourists in Pakistan, so it's difficult to operate this train." "Unless we have enough tourists, how can we operate this train?" "So these are the privileged few - opinion formers, local worthies, city boys - who the owners hope will be impressed enough to keep the railway alive." "Do you think there's danger here?" " No." " No." "Not now." "Not even before." "Pakistani people are very hospitable and they will take care of their guests much more than theirself." "The train is a reassuring presence in a highly volatile area." "It would be a great loss if the threat of violence deprived us of the delights of the Khyber Railway." "The train still has a few miles to go to Peshawar, but we're getting off here to spend more time in this corner of Pakistan's Wild West, a tribal land based on two great principles - hospitality and revenge." "You can hear Darra from miles away." "It sounds as if a battle's going on." "(GUNFIRE)" "But it's just business as usual in the town that lives on guns." " Why are they located here?" " It's a perfect location for gun factories." "Surrounded by the mountains." "These people have been..." "My guide - nearly my ex-guide - is Zahoor Duranni." "...making guns for 120 years." " The tribal people here?" "Yes, exactly." "That's why it only exists here, nowhere else in the frontier." "The arms industry in Darra may be in the hands of shopkeepers, but they can produce a copy of any of the world's shooters." " Another arcade of gun shops." " Yes." "This is a complete boulevard of guns." " Selling and buying..." " (GUNFIRE)" "See?" "Someone's bought the gun and he's trying the gun." "Arms manufacture is an honourable tradition, and the gunsmiths of Darra look like scholars bent over ancient texts." "Each deadly weapon made with tender, loving care." "(HE SPEAKS URDU)" "I see." "This is the mini version of the Kalashnikov, the Russian-made gun." " The AK-47 everyone knows about." " These are the parts, you see?" " Yes." " This part... (PALIN) So they're making one part of this weapon." "In other parts of Darra there will be shops making other parts?" "Exactly." "Each shop specialises in certain... bits and pieces, and then they're put together." "(PALIN) It seems a lot of it can be done by hand in labour-intensive methods." "(ZAHOOR) That's the interesting part." "That's the best part." "Most of these things are done by hand." "And who are these guns bought by largely?" " We are in tribal territory." " Tribal." "There are thousands of people living in the tribal territory." "Here they do not need a licence to have a gun." "The young ones and old ones exchange guns like people exchange cars." "So if he needs a new gun, a better gun, he can bring his old gun, sell it and buy a new one." "The prices are frighteningly reasonable." "A tenner will buy you something simple, whilst a top-of-the-range Kalashnikov will cost £80." "And there's nothing they can't do for you." "Do you have, like, James Bond?" "You know James Bond?" " You do?" " He's got a pen pistol." "He is always very well armed, isn't he?" " Now, this is the pen you can sign..." " I don't believe it." "I was joking." "He really has got one." "This is the top." "You take off this top." "Then you put the bullet here." "One.22 calibre bullet." "There you are signing, "Sincerely yours, James Bond", and boom!" "That's the size of the bullet." "I see." "A little James Bond..." "Tiny bullet." "What range would this kill someone at?" "About 30 to 40 yards distance, you can really hit somebody." "Right across the street." "Wow." " Look at that." " That's the one for signing contracts." "As we leave Darra, Zahoor explains that on the North-West Frontier, people carry guns the way the English carry umbrellas." "Which might account for its bizarre gentility." "Picturesque and perilous, laid back and lethal." "(RAPID GUNFIRE)" "OK." "Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier province, is a city of bazaars - each with its own speciality." ""Chargan mandi" is chicken market, "sabzi mandi" is vegetable market and Chor Bazaar is "things that fell off the back of a lorry" market." "In the heart of the city is an area devoted entirely to teeth." " Every other shop seems to be a dentist." " Look at that." "That's very impressive." " Can we go in?" " Yes." "Let's go." "Abdul Wahid is proprietor of one of Peshawar's foremost establishments." "I've been having trouble with my canines and Abdul Wahid is the man." "He didn't go to dental school but picked it up from an uncle." "If I do need a filling, his charges are a bargain." "It ranges from 50 rupees, which is about 50p..." " 50 pence?" "...to about £1, £1 and a half." "I had a problem with my teeth when I was young because I had too much sugar." "Quite a few teeth had to be replaced." "Maybe he could look in my mouth..." "and see what he can find." "(SPEAKS URDU)" " He will check them." " I'd be interested to know what he finds." "You've got strong hands." "As Mr Wahid probes with a finger like a tree trunk, all I can do is lie back and think of England." "He says they need cleaning." " You want him to scrub your teeth?" " I what?" "To clean them?" "You need cleaning." "Don't tell my dentist, if he's watching." "I do clean them, honestly." "I've just had breakfast!" "If he was going to give me a filling or something, is this his drill?" "Can he show me the drill?" "Can he show it to me?" "(SPEAKS URDU)" "I see." "Ah, that's it." "I'm not reassured." "It looks like the sort of thing you put bathroom cabinets up with." "So a little portable drill." "So he stays here on this little corner because he's popular with the local people." " I'm sure he's very reasonable." " So that's your drill." "Can we see it working?" "Hold it up for our camera there." " (WHIRRING)" " That's a mean-looking drill." "I don't think I need any fillings, do I?" "I don't need fillings?" "I've got no teeth!" "What is really reassuring is to sit here with my poor old teeth and look at that on the wall." "I can see the image of how teeth should be." "Yes, it's very nice." "There's something in Pakistan that is even more important than dentistry." "Cricket is a national obsession, played at any moment on any patch of ground." "The younger they are, the keener they are." "Middle and leg brick." "I've learnt a few tricks - we did invent the game - so I thought these youngsters might benefit from seeing an old hand at work." "The bowler looks a trifle overconfident." "Justifiably so, as it turns out." " Out, was it?" " Yes." "Out." " Where are the bales?" " Gone!" "All right." "OK." "Good bowling." "Batting was never my strong point at school." "I concentrated my efforts on developing the unplayable delivery." "Four runs." "At least I restricted him to four." "It's time to put the heat on." "Embarrassing." "No-ball." "I decide to forget the cricket and concentrate on the comedy." "And it works." "Middle stone!" "How was that?" "How was that?" "Yeah!" "Next day I'm on my best behaviour as I'm welcomed by a guard of honour to the estate of one of the last great country landowners in Pakistan." "This is the home of Prince Malik Ata Muhammed Khan." "It's modelled on the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst." "From the open carriage that greets me to the palomino horses that draw it, it's clear Prince Malik believes in doing things properly." " Good morning, Michael." " Good morning." "Thank you for having me." " A wonderful way to arrive." " You'll see some good bull races tomorrow." "Bull races?" "I've heard they are legendary." "You have some of the finest racing bulls." "It's so cool in here." "This is lovely." "Prince Malik appears to live alone, but eats at a laid table." "A bottle stands in front of me, but this being an officially "dry" country, the wine waiter has a limited selection." "Thank you." "This is very nice." " So you ride yourself?" " Yes." "The prince is no shrinking violet." "I was competing in the World Championship in Los Angeles and I won the silver." "We were riding at Santa Barbara." "I was World Champion in 1982." "Appearances are important to you." "I could see from the marvellous palominos that drew the coach and the waistcoats in gold and black that your servants were wearing." " Can you tell me about how?" " This is our traditional livery." "But things are going to change." "I am the last of the dinosaurs, and with me everything goes." "The new generation of boys are very highly educated." "They live in towns." "They hate the country life." "They don't want to look after a sick horse or a sick cow." "So I don't think..." "This is the last of them." "After me it finishes." "I noticed a lot of people - and, indeed, you yourself - have these splendid moustaches." " Is that very particular to this area?" " A moustache is particular to this area." "Serving in the old British Army, people used to get a pension for the moustache, a special payment for the moustache." "The highlight of my visit is an afternoon at the races." "The prince is entering four pairs of his pedigree Dhanni bulls." "(HORNS AND DRUMS)" "Bull racing is laid on for the local people as a celebration of the harvest." "It's like a manic country fair." "A chance to make noise, dress your livestock up, forget about work and maybe have a bit of a flutter on your favourite bull." "The bulls are fed a diet of milk and honey and, after being paraded around, are taken to the start and yoked into pairs." "This is the critical part of the race." "Can these straining bulls be held down long enough to get the riders on their boards?" "It's a race against the clock on a 600-yard course, and there's a Toyota for the winner." "(GUNFIRE)" "Audience participation is common, as most bulls want to get back home as soon as possible." "There's terrific pent-up energy here." "When it's all unleashed, it puts Formula 0ne in the shade." "The people who are here today, are they people who work in the local area?" "They are all farmers." "They work on the farms." "They all keep these bulls." "These bulls are better kept than their own children." "They are fed with honey, with almonds, the best things in the world, butter..." "They are fed on many eggs, and they are brought into this race." "They are fed on many good things." "Someone told me they were fed something stronger." "Alcohol?" " Home-brewed alcohol." "Yes." " So these bulls are?" " They're raring to go." " There's some going now." " They are going the wrong way." " How many actually get to the finish?" "The line is very long." "It's a 600-yards line." "Only a horse could do that." "When it comes to a bull, it's difficult for a bull to run that long." "(PALIN) Some go off into the crowds." "(PRINCE MALIK) They have learnt." "Once they get off the track, it's easier." "(PALIN) So they're the intelligent ones?" "(PRINCE MALIK) The ones who are dumb and have had many alcohol drinks go straight on." "The others turn off." " Is it dangerous?" " It is dangerous." "I can show you one of the jockeys who has ridden 25 years on this track." "He's lost an arm." "This is the gentleman." "He lost his arm running with bulls." " Oh, dear." "That's..." " Do you want him up here?" " He's an old jockey." " How did he lose his arm?" "It was stuck in the sledge and the bulls pulled him off." "So the arm cut off." " Do people watching get hurt?" " People watching are in more danger." "If they come between the track and a bull, nothing is left of the bones." " Is anybody killed?" " In a big race, there are many people killed." " Seriously?" " Seriously." "Some of the men run with the bulls." "Are they allowed to?" "In the olden days, the men were stronger." "I have seen some very fine runners." "There's a good pair." "That's a wonderful pair." " A wonderful pair." " Good bull or good rider?" "The bulls are good." "The rider..." "They are all good." "Oh, he has gone off the track." "He loses." " Nearly there." " That's a very experienced bull." " They were going really well." " They were." " Do you have any bulls in the race?" " Four pairs." "One raced through the track, the other went a different way." "No one reached the end." " Unfortunately." " That doesn't look good for you." "No, it does, because I give away the prizes for the poor people, not for me." "All of a sudden, we're the ones in the firing line." "The prince screams at us to run for cover, but it takes more than a raging bull for Nigel to turn his camera off." "Thankfully, we live to film another day." "Nowhere exemplifies the art of travel better than Peshawar bus station." "No vehicle is allowed to go unadorned." "0perators spend time and money trying to outdo each other." "Amidst the colour, a woman walks with her daughter - a rare sight in a land where public life is for men." " Here's your bus." " How do you know?" " Because it says 6808..." " 6808 Chitral bus." " This is the bus." " Shall I get on?" " Yes." "Good luck." " Thank you very much." "Thank you for helping me to understand Peshawar." "Whoa!" "OK?" "Thank you." "It's good value." "Good value, isn't it?" "To Chitral and back for £10." "This bus does go to Chitral, doesn't it?" "It doesn't, as it happens, and for one very good reason." "The road to Chitral has to climb a 10,000-foot pass and then down 43 hairpin bends." "Forget about buses - it's frightening enough in a four-wheeled drive." "The Lowari Pass is the only way to the furthest valleys of the North-West Frontier and only opens when the snows melt at the end of a six-month winter." "This is my first taste of the high mountain ranges and with it go any lingering hopes that this journey might be easier than we thought." "The reward for those who make it across the pass is the green land of Chitral - occupying a narrow valley against the Afghan border." "(HE CHANTS)" "Cut off from the rest of Pakistan for half the year, the Chitralis are very much their own men." "Until 30 years ago, they were ruled by the ul-Mulk family." "Siraj, heir to the dynasty, shows me inside the mosque his grandfather built." "A "madrasa" - a religious school - is in full swing." "Each one has to do..." "Encouraged by the religious severity in Afghanistan, subjects like science and maths are considered less important than learning the Koran." "Not only must they learn every word, but in Arabic - a language quite foreign to them." "Whatever his feelings about the family mosque," "Siraj is unequivocally proud of Chitral's polo ground." " Chitral is where polo started." " Really?" "In this town?" "This town, yes." "And the British modified it and took it to other parts of the world." "You see it being played in places like Hurlingham or Palm Beach in a modified way." "But here they play it in the original form - no rules, no umpire, no referee." "Everyone enjoys it." "You don't have to be a rich man to play polo here." "A crowd has turned out to watch this practice match because in under a week a team selected from these players will represent Chitral in the toughest of all polo games." "It's the annual match against arch-rivals Gilgit, played at 12,000 feet up on the Shandur Pass - the highest polo ground in the world." "There used to be talk of these ancient polo games played without a ball, but with the head of a sheep and I've heard all sorts of things." "The head of the enemy, too, is what legend says about polo over here." "But how true that is I don't know." "They won't be knocking heads around, but it will be a great battle, and many of these locals, along with ourselves, will be there to watch." "0lder even than polo is the music of the Chitral Valley." "Songs and poems which Siraj describes as being "locked in the mountains"." "(SOFT SINGING)" "Songs about the beauty of the valley or the local women - conspicuously absent - are accompanied by a variety of very old instruments and one very new one." "The performance follows a traditional pattern, with the tempo building as the audience urges on the dancers." "The future of music like this is threatened, partly by the apathy of the young and partly by religious laws that disapprove of music." "All of which might account for the intensity with which the faithful few keep it alive." "The massive mountains on the Pakistan-Afghan border are sliced through with gorges and ravines." "Narrow tracks, clinging to the rock walls, are the only way into these hidden valleys which, for centuries, have offered refuge to those who want to hide from the world." "Deep in one of these remote gorges lives a people whose religion and culture is different from anywhere else in Pakistan." "The Kalash have no cars or televisions, but they have a school where, for one day, I've been appointed visiting professor of English." "Hello." "(CHILDREN GREET HIM)" "Thank you very much." "That was very good." "OK." "Can I sit down here with them?" "Thank you." "Hello." "I've been asked to give you a lesson in English." "I want to teach you parts of the body." "So what is this?" "(TEACHER TRANSLATES)" " Head." " Head." "Who said?" "Head." "That's right." "That was very good." "Say it again." "This is?" " Head." " Very good." "What's in the middle of the head?" "You can't miss that 'cause it's big." " Nose." " Nose." "Nose." "That's very good." " And?" " Mouth!" "Neck!" "Arm!" "Hand." " Hand." " Yes." "This is all hand." " But what's this?" " Thumb!" "Very good." "Thumb." "And these are?" "Fingers." "One finger." " Two fingers." " Two fingers." "Three fingers!" "Four..." "No fingers." "Thumb." "And this one here?" " This one?" " Leg." "Leg." "That's good." "And on end of leg?" " Boot!" " Boot?" "No." "Yes, that's shoe." "But if I take shoe off what's in there?" "Away with shoe!" "What's that?" " Foot!" " Foot." "That's right." "Very good." "That's foot and that's shoe." "Come on, shoe." "It's a very naughty shoe." "This won't stay on my..." "Oh!" "(LAUGHTER)" "How will I get my shoe?" "Brilliant." "Come on." "Up you get." "Very good." "Very good." "Very bad shoe." "Very bad..." "Oh, no!" "He's off again." "He's a very bad shoe." "They have no written history, so no one quite knows where the Kalash came from." "Unlike the rest of the province, women - with their characteristic headdresses - appear in public open and unveiled." "Their pale skin and light-coloured eyes suggest a link with the armies of Alexander the Great, who passed through here 2,000 years ago." "This house is a menstruation house." "The women come here for monthly period." "The Kalash have strict rules about purity." "When women have their period, they confine themselves to a menstruation house." "Because we just say it is impure to keep the menstruating woman inside the house." "So they will come here till they get over the period." "Then they come to the house." "In this house, whenever the woman is delivering a baby, they will come to this house and they will stay after delivery." "They will stay for 15 to 20 days here before they return home." "So birth and menstruation's all in here?" "Are any men allowed in here?" "No, the men are not allowed in there, not allowed to touch them or go inside." "Hello." "They seem to be quite happy." "They are." "It's a nice holiday for them." "They're resting." "When a woman is having a period, they feel weak a bit." " They don't have to do housework?" " They have complete rest." "I see." "So this is a rest and recuperation service." "Very good." "Before rejoining the community, a new mother must go to the temple for purification." "Burning juniper and holly-oak are used in a ritual cleansing to prepare the temple for the ceremony." "Bread is baked by the husband as a symbol of fertility." "It'll be presented to his wife once she and her family arrive." "0nce she's been given the bread, a last pass with the branches means she's purified and can go back to her home." "These ceremonies are so unlike anything I've seen in Pakistan that when I walk with my guide, Saifullah, I return to the question of origins." "What are your theories about the origins of the Kalash people?" "Greek people think that we have come from Greek - from Alexander the Great." " When Alexander the Great invaded." " Some say we are..." "The Bulgarian people say we are Bulgarian." "So the Greeks want you, the Bulgarians want you." "What do you think?" "In our own history, we come from a place called Siam." " Siam?" " Siam." "But we don't know where it is." "That's quite a walk." "You're used to it." "You live on the vertical all the time." " We just get used to the mountains." " It's a great view." "So what is the Kalash God?" "Is there one God or?" "We have one God, yes." "I told you that." "We have a Creator God." "We believe in one Creator who created the whole world." "What happens when a Kalash dies?" "Is there reincarnation?" "We believe that when we die... our soul will go to the white mountain called Pala." " Which is an actual mountain?" " It's that one there." "You can see the white peak over there." " That's the mountain where Kalash souls go?" " All the souls go there." "We can't see it now, but we believe there's a big fort for the souls of the Kalash." "It's hard to know quite what the future holds for the Kalash." "I think that their unique culture will become diluted as the valley's opened up." "The danger is that missionaries, anthropologists, tour operators and well-meaning TV crews could make their way of life more show than substance." "It's time to get ourselves up to the Shandur Pass." "The horses have already gone ahead for the great polo match, and we've got another 7,000 feet before we get to the Shandur Pass." "We're stopping on the way to help acclimatisation." "Raza Han is my driver." "He's from Chitral." "They don't speak Urdu." "They speak Khowar." "I'm learning a bit of Khowar." "One wonderful word is the word for "foot"." "It's "pong"." "Is that right?" "Yeah." "Very suitable." "More later!" "Around us the mountains rise steeply, but wherever there's a level patch, there'll be someone making a living from it by the simplest means possible." "This is the painless way of making the 7,000-foot climb from Chitral to the pass." "The team's horses have walked up." "And not everyone's polo-mad up here." "I thought of offering them a spot of coaching, but I've got my homework to do." "What a delightful language Khowar is." ""Father" is "tut", "mother" is "nun" and "grandmother" is "wow"." "(MICHAEL PRACTISES KHOWAR)" "It helps take my mind off landslides which, judging by the presence of the road gangs, must happen more often than I like to think about." "(MICHAEL PRACTISES KHOWAR WITH DRIVER)" "Alongside the Himalaya and the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush is one of a trio of mighty geological upthrusts that make this such momentous scenery." "0n its western flank is Chitral." "0n the east is Gilgit." "The two proud communities will meet here - two and a quarter miles above sea level on the Shandur Pass." "Great." "Very good." "Raza Han, well driven." "Bo jam." "Bo jam." "The tradesmen from Chitral and Gilgit are setting up shop." "They're expecting a crowd of thousands." "(KNIFE SCRAPES)" "The butcher's doing brisk business as families prepare for a three-day picnic." "I think I might just stick to salad." "For the next few days, like everyone else here, I shall be camping." "The Shandur Pass for most of the year is a desolate wilderness." "So the police bring tents, the authorities bring tents and the polo teams bring tents." "And I'm told that in the next three days, there's going to be 10,000 people coming here to be fed, watered and evacuated on the Shandur Pass." "So watch this space." "This is going to be our dining room on top of the world." "And along here..." "Tents, various." "We have a little library area there, where we encourage them to learn." "(LAUGHS)" "And the kitchen." "The kitchen tent." "Lethal flames leaping from the tent." "There's Zahoor." "Come and say hello." "Zahoor is the chef." "Our chef." "Good man." "Very important." "Most important man." "That's Zahoor the chef." "Firewood." "Very important." "And this is our hot-water supply." "This is the only hot water we'll have for the next few days." "It needs a lot of wood because it takes much longer to boil at this altitude, which is 12,250 feet." "Along here, in the mountain walk, are the toilet facilities in various colours." "But you won't need to follow me there." "It's early morning and the two teams are out practising together." "The Gilgit team is led by Bulbul Shan, 55 years old and riding his favourite Punjabi stallion, Truc." "He's led the winning side for two years and is looking for a hat trick." "Chitral's captain is Sikander ul-Mulk - Siraj's younger brother." "He's riding Bucephalus, an Afghan bay with youth and speed on his side." "They retire to their separate camps." "Before laying any bets, I set out on a fact-finding mission." "We're just a little further along the pass, away from the central festivities, to where the Gilgit camp is set, and it's out here." "We've become close with the Chitralis, so this is like sleeping with the enemy, but we are the BBC and we must be even-handed in matters of polo." "So this is the Gilgit camp over here." "It looks rather more organised than the Chitral." "They are army and police." "Despite being army and police, they're welcoming and happy for me to talk to Bulbul while Truc has lunch." "You're captain of the Gilgit team this year." "How many years have you been captain?" " Four years." " And how many times have you won?" "Two times we lose, two times we win." "They say that in this game it's 80% horse and 20% man." " Would you agree?" " Yes." "Your horse is very special because you've had him for a long time." "How many years has your horse taken part in the game?" "In Shandur, 15 years." "We play on this horse 15 years." "What is it about Truc that makes him such?" "To have played so many games - 15 times here." "What makes Truc such a great horse?" "(HE SPEAKS URDU)" "(INTERPRETER) As far as Truc and himself go, they have a perfect understanding." "Truc, with the body weight and all these understandings, they know each other well." "That is how they combine well to perform." "It is Truc, he says, that tells me whether we are going to win the tournament or lose." "He definitely communicates with me." "He can give me that feeling that I'm going to win this match for you." "What does Truc say about this year?" "He's in a very good mood, he says, this year." "I'll have a word with Truc before I lay my bet." "In the Chitral camp, things are less rosy." "Horses unrecovered from injury, another lamed in training." "So persistent have been their misfortunes that I ask Sikander about rumours that black magic - a potent force up here - may be being used against them." " Why have these things happened?" " I don't know." "Is it black magic, Sikander?" "Do you believe someone's putting a bad spell on you?" "I never used to believe it, but now everyone does, so I've also started believing in it." "Who are the people to watch out for in the Gilgit side?" "Their number six." "He's got a very fast horse." " How about their captain, Bulbul?" " Bulbul is..." "We are depending on his horse, because his horse is about 21 years old." "So if it is a fast game, if we manage to give them a tough time," "I don't think that horse will be able to finish the game." " How do you think it'll go tomorrow?" " Tomorrow..." "They have an edge, but I don't think that much." " What's it like if you lose?" " Terrible." "Terrible." "First of all, no one will come near you on the polo ground." "If you win, they don't allow you to stand on the ground - they keep you up in the air." "But if you lose, no one will come next to you." "Even on the road, they might start hooting." " It's a terrible thing going back." " Do you go back in disguise?" "We try to go in the dark." "0n the eve of battle, ominous clouds hang in the sky." "Next morning, things are no better in the Chitral camp." "(MUEZZIN CHANTS)" "The call to prayer rings out, as the town that's grown up on the Shandur Pass wakes up to the big match day." "There are women supporters, but they'll watch from a ladies-only hill." "Mulling over what I've seen, it's pretty obvious that Gilgit should start favourites, but Chitral have a more relaxed approach which might help them." "It is freestyle polo, and they seem to embody the spirit of the game." "They're in it for the hell of it, and I like that." "Are you still confident?" "Excellent." "Good." "You're confident of winning?" "That's what Chitral said." "Yes." "But the horses are all fine?" "I bet you can't wait to get on with it." "I'll get out of your way." "Good luck." " How are you feeling?" " Good." " How are the horses?" " Well..." "We almost bought one horse - a new horse, a playing horse." " At the last minute?" " We needed it, but we couldn't get it." "Last night we managed to get that horse, so now we are in a better position." " So this was a?" " It had come with the team." "It belonged to someone else who was not ready to give it to us." "So you had to negotiate?" "The rider knows the horse?" " The rider knows the horse." " And Bucephalus?" " He's OK." " Happy?" "Perky?" "Yes." "He seems to be enjoying the drum." "How are you feeling?" "You want to get on with it?" "Good luck." "Sikander's being brave, but the new horse could be a problem." "There's nothing more to do." "The moment of truth has arrived." "The riders will give everything, and everyone knows that at this altitude, the outcome depends on the ability of these horses to absorb the relentless pressure." "Chitral take a surprise lead." "Gilgit soon equalise to cancel it out." "In international polo, play is stopped every seven minutes." "These horses must run non-stop for 25, then for another 25 - struggling to pull in oxygen from the thin air." "Bulbul rules the midfield, but suddenly Chitral are making all the running." "A goal-mouth mix-up puts Gilgit back in the lead." "Almost immediately, Chitral press forward and equalise." "Half-time and it's two all." "Gilgit start the second half the stronger and force their way into the lead again." "Butting and body-checking increase." "As the polo becomes truly freestyle, Gilgit run in a fourth goal." "The pace is beginning to tell." "Riders and horses are straining every sinew." "Then Bulbul, magnificently unflappable, puts Gilgit into an unassailable lead." "The Chitral supporters are heading for home." "Gilgit fans stream across to hail their heroes." "Everyone becomes so happy that the police have to be called in." "I push through to talk to the man of the match." "How was it for you, Bulbul?" "I'm very much happy." "Thank you." "Thank you." "You see the truth?" "Thank you." "It might be black magic for Chitral, but for Gilgit just magic." "It's time for everyone to make their way home - by whatever means possible." "Most are going down the mountain, but we're going up - higher than Shandur into the land of ice and snow, to a place where few people ever set foot." "Close to the Chinese border is a place they call Concordia, where two glaciers meet and ten of the world's tallest summits surround them." "K2, second highest peak on earth, is five miles away." "The jagged ramparts of these frozen canyons seem about to swallow me up." "Next time on "Himalaya" - strange goings-on at the Indian border." "My first beer for a month." "Mass catering and holy relics at the Golden Temple." "A moment of peace in war-torn Kashmir." "A train ride to Shimla - self-catering, of course." "At Dharamsala, I throw flour, learn what I was in my previous life, attend a concert and meet a God-King." ""Himalaya" - the week's high spot." "Hm." "I'm flying into this majestic world of rock and ice in a military helicopter because this valley is on the border between the Himalaya's most quarrelsome neighbours" " India and Pakistan." "With supreme irony, they call this place Concordia." "It's a beautiful but harsh land which you enter at your peril. 0hl See what I mean?" "I'm at 14,500 feet in the heart of the Karakoram mountains." "If anywhere can be called "the hall of the mountain kings", this is it." "Clustered around me are ten of the world's 30 highest peaks, dominated by K2 - the second highest mountain in the world." "It's known as the killer mountain and is a much harder climb than Everest." "There's not just natural splendour here, there's human drama as well." "To the east the Indian and Pakistan armies face each other in a high altitude stand-off in these ice-bound conditions." "It's scarcely believable that two oxygen-starved armies eyeball one another down there with only a UN line of control to keep them apart." "This means I can't cross from Pakistan to India through the mountains." "Instead I must go to the one official crossing point on the border near Lahore." "Lahore is an often beautiful, always busy, city, proud of its military and literary traditions." "You may not think so, but this is one of the most important objects in Lahore " "Zamzama, the great cannon." "It was first fired in anger about 250 years ago, and they say that who holds the cannon holds the Punjab." "Which maybe accounts for why it appears in Rudyard Kipling's "Kim"." ""He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zamzama."" "This is the gun that Rudyard Kipling's Kim sat astride." "Oh!" "It's very hot this afternoon." "The Moguls, who came from central Asia 600 years ago, left a mark on Lahore." "The Shalimar Gardens, created by the man who built the TajMahal." "The Badshahi Mosque whose courtyard can hold 60,000 worshippers." "And in Lahore Fort, the exquisite Palace of Mirrors." "They say it was here that Emperor Akbar caught his favourite courtesan exchanging a glance with this son." "True to the Mogul image of good taste and bad temper, he had her walled up alive." "0ur penultimate day in Pakistan and I'm looking across the border at India." "(CHEERING)" "Here at Wagah, the old military ceremony of lowering the flag has been turned into an entertainment." "The partition of India in 1947 was traumatic." "Nearly a million were killed in sectarian fury as the two new nations were born." "Nearly 60 years later, that aggression has been channelled into a largely good-natured ritual." "Crowds can root for their country, whilst guardsmen lay on a display of carefully choreographed contempt." "This is chauvinism at its most camp." "The Pakistan Rangers demonstrate how angry you can get without hitting anyone." "As the moment of flag-lowering grows closer, the crowd's excitement grows more vocal." "National passions are further inflamed by a display of precision nastiness in which thumbs are used to terrifying effect." "(CHEERING)" "(PLAYS LAST POST)" "Now the moment they've been waiting for - the guards, fans sprouting from their turbans like raised hackles, measure out the lengths of rope." "And they must get it spot on, so that the tricolour of secular India and the crescent moon of Muslim Pakistan descend at exactly the same time." "(SOLDIER SHOUTS COMMANDS)" "Despite the show of bellicosity, this is a combined operation with both sides working together." "It ends with a flourish - a quadrille of stamping soldiers, the briefest of handshakes, the border between India and Pakistan is sealed." "Job done." "Next morning, the crowds of spectators are gone - to be replaced by a crowd of porters." "22, in fact, carrying our 40-odd pieces of equipment up to the border." "Here, they're received by 22 equally fortunate Indian porters." "A beady-eyed Pakistan Ranger makes sure there is no illegal immigration across the white border line." "So we leave one country where no elected government has ever completed its term and enter one where nearly a billion use the ballot box." "The Indian way is immediately apparent." "This man must be telepathic." "He certainly knows what's on my mind." "That was your question?" "A beer?" "Thunderbolt." "That's what you need after... four weeks of abstinence." "You're not allowed to drink in public in Pakistan." "They know that as soon as you get across the border, this is what you need." "But after four weeks, I feel fit, younger, better." "I don't know what to do with this." "Oh." "Buoyed up by beer and the relief that always comes from crossing a frontier," "I hop into a local minibus, which takes me the ten miles to the first Indian city." "Neither Muslim nor Hindu, Amritsar is a Sikh town." "I know a bit about Sikhs - the turbans and the hair that should never be cut and their reputation as fierce warriors and shrewd businessmen - but to learn more I make for Amritsar's most holy site - the Golden Temple." " This is for going into the temple?" " Yes." "I need one of these?" "What is it?" "What is it?" "A scarf or a hat?" "Ten rupees?" "OK." "How do I wear it?" "Can you show me?" "Ah." "I see." "It's my own sort of semi-turban." "Not the real thing." "Thank you very much." "Though they seem a relaxed and worldly people, the Sikhs demand a strict dress code for the temple." "Apart from covering my head, I must leave my shoes and socks behind." "I'm also required to wash my hands, divest myself of tobacco, intoxicants and narcotics, and enter via a cleansing pool." "There are an estimated 20 million Sikhs in India - 2% of the population." "They believe in one God for all, with no human hierarchies or priesthoods, idols or icons coming in between." "It sounds modest." "But when I see the golden Hari Mandir - the holy of holies " ""modest" is not the first word that comes to mind." "The Golden Temple - covered in 500 kilograms of gold - is only a small part of an enormous complex." "In the kitchens, volunteers prepare a simple, free meal for anyone who wants it." "Chapatti, dhal, pickle and water, 24 hours a day, seven days a week." "This is the chapattiproduction line." "These are the dhal vats." "In sweatshop conditions, thousands of kilos of lentil curry are stirred in titanic cauldrons." "I sample the result with a young Sikh, 0nkar Singh." "So, essentially, they give a basic meal to... whoever turns up?" " Yes." " Within reason." " This must be a very big operation." " Yes." "How many meals do they provide a day?" "Basically, this kitchen is open 24 hours to everybody." "And every day, 40 to 50,000 people come here and have food." "(PALIN) What sort of people are they?" "Poor people who can't get food?" "Or people like us making documentaries?" "(SINGH) This is a basic thing of every Sikh temple, essential for every Sikh temple, everybody has to come in the kitchen." "The third Guru, who started this tradition - Guru Amar Das - said, "If you want to meet me, first go to the kitchen."" "He said that because if anybody has ego or pride, here everyone learns the lesson of equality." " That's what it's about." " No matter which class, which religion." "(PALIN) So it's probably more important for someone who is rich to come along and eat with everybody else." "Even King Akbar came here and had to sit equally with everybody." "So the answer to your question is no matter if one is poor or rich, they come here, have food and bless God." " This is the essence of the kitchen." " That's great." "On Saturday and Sunday there are limitless people." " About 100,000 people come here." " 100,000?" "Both floors - the ground floor and first floor - are busy." "Then on the pavements, they sit there and start eating." "This is voluntary work, and the washing-up may be done by doctors, lawyers, bricklayers, rickshaw drivers or anyone who enjoys making a noise." "(CRASHING)" "This causeway leads to the Hari Mandir - the most holy part of the temple." "Crowds wait to pay their respects to the Guru Granth - the holy book of the Sikh religion." "(SOFT MUSIC)" "In the holy book are the sacred Ragas, written by Guru Nanak, who founded Sikhism in the 17th century." "These are performed by the musicians and singers in the holy of holies." "They ring round the temple for 16 hours a day." "It's takes 2.5 days to chant the whole book, then it starts again." "(MUSIC AND SONG RINGS OUT)" "If you want to stay the night, there's a hotel out the back." " Oops." " Lots of people." "It's already busy, isn't it?" "How many people can they take here?" " Well, about 25,000 people can stay here." " At one time?" " At one time, yes." " Gigantic." " Isn't it?" " Yes, yes." "Thank you." "Oh, bathroom." "Lovely." " Michael?" " Yes?" "(TOILET WON'T FLUSH)" " (FLUSHES)" " Very efficient." "Yeah, that's good." "A shower for short people." "Everything you need." " Jacuzzi?" " No." "It's all right." "I'll make my own." "Thank you." "Very nice." "That's extremely palatial." "Thank you very much." "OK." "Well, it's not bad." "No divans, but where else in the world could you get... a bathroom, two enormous king-size beds for 65p a night?" "(FAINT TRUMPET CRY)" "It's ten o'clock and something is stirring as the devotional day draws to a climax." "(TRUMPET CALL AND CHANTING)" "Followed by a man who keeps the air clean above it, the holy book is borne out of the Hari Mandir on a pillow and laid on a palanquin." "The book is regarded as the 11th and last Guru of Sikhism and it, or rather "he", will be taken across the causeway and, literally, put to bed." "The doors are shut and fastened." "The book is laid on the bed and covered up until, at 2.30 tomorrow morning, it will be woken up to start another day at the Golden Temple." "This is Kalka station, starting point for the Himalayan Queen - a train that will take me up to the hill town of Shimla or Simla." "It's the start of school holidays and the train is packed." "The Himalayan Queen will take me only 57 miles, but we will climb 7,000 feet." "With me on the journey is local historian, Raaja Bhasin, which is just as well, as I'm having trouble finding my seat." "There we are." "That's me." "Unless there's another Michael P. And there you are, Raja Bassin." "There's no dining car, but there is home cooking courtesy of a fellow passenger." "Thank you very much." "That's lovely." "What is this?" " This is puri." " Puri." "Puri and?" "Made out of wheat flour." "These are potatoes." " Lovely." " With Indian spices." " Lovely." "This is your picnic for the family?" " Yes." "Holiday time with my family." "Lovely." "And why did you choose to go to Shimla?" " Because it is nearby." " Where are you from?" " I am from Delhi." " Right." "Did you start very early?" "Yeah." "Four o'clock I wake up, I cooked food." "Six o'clock we left..." " Yeah." "I cook this." " That's a labour of love." "At 7.40 we boarded the train." "(PALIN) Is Delhi a very high-pressure city?" " Yes." "Very much so." " What do you do?" "I work with the government of India, Ministry of Defence." "Secret work?" "Yes, well..." "Buying British weapons, we hope!" "When the British ruled India, Simla was their summer headquarters." "Until the railway was built 100 years ago, everything would have been carried up here by horse or donkey." "Some of the stations and, indeed, all the bridges and tunnels look the way they must have done when it opened." " That's true." " They've stood the test of time." "And very well." "Most of the stone abutments have been built by a raw stone dressing, no mortar." "The bridges are old-fashioned Roman aqueducts, still functioning perfectly." "In actual terms of construction, nothing has really altered." "There are 103 tunnels on the line, one of them built by a Colonel Barog, who had it dug from both ends." "When they didn't meet in the middle, he shot himself." "You're a school?" "A school party going to Shimla?" " Here." " Here?" "So they're leaving the train now." "How long are they?" "For a week here?" " Four days." " You're their teacher?" " Yes." " Good luck!" " Thank you." "We'll have a nice time." " A very nice time." "The delicacies at the station buffet seemed a good way of repaying my friend." " In return for the puri." " No." "But, of course, she wouldn't have it." " How much are they?" " Ten rupees." "Two for ten." "Fortunately, I know someone who'll eat anything." "I only got two, I'm afraid, and I'm going to eat both of them." "There you are." "Go on, Nige." "Would you like it with tomato?" "Dip it in the tomato." "You're getting quite a gourmet!" "We climb higher, pulling out of the dense jungle and into Alpine woodland." "I press Raaja to explain some of the more dubious legends of the railway." "How about the "kissing tunnel", this story I heard?" "Yes." "Barog is over a kilometre long." "To go through the tunnel takes about four minutes - time enough to snatch a kiss." "Yeah." "Absolutely." "That's a Jane Austen-ish kiss." "Nowadays they'd have had a family by then." " Absolutely." " Sorry." "So that's why it's called the "kissing tunnel"?" "Ah." "So you figured out who was sitting where and what you had to do with whom, and the moment you entered the tunnel... (PALIN) Oh, stop it!" "Get off me!" "Oh, Raaja!" "Please." "Ooh!" "(BOTH LAUGH)" "(PALIN) I didn't know you cared." "Simla, the hill station, is now Shimla, the provincial capital, but the imperial legacy remains." "The Viceroy's palace - Victorian self-confidence set in stone - still dominates the town." "One fifth of humanity was ruled from here." "As much as that?" "The British Empire at that time?" "Yes." "That was the Viceroy's office." "For eight months in the year..." "Simla was officially the summer capital, but really remained the real capital." "For eight months in the year the government was stationed at Simla." "From March, April to October, November." "Someone like Gandhi, who was a modest man, what would he have felt coming here?" "He disliked it." "The other thing was that while everybody else came in rickshaws - human-pulled rickshaws, two pulling, two pushing " "Gandhi invariably walked to the place while Nehru invariably used a horse." "Despite 60 years of independence," "Shimla still feels like an Indian Tunbridge Wells." " Where's this?" " This is the Ridge." " A parade ground." " The Ridge, the town's largest open space." "We're walking along a natural watershed now." "The flow from the right goes down to the Bay of Bengal and from the left to the Arabian Sea." "Extraordinary." "Is that partly why they chose this spot?" " It's wonderful." "Dividing India." " Yes." "Or sitting astride it." "Sitting astride it, yes." "It's an imposition, isn't it?" "The old Gaiety Theatre survives, saved from retirement by the Indian Army, who use it as a club and put on the occasional production." "We're on stage..." "What a jewel of a theatre, isn't it?" "It's beautiful." "Someone said that Shimla was a bit like Cheltenham, and I can see what they mean." "Yes, locking India outside the door." "What sort of names would have been here?" "Famous names?" "Yes, and not necessarily connected with theatre." " There's Baden-Powell." " The founder of the Scouts?" "I never thought of him as a thesp!" "He did a play here before he went off to the Boer War." "And Kipling." "What sort of plays would they have played here and who would have supplied the cast?" "They were mostly drawing-room comedies, the occasional musical." "Yeah." "And in them would be government officers who spent most of their time acting." " There's a play on tonight." "What time?" " 6.30." "We'd better go." "I'm sure they'd prefer to see us." "Tonight's play is an early work by Michael Frayn." "The audience and actors are all army." "Before we start, we've got a surprise for you." "May I present to you Mr Michael Palin?" "Please come forward, Mr Michael Palin." " Thank you." "Thank you very much." " (APPLAUSE)" "If I might crave your indulgence for a few moments." "My name is Michael Palin and I'm with the BBC filming a journey through the Himalayas." "We couldn't come to the Himalayas without coming to India, or to India without coming to Shimla, and we couldn't come to Shimla without coming to the Gaiety." "I'm excited to be here on the stage of a theatre that would be the envy of many towns." "I hope you enjoy the production." "Many of you are army people so, by the right, quick, laugh!" "(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)" "There's a certain irony in coming 8,000 miles to India to see a suburban comedy set in Surrey." "Sorry, John." "(SLURRING) Jo, is there anything that I can do?" "No." "Just getting the place straight." "Why don't you go back into the kitchen and relax?" "It's lonely in the kitchen." "There's no one to talk to." "The actors on stage work closely with their fellow actors off stage." " (SHE PROMPTS THE LINES)" " No, Barney." "It's no good looking at me like that." "I'm not amused." "You just stay there and don't you come out until I tell you." " What are you doing?" " I'll just..." "When the curtain comes down, it's no surprise that the biggest round of the evening is reserved for Mrs Vijaylakshmi Sood - the prompter." "Mrs Vijaylakshmi Sood." "And the make-up in charge, Mrs Andrew Kappa." "(APPLAUSE)" "And our special guest, Mr Michael Plain." "(APPLAUSE)" "Next morning, Michael Plain and driver head north to an altogether less happy place." "A battleground since independence and still one of the world's flashpoints" " Kashmir." "60,000 have died in fighting over the last 15 years." "A bomb on the road north has just killed 33 people." "The root cause goes back 60 years." "At partition in 1947, Kashmir was a princely state, free to choose if it wanted to stay in India or join Pakistan." "The Maharajah chose India." "The trouble is that Kashmir was 80% Muslim." "In Kashmir, heaven and hell come pretty close." "Swanning about like Cleopatra in a barge on Dal Lake, I feel completely at peace." "But in the city of Srinagar on the shores of the lake, a nasty war slowly grinds on." "The British loved the lake but weren't allowed to own land around it, so instead they built houseboats like manor houses." "They're mostly run as hotels now." "I am staying with Mr Gulam Butt, proprietor of Clermont Houseboats - once the most sought after on the lake." "Mr Butt?" " I'm so happy to see you here." " You've had a few people before me." " They've all stayed here." "George Harrison." " My dear friend George." " He was here with Ravi Shankar." " What year was he here?" " That was 1966." " 1966." "Gosh." "And one evening they had a big musician party on the lawn." "That's Joan Fontaine, the famous American movie star." "Nelson Rockefeller!" "Mr Butt's hall of fame is impressive - 14 ambassadors have stayed here - but the names stop in the 1980s and the faces on his wall are from another, more confident, era." "Astronaut who went on the moon." "The first man." "That's Neil Armstrong." " Is that Neil Armstrong, really?" " Yes." "He was here." "Wow." "And they come here for peace and quiet?" "Peace and quiet and for holidaying on the houseboat, enjoying the lake and my garden." "Good." "I want to see it." "I'll show you, when you have time, the guest books, what remarks they have written." " Have you still got people coming now?" " Yes." "Unfortunately, not..." "Mostly journalists, because since 1990..." "You know all that." " There's been a lot of troubles." " Yes, since 1990, because of the problems." "Sadly, the boat on which Ravi Shankar taught George Harrison the sitar is now half-submerged." "Despite the troubles, Mr Butt's optimism has kept the bulk of his business afloat." "...paradise on earth." "This is on the upper part of the lake." "The houseboats were started in 1880." " I should shower some flowers on you, sir." " Thank you." "This is an affectionate way to greet you with flowers while you are entering my houseboat." "This is the houseboat." "Now we go in." "And I show you." "This is the living room." " (PALIN) It's a palace, isn't it?" "Fit for a queen." " This is a small room on water for you." "I hope that you'll enjoy your stay here." "It's lovely." "Thanks." "Bye." "Pakistan and India have played for high stakes in Kashmir." "At Dal Lake, it's almost impossible to believe that in 2001 the threat of nuclear war brought a paradise like this to the brink of destruction." "A full-scale conflict may have been avoided, but issues are still unresolved and the fight for Kashmir goes on." "0nly a week before we arrived," "Indian security forces used mortars to clear this hotel in Srinagar of what they suspected were two Pakistani-backed militants." "Casualties of war lie in the local cemetery and in many others throughout Kashmir." "This is a Muslim graveyard and they call their victims "martyrs"." "Some fought deliberately, others, like the mother and child killed at the hotel, were never given the choice." "This feels like an occupied country." "Tourism, once the lifeblood of Kashmir, has been hard hit." "As governments warn against travel, international interest has all but dried up." "(THUNDER CRACKS)" "A downpour only adds to the air of melancholy that hangs over Srinagar, as I'm shown around by Faruk, a local businessman." "Do you think the city is suffering quite a lot from the problems, or the violence?" "Very much." "The last 14 years very much." " You see this house?" " Yes." "Srinagar has echoes of Belfast in the 1970s." "It's a city scarred by siege, pockmarked by damage and neglect, a city waiting for the nightmare to end and the symbols of hatred to disappear." "Perched in the Himalayan foothills near Dharamsala is the village of McLeod Ganj." "It's a nondescript place, but travellers from all over the world flock here." "Alongside local poverty is a parallel economy geared to well-heeled Westerners." "The reason for all this is religion - neither Hindu nor Muslim, but Buddhist." "(LOW CHANTING)" "Ten years after the Chinese took over his country, the Dalai Lama, fearing imprisonment, fled across the Himalaya from Tibet." "India's Prime Minister Nehru risked Chinese wrath to offer him sanctuary." "This is where the leader of Tibetan Buddhism lives, surrounded by his followers." "These Indian hill villages have become known as Little Lhasa." "In this monastery, prayer flags hang above golden-white stupas." "0vens burning juniper and cedar make smoke trails up to the gods and prayer wheels send good thoughts spinning out into the world." "Buddhism is an outgoing, inclusive religion and they seem happy to let me take part in a ceremony whose purpose is a complete mystery to me." "(CHANTING)" "0n a count of three, I, like everyone else, throw into the air my handful of "sampa" - roast barley flour... and, like everyone else, feel a lot better for it." "Young Tibetans like Thupten Tsewang have never seen their ancestral homeland." "Your parents had to leave Tibet, I assume, did they?" "Yes." "They came to India in around 1960s." "During that time they ran away in a group." " Do you think you'll ever go to Tibet?" " No." "I would like to go." "But it's really difficult at this moment." "We have special procedures to follow." "The unlikelihood of ever seeing Tibet doesn't seem to have dampened spirits." " It's beautiful work." " Yes." "This is our Thangka painting studio." "The Norbulingka Institute." "Everywhere you look enormous energy is devoted to keeping the culture alive." "In this workshop they produce "Thangkas" - decorated religious scrolls." "They seem very young, most of the people working here." "People who would never have been to Tibet." "How is it organised?" "Are they under the guidance of people who are Tibetan?" " All of them are Tibetan..." " Been to Tibet." "Yes." "All are Tibetans." "How we organise this, we have a master under whose guidance the students learn." " Are they in great demand?" " Yes." "I can say that because we have a pile of orders." "If you order a Thangka right now, you have to wait for five or six years." " Five or six years?" " Yes." "The Tibetan diaspora is a worldwide phenomenon and the demand for images makes the work profitable as well as educational." "The commitment is demanding." "A metal sculpture apprenticeship takes 12 years." "Not just craftsmanship is kept alive." "Children are taught Tibetan song and dance." "(CHILDREN SING)" " This is traditional Tibetan music?" " Yes." "Very traditional music." "It was started nine years back, this event." "The theme is to let the Tibetan children know their own cultural songs and dances." "Because we are losing it, being influenced by Hindi songs, Bollywood songs." "So there's a danger of these old songs being forgotten?" "The children didn't have the contact, so such events have been organised." " Today is a celebration of Gandhi." " Yes." "It's Gandhi's birthday today." "So the children enjoy doing the Tibetan music?" "They don't mind being weaned away from Bollywood?" "No." "You can see from their faces." "They're excited, I guess." "(RHYTHMIC SINGING AND MUSIC)" "(APPLAUSE)" "Keeping world opinion on their side is important to the Tibetans in exile." "They offer all types of services including this astrology centre which can tell you what you were in your previous life and what you'll become in the next." "Having sent my birth details to the experts upstairs, I've come to hear the results." "Mr Palin, this way, please." "My astrologer's name is Phurbu Tsering." "So this is my astrological chart which will show, among other things, what I will be reincarnated as and what I am reincarnated as." "Is that right?" " Yes." " Wow." "I'm shaking a little bit." " Really?" "No need." " I've never known this information before." "Oh." "Here we go." "Right." "I see." "Yes." "So the real stuff comes here." "Oh, there's a lot." "Here we are. "You were likely to be an elephant in your previous life."" "Oh, that's..." "I've always been kind to elephants." "An elephant charged me once." "It probably recognised me and wanted to say hello." ""But you are going to be born as a daughter of a rich family in the West again."" "I don't know what to say to that, really." "It's not too bad." "Sometimes, I suppose, you have to give rather bad news to people." "Yes, but in that case..." "This is all based on your date of birth." "Based on the individual's date of birth, time." "At that time this whole life is a map like that, and he or she may be born again as some sort of... bad life, bad birth." "In that case, it doesn't mean that it's all fixed." "You can change it by yourself through a special approach or through your own hard work." "So if I was going to be born again as a sort of... mosquito, there's still time for me to change?" "Yes, yes." "It's all in your hands." "In this life." "You see, I'm really against all this." "I don't believe in anything predestined." "I'd prefer to think that some exercise of free will can control the course of my life - that's how I was brought up." "So it's interesting that you're saying here that you can change your life." "But I was an elephant... so I'll always remain having been an elephant?" " I can't change that." "I was an elephant." " An elephant in your previous birth." "Do you know what you were in a previous life?" "No, because I don't have my own date of birth." "You don't know exactly when you were born?" "My parents didn't have all the records for us, so I don't have." "When the Chinese invaded our country..." " Yes." " So most of the youth of my age..." "The records were destroyed because your parents had to leave Tibet." "If you believe this or not, I was born on the roadside." "Many of the youth of our age at that time were born on the roadsides." "(LOW CHANTING)" "The head of the Tibetan government-in-exile is this son of peasant farmers - His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama." "At the age of two, this man - who likes to call himself a simple monk - was proved by various tests to be the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama." "When he dies, he'll be reborn as the 15th Dalai Lama." "Morning prayers are open to people from all over the world and the Dalai Lama seems pleased to see them, whilst men in grey suits provide discreet security." "I've been granted a one-to-one audience with His Holiness." "But before that, he's agreed to meet 700 other people." "In a smoothly organised operation, a line of pilgrims and fans is moved briskly up the driveway and past the balcony of his bungalow." "In return for queuing patiently, they receive a handshake, direct eye contact and a sacred cord blessed by him." "The Dalai Lama greets his Western admirers first." "Then it's the Nepalese and Tibetans." "0nly they get packets of herbal pills blessed by His Holiness which will cure coughs and colds." "If the international pilgrims seem almost blasé, the Tibetans are quite visibly awed by his presence." "Next he meets refugees from Tibet." "To avoid reprisals if they go back, we film them from behind." "Trying to put them at their ease, he asks about the journey." "How did they bring their money across the border?" "Did they swallow it and throw it up later?" "He asks how many plan to go back." "If he goes back, he says, it would never be to the old feudal way of doing things." "Despite appearances, his message is "modernise"." "Then, all of a sudden, it's our turn." "Your Holiness." "Thank you so much." "Thank you for coming to talk to us." "It's very nice to be here." "You're a busy man." "Your face is very familiar to me because of BBC." "Oh, really?" "Your face is very familiar to me." " Do you watch the BBC, then?" " Practically every day." " Do you?" "Oh." " Because I have more trust." "Really?" "Yes." "And mainly some beautiful documentaries are filmed, including your own films." "You visit different places and sometimes I wish I could journey with you and could see many places." " Meet different people." " You know where we're going next." "We'll be going to Tibet, Your Holiness." "But I don't think you'll want to come." "I was going to ask you something." "Yesterday, I went to your astrological department and they made up a chart for me." "And in my previous life I was an elephant and in my next life I'm going to be the daughter of a rich family in the West." "Which do you think is the best of the two options?" "I wondered to myself, how does an elephant get to be a television presenter?" "Because an elephant also has a lot of curiosity to know." " Yes, that's true." " With their nose, they go like that." "The trouble is an elephant never forgets and I forget far too much." "We're going to Tibet, as I say, in a month, which is very exciting." "What sort of situation do you think we'll encounter there?" "What is Tibet like now?" "I hear there's a revival of interest in Buddhism." "Will we see this and will it be the real thing?" "Since you are going there, so you yourself must find out what's the true situation." "Although I am here outside Tibet, not inside Tibet... but as a Tibetan, I want to extend my welcome to you to visit my own country." "You're the best travelled of any Dalai Lama in history." "You have a very hectic schedule." "Why do you think it's important to travel?" "From my childhood, I always have curiosity." "A desire to know more about different people, different cultures." "And, as a Buddhist monk, I also have an interest to learn more about different religious traditions." "You lead this very hectic, frenetic life." "How do you keep in good condition?" "Do you have a health regime?" "I think, firstly, my parents gave me this quite good body." "It seems!" "Except for two days I've had a problem with my eye - eyelid." "Slightly shaking eyelid." "I've never seen you with your glasses off." "Really?" "Do I seem very small or am I a bit blurred?" "Then my daily life, my daily routine... are usually quite - how do you say?" " stable." " (TIBETAN)" " Disciplined." "Disciplined." "Breakfast, lunch, no dinner as a Buddhist monk, but evening tea." "And I sleep usually..." "It's quite fixed except when I travel to different places, especially America." "Then, I think, more than..." " Sometimes the time differences." " The jet lag." "So now, for example, one week ago I returned from the United States." "My sleep is not much problem, but my stomach is still American time." " Oh, dear." " Still." "Usually I... toilet, usually morning, but nowadays it's evening because of American time!" "That's very tricky." " I know you're busy." "Thank you very much." " Thank you." "There's lots more I want to talk to you about, but you've got to talk to other people." "The next day the Dalai Lama is off on his travels again and the crowds are out to catch a glimpse of him." "He may see himself as a simple monk, but his people, for whom life is religion, see him as nothing less than the God-King." "They may not want to share him with the world, but they pay him respect as he sets off once more on his mission to keep a candle burning for Tibet." "It's time for me to move on as well - to Ladak, the "land of passes", where the mountains take over the landscape." "A field of ancient stupas stand like melting snowmen, a reminder of when the Silk Route came through here, carrying other travellers on their way to the East." "Next time on "Himalaya", I microlight up to the mountains." "Watch Gurkhas being recruited." "Leave ridiculous tips for the waitresses." "Test myself on the Annapurna Trail." "See the temples and funeral pyres of Kathmandu." "Gamble with the licence-payers' money." "Meet the highest nuns in the world." "And take Sunday lunch at Everest." ""Himalaya" - high adventure." "Hm." "From high in the sky on a brilliant morning, Nepal looks idyllic." "But on the ground things are different." "In these foothills, communist insurgents inspired by Chairman Mao are waging a campaign against the government that has lasted eight years and cost nearly 8,000 lives." "As I'm to find out, things in Nepal are not always the way they look." "In the western foothills, far off the tourist track," "I'm with a party on their way to Lekhani to witness a recruiting ceremony for perhaps Nepal's best-known export - the legendary Gurkha soldiers." " (PALIN) But you can't get to it by road?" " No." "With me are senior Gurkha officers led by Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Griffith, an Englishman who's lived here for 15 years and speaks the language fluently." "His interest in the tough fighting men of these hills goes way back." "When I was eight, I took the "Victor" and it had "Johnny Gurkha" in it." "That, and I saw the Gurkhas at the Royal Tournament." "They fired my imagination as a small boy." "At Sandhurst I was lucky enough to get into the brigade and I was commissioned into the Sixth Gurkhas in 1979, 25 years ago." "(PALIN) And it's never been in any way a let-down?" "I always say, "I wanted to be an engine driver and I enjoy being an engine driver."" "Do you try and confine your selection to these groups?" "Traditionally, we've recruited from the Gurungs and the Magars." "The Gurungs are east of the Kali Gandaki river and the Magars are in this area." "This is the area of the Pun Magar." "The Nepalese government allow us to recruit." "There's an agreement with them, but they ask that we maintain a low profile." "It's embedded in history." "Nearly 200 years it's been going on one way or another." "But they like it to be kept as low-key as possible." "It's this lugging of loads up and down hills that really toughens people up and one of the reasons why they make such ideal soldiers." "I'm feeling toughened up myself by the time we reach Lekhani, where Adrian addresses the hopefuls." "(SPEAKS NEPALl)" "All the recruits are given numbers." "0f the 251 applicants here, only a fraction will go on to the next stage of testing." "(ADRIAN) We recruit once a year." "It's in three phases and this is the first phase." "This is the opportunity for any young man to get in." "Clearly, there are more men who want to join than we have places for." "Last year, across the whole of Nepal, somewhere in the region of 24,000 were chasing 331 places." " Really?" " So it is very important." "The numbers that will get through today..." "I think the Galla has an allocation of 100." " Tell me who the Galla is exactly." " The Galla is our recruiter." "He is a retired Gurkha soldier - in this case, a retired sergeant major." "He's resident in the area that he works in and he is charged with bringing the raw material in." " (PALIN) So he's pretty vital." " He's fundamental." "In the British Army, recruits will get paid ten times more than in the Nepalese Army, which makes a Gurkha a very attractive proposition." "As dawn breaks, the village looks the same, seems to be enjoying itself in the same way, but feels very different." "Despite the sunshine, there's a chill in the air." "Late yesterday, the Galla came to our tent and said he'd been approached by the local Maoists who wanted to talk to him, to one of us and also the Gurkhas who we were with." "A meeting was held at the end of which the Maoists decided to take the Galla and Adrian and the two other senior Gurkhas off into the forest to meet the hierarchy." "There was nothing we could do." "They were taken off yesterday evening into the forest." "This morning they haven't returned." "As far as we know there's no real danger, but they're not back yet." "So it looks as though the recruiting is now off and all the work that was done yesterday will be a waste." "It looks also as though we will have to get out of here as quickly as possible." "There's no obvious threat, but knowing we're in Maoist territory changes the atmosphere." "From being a charming rustic backwater," "Lekhani now seems more like a trap and friendly locals potential kidnappers." "As we head out, we pass the would-be Gurkhas looking as confused as ourselves." "We're two hours' walk from the nearest road and only when we're there will we feel safe." "48 hours later, news that Adrian has been released safe and well reaches us in the lakeside town of Pokhara." "Adrian tells me what happened when he was abducted." "I was then introduced to Comrade Mahesh, who was obviously a senior member of the Baglung Maoist Party, and I had a discussion with him on the Maoist cause." "He said that his aim was - in taking me, particularly - to get more publicity for their cause outside Nepal." "They then at 12 o'clock walked us down to the road which we'd driven up, and they'd arranged a vehicle for us there." "They then said we must have a final cup of tea together, so we had a cup of tea!" "Then they made a small speech to the assembled villagers and at 1.30 we got in, drove off down the hill, and that was the end of it." "What sort of people were your abductors?" "Presumably you could make some judgment." "They were very normal Nepalis." "They were a mix of different castes." "They were all very well informed in terms of their own cause." "They were unremarkable except for being focused on what they were trying to achieve." "Now it's time to tackle the mountains." "We'll be trekking up to the 13,500-foot base camp of Annapurna, whose summit dominates the horizon along with the beautiful peak of Machhapuchhare - "Fishtail"." "The idea is to see a bit of the country and get acclimatised to high altitude before we take on Everest and the Tibetan Plateau." "Followed by our Sherpa guides, Wongchu and Nawang, I set a less than blistering pace." " Hi." " Namasté." "Where have you come from?" " We have come from Bamboo." " Bamboo?" " Yeah." "All the way." " That's where we're going." " Amazing." " How is it up there?" "Amazing. 360 degrees." "Just mountains." "Gorgeous." " Weather good?" " Very nice." " Where are you all from?" " Israel." " Oh, wow." " And you?" "Where am I from?" "England." "That's right!" "We've only just started our climb." "We're a bit vague on details." " Is this part of a long holiday?" " It's a vacation from school." " Any problems along the way?" " We had a problem on our second day." "We actually slept here in Chhomrong and we met some Maoists." " What did they say? "We're Maoists"?" " Yeah." "There were three." "One of them spoke." "One with a gun was standing behind him." "They were just telling us, "Hello, we are Maoists."" " "We are communists."" " Not really." "And they started talking." "They said that each one of us had to pay 1,000 rupees." "We paid 1,000, they give us a receipt and there's not going to be any problem on the way because they say that they are the mountain people and this is their area." "You weren't frightened?" "Did they point the gun at you as they asked for the rupees?" "No, they didn't point the gun." "We tried to negotiate with them." "We said we were students, this is the beginning of our trip, but we had to pay them eventually." " We got a receipt." "Do you want to see?" " Yes." "If you're going home, you can give me the receipt!" "But it's in Nepali, so you won't understand what's written." "It does say that we paid 1,500 and my names..." "I read Nepali and it says, "Arrest these three on arrival."" "I suggest that you learn Nepali, I think." " Your name, sorry?" " Leat." "And you are?" " I'm Michael." "Leat and?" " Agnes." " Bas." " Bas." "OK." " It was nice meeting you." " Yes." "And you." "It's all downhill from here, so good luck." " Thanks for the hints on the way." " No problem." "Enjoy." " Bye-bye." " Bye." "I'm already feeling breathless." "Notices warn that things can only get worse." ""Mountain sickness."" "Wongchu has been up Everest twice." "When do we get the height where you get mountain sickness?" "Are we there yet?" "Yes, you'll get mountain sickness and you must drink a lot of water." "Then you must use the soup, anything, and go slow." " Walk slower." " That's easy." "When you get headache, you must move down in a low place." "(PALIN) "Early symptoms - headache, loss of appetite, dizziness, fatigue."" "I've got a bit of that. "What to do:" "Get in touch with your nearest Sherpa." ""Descend, descend, descend."" "Well, that's pretty clear." "It's not a cakewalk, is it?" "Namasté." "We set off next morning with high hopes - encouraged by the locals." "So far, so good." "Much of the trek seems either downhill or along the valley floor." "Wongchu puts up with this but doesn't really start to enjoy himself till it gets steep." " Lunch here, Wongchu?" " No." "Up the hill." "Swine." " Up the hill." " Not grass again." "I need a decent meal." "The porters, carrying our equipment in bamboo baskets, positively scamper up the mountain." "Wongchu follows them like a man who's late for work." "Wongchu, it's not the Olympic 100 metres." "(INDISTINCT REPLY)" "The view is spectacular." "You can clearly see why Machhapuchhare is called "Fishtail"." "Mercifully, Wongchu has allowed us a stop at one of the guesthouses on the route offering rare Nepalese dishes." "Thank you very much." "Boiled potato." " Is this from your garden?" " Yep." " Good." "That's very nice." " Looks very good." "Is this your lodge?" " Do you run it or do you just work here?" " Yep." "You have all nationalities up here." "Many countries." "You speak English." "Do you have to speak other languages?" "What other languages to you speak?" "Only a little bit English, and Gurung and Nepali." " That's all." " And you live up here?" " Yep." " All year round?" " No." " What happens in the winter?" " Go to Chhomrong." " Right." "You have family in Chhomrong?" " Do you carry things up here?" " Yep." "Sometimes." " Five to ten kilos." " Five to ten kilos?" "You're strong." "I'm very impressed." "I don't speak anything." "After lunch, the path becomes a bit of a roller-coaster - out of one valley and down into the next." "Blimey." "Wongchu sets a fast pace." "Mind you, he has been up Everest twice." "It's the afternoon now." "I think walking this morning was easier." "We stopped for lunch and it's hard to get started again." "Every step suddenly seems like 12." "The stairs, the steps, aren't regular, so you're going a different speed." "Anyway, stop moaning, Palin." "On you go." "You're enjoying the Himalaya." "(MICHAEL GROANS)" "Oh, wow." "We're getting higher up now." "I'm beginning to feel it." "Are we above 3,000 metres?" " Yes." "This is a nice place." " It is." "It's cool and shady." "What is it?" " This is Hinko cave." " Hindu cave?" " Hinko." " Sorry." "What's a Hinko?" "Hinko means some Hindu god and some Himalaya god living here." "That's what they call it." "Also the yeti lives here." " Yeti lives here?" "Go on!" "Really?" " Yes." " You believe in the yeti?" " I saw some yeti in the mountain." " What did it look like?" " It looked like a monkey and like people." " A big monkey?" "How big?" "How tall?" " Same like us." " Really?" "It wasn't some climber a bit lost?" " No climber." "Yeti." " Did it make a noise?" " Sometimes they say, "Eee!" like this." "So you'd know there was a yeti coming." "That is the most wonderful sight." "And if there's a yeti there..." " Let's go and have tea with the yeti." " Yes." "The yeti make the tea." "Yeti make the tea very nice." " Oh, dear." "If I can get down." " Be careful." "0ur dream home for the night is typical of the lodges that have sprouted up to cater for the trekkers." "The problem with these wonderful Himalayan viewpoints is that we can't see a thing." "Deorali looked so wonderfully inviting with the sun shining on it." "Then the clouds came down and now we can't see a thing." "It's also getting very cold." "On top of that, I'm not feeling great." "It might just be a cold, but it might well be to do with the effects of altitude." "Who knows?" "I feel quite weary." "And I know I'll have to take the path to Annapurna again soon, but for now I'll keep taking the trekking honey." "Rub it on, you'll feel a lot better." "Halfway through the trek, and for the first time some doubts are creeping into my mind." "(HOARSELY) Oh, dear." "I don't know how I'll go on today." "Last night was pretty awful." "I've got a throat like sandpaper." "And altitudes are unforgiving, from what I hear - things don't get any better as you go up." "There's nowhere else to go." "Nothing for it." "I hope I'll prove them wrong - that climbing does make you feel better." "We're entering the avalanche area." "When it snows, these sheer rock-faces are lethal." "Wongchu treats it with great respect." "He's seen people killed here." "I have my own private avalanches to deal with." "Waves of fatigue sweep over me, requiring increasingly regular breathers." "Ah, well, that's the camp." "That's Machhapuchhare." "Named after the glorious mountain up there - Fishtail Mountain." "A sacred mountain." "So sacred that they don't kill animals here." "They have an entirely vegetarian diet." "Anyway, it's sublime and wonderful scenery to be totally and completely knackered in." "The last few thousand feet have taken it out of me." "I don't know if it's just this cold or the altitude." "This is partly acclimatising to much higher areas we're gonna be going into." "We're going up to Everest and that's much higher, so I hope it's not altitude sickness." "I'm knackered to a standstill." "I had to give my pack to somebody." "I've become like a patient being carried up the hill... (COUGHS)" "Cut to scenery." "It takes me another hour to reach Machhapuchhare base camp where everyone seems infuriatingly happy." "Wongchu, thank you." "I couldn't have done it without you." " Excuse me, sir." "This is your tent." " I just want to collapse somewhere." " This is your tent." "Please." " Yes." "Lovely." "I haven't the energy to get in at the moment." "I'm so pleased we're here." " Look at that." "Fantastic." " Please." "Mmm." "Almost worth it." " Thank you." "Very good." " Would you like more?" "No, no." "I'll just take this." "My lungs are telling me we're high." "We're over 12,000 feet, and the view of the Annapurna Sanctuary is a revelation." "Nine of these summits are above 23,000 feet." "(GUIDE) On the left it's Hiunchuli - our trekking peak." "Trekking peak?" "You could walk up to that?" "Individual people can climb it with the Sherpas." " Looks terrifying to me." " It takes a couple of days to climb." "(PALIN) There's huge snowfields up there on the rim." "Tomorrow when we get to the Annapurna BC, we can see all the glacier up there." "Sensational." "I feel we're in the Himalayas now." "I haven't felt it quite yet." "We've been in the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, but this is it." "Coughing fit again in the Himalaya." "Can I have a lie-down, please?" "Sometime in the night, my cold turns a corner." "By the time Mingmar shakes my tent to see if I'm still in it," "I'm up and about and meeting with my fellow mountaineers." " Is your friend climbing Annapurna?" " Yeah." "He is the leader of the expedition." " It is the last 8,000-metre mountain." "Last one." " Have they got up?" "The Annapurna south face is the last 8,000-metre in Nepal, in the world." "And has he summited it?" "He's got to the top?" " I hope." " We don't know." " Tomorrow." " So it's an exciting day for you." " Yeah." "Big party." " Fantastic." " I hope he made it." " OK." "See you." "Good climbing." "I hope your friends do well." " Thank you." " OK." "See you." "They're proper climbers." "I'm just a terrible fraud, really, but there you go." "The sun may be bright on Annapurna but it's bitterly cold." "0ur porters are dressed for the plains and they're carrying loads of anything up to 40 kilos." "Here we go." "Oh!" "I can just about lift that." "Thank you." "Oh, my God." "Unbelievable." "Superhuman." "I don't see how a body can cope with all that." "I suppose once it's up there, you're OK." "A smile." "OK." "Well, good on you." "Respect." "And there's me not even carrying my toothbrush." "I can't quite believe it." "The end is in sight." "Annapurna base camp." "I'm so glad, despite the near collapse yesterday, that I made it, because it's just a stunning place and I would have missed all this." "The Annapurnas One, Two, Three and Four - very unimaginative." "Look at them." "Isn't that stunning?" "I think I'm going to get there." "I just have a feeling I'm going to make it." "Aagh!" "I suppose this symbolises our achievement over the last five days." "This is the summit of Annapurna, and it's just breathtaking, extraordinary, powerful scenery." "Despite everything, Annapurna has prepared me well." "At least I know what to expect, as we head for Kathmandu, Everest and beyond." "After the emptiness of the mountains, Kathmandu comes as quite a shock." "Almost a million live in Nepal's capital, built on the widest valley in the Himalaya." "(TRAFFIC NOISE)" "Kathmandu must be used to crowds." "It's the meeting place for traders between India and Tibet." "When Nepal opened up to the world in the 1960s, the spirit of tolerance that drew the hippies sparked a tourist invasion." "For me, the dazzling surprise is the beauty of the old buildings." "These are the work of the Newar people." "They invented the pagoda and took it to China." "In Durbar Square in the old city of Patan, local newspaper editor Kundar Dixit explains this rich heritage." "The mixture in Kathmandu valley, which is what's unique, is the mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism that gave rise to this almost tantric art." "It's a living place still?" "People do come here to offer prayers and all that?" "It's not a museum." "They used to say there are more temples in Kathmandu than houses and more gods than people." "That has changed now, but it's still a living place." "People go off to pray." "They live right around here." "(PALIN) So commerce goes on as well..." "Nepal's love affair with tourism is obvious, but there are clouds on the horizon." " As you can see, business is down." " Is it?" "I can't tell." "But I've heard that it's suffered because of the Maoist problems." "(KUNDAR) That too, but also internationally since 9/11, tourism is down." "The security nightmare is that the Maoists will bring their fight into the city." " Will there have to be a compromise?" " Absolutely." "There is no military solution." "In fact, both sides have said there is no military solution." "This is a very messy war in the world's most difficult terrain." "No one's going to win." "It's just going to take the country down." "It must be quite exciting for you as a newspaper man." "Do you feel that you're able to take quite an important part in the debate?" "We started our paper four years ago, just when the country started going to the dogs." "So maybe we're partly responsible for this!" "I think it's a tremendously exciting time to be here." "Nepal's press has never been freer, in a sense." "There used to be curbs on reporting, for example, on the monarchy, on the military." "There's none of that any more." "So there's a paradox." "There's an insurgency going on, but the press is totally free." "The prime minister has been sacked, parliament is in limbo, but the press is free." "So I think the challenge is to use that freedom to bring about change - social, political change - and spread consciousness about people's rights." "(DRUMS AND BELLS)" "We've been tipped off that the King is attending a ceremony tonight." "Security is tight." "King Gyanendra came to the throne less than three years ago after nine members of the royal family were murdered by the Crown Prince." "The threat of assassination is on everyone's mind." "This ceremony, in which the King accepts the blessings of the goddess Bhadrakali, is seen as a vital endorsement for the beleaguered monarchy." "Judging by the queues outside the Royal Palace next morning, the monarchy still has its supporters." "Along with Pratima Pande, a cousin of the King, I queued to receive his blessing at the important Hindu festival of Dasain." "(BAGPIPES PLAY)" "Looking a bit like a hotel receptionist, the King plants one tika after another on the foreheads of his people." "The tika - a mix of curd, rice and vermilion powder - is applied in strictly hierarchical order." "Ministers, politicians, politicians' wives, army generals and, to the King's surprise, English television presenters." "(SPEAKS NEPALl) Michael Palin..." "BBC..." " Your Majesty." " How do you do?" "And I get a handshake as well." " I hope you're enjoying our festival." " Absolutely." "We intend to enjoy the rest of Nepal." "Thank you." " (EXCITED SHOUTING)" " One, two, three..." "Apart from the bestowing of blessings," "Dasain is the only time Nepalis are allowed to gamble." " How do you count up what he's got?" " 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8." " Eight is divisible by four, so eight." " Right." "So he wins everybody's money now." "Cowry shells are shaken like dice and bets taken on how they fall." "1, 2, 3... 5, 6!" "The trouble is only one man ever seems to win." "He's won again?" "Why?" "I think..." "Pratima, I think I've been set up." "You've invited me here." "You've set me up." "Your husband's a banker." "You're trying to get British investment into the country." "I don't know." "Next morning, Pratima takes me to the more sober temple at Pashupatinath." "90% of Nepalese are Hindu and this is considered the holiest Hindu site outside India." "Across the river are the "ghats" where cremations take place in public." "The complex also includes an enclosure where holy men, dedicated to the Shiva, live in well-publicised seclusion." "What is this?" "This is like an ashram for the holy men." " Yes." " Sadhus." "Yes." "These are men who have renounced all their worldly possessions and belongings." " And dedicated their lives to this temple?" " And to Lord Shiva." "They are dressed like Lord Shiva." "Their appearances are like that." "Lord Shiva smears himself with ash." "(CHANTING)" " How old are you, sir?" " I am 56 years." " 56 years." "And you've been 20 years here?" " Yes." "And were you a sadhu before that?" " Sadhu... 35 years." " 35 years?" " 86." " 86?" "Wow." "Great respect." "And 66 years all this hair." " 86 years without a razor." " (PRATIMA) Amazing." "Look at this." "He's very thin." "He's very thin." "Is he?" "Are you strong?" "Is he strong?" " Yes, yes." "He do yoga position." " He does yoga." "(PALIN) A yoga position." "I don't want him to if he doesn't want to." "I only hope I can get a leg over at 86." "At the ghats business is brisk, as funeral pyres and their attendants work flat out to cope with demand." "Every Hindu, every religious person, wants to come to Pashupatinath." "It is the place to be cremated." "Sons carry the body and walk barefeet and bring the body to Pashupatinath." "(PALIN) They walk through the town and bring the body here?" "There's no burial in the Hindu religions?" "It's always cremation." "(PRATIMA) They shave their heads also." "As a sign of mourning, you shave your heads - the men." "When the royal family all died, were they all cremated about the same time?" "(PRATIMA) Five of them were cremated on the same day here." "It was very sad and unbelievable." "Everyone was traumatised, put it that way." "The whole Nepali nation was traumatised." "What I see here is at first quite shocking." "Where I come from, death is in the hands of the professionals." "We send our loved ones away hidden in a box into a hidden fire." "Here, the reality of death is on full view, but their grief is the more moving because we all share it." "This morning there can be no more beating about the bush." "We can no longer put off the toughest part of the journey." "The time has come to cross the Himalaya." "We shall drive north across the border from the land of Maoists to the land of Mao, turning off the road to Lhasa and making for base camp at the north face of Everest." "The mountains close in and as we round one of the last corners in Nepal, there at the end of the valley is my first glimpse of Tibet." "But now it's the red flag of China that flies over its frontier." "Well, this is a very special place." "This is Friendship Bridge behind me, which connects Nepal and China." "It's one of only two crossing points in the Himalaya region - the other is the Khunjerab Pass on the Karakoram Highway, which was blocked." "So this is the only way of getting through the Himalayas on a major route." "Quite why we attempt a rear entry into China I'll never know." "It's all part of the usual border confusion." "Though I may not know where I'm going, I do know what I'm leaving behind." " Thank you so much." " You're welcome." "Thank you for getting me up there." "What happens now?" "Wongchu, say goodbye." "Don't leave me here!" "Don't leave me here." "How will I survive without you?" "What's your last message to me? "Eat food." "Always eat."" " Eat and drink." " OK." "But no alcohol." "No alcohol in the mountain." "0nce across the border we climb quickly out of the verdant valleys and on to the treeless lunar landscape of the Tibetan Plateau." "They call this the "roof of the world"" "and for the next few weeks I won't drop below 13,000 feet." "The prayer flags that mark the high passes show that, despite efforts by the Chinese in the 1960s and '70s, religion still exists here." "What no longer exists is a country called Tibet." "We are now in what is officially the "Tibet Autonomous Region" - a part of the People's Republic of China." "Whatever you call it, it's a land of superlatives." "Wow!" "Look at that. (LAUGHS)" "Wow!" "Well, great moment - my first view of Everest, apart from photos in restaurants and things like that." "And just the most glorious, mighty view." "It's the very heart of the Himalayas out there." "Giant mountains - four or five of them over 8,000 metres." "And Everest there just slightly touched by the cloud." "But absolutely epic." "It really does make it all worthwhile." "It's also the highest I've ever been in my life." "I'm at about 5,300 metres now, which is over 17,000 feet." "So a big first." "And the sun's shining!" "Unbelievable." "Now all we've got to do is get there." "Everything is abruptly different up here." "From the buildings - whitewashed in Buddhist style - to the look of the people - Mongolian rather than Indian." "(HAPPY SINGING)" "In one village a festival has just begun." "My Tibetan guide, Migmar, tells me they can go on for days." "So we have to hire some yaks from local people." " Some yaks?" " Yes." "It's been difficult to get permission to film in Tibet and everything we do will be monitored, but as Migmar explains our plans, this only adds to the sense of adventure." "Between Everest base camp and the monastery there are eight kilometres, so we need to hire some yaks from that monastery to carry our equipment to Everest base camp." "The yaks don't mind the height?" "They can survive in very cold, high altitude." " Yak normally like high altitude." " Yeah." "They do." "If they go down, they feeling not so good." "(VEHICLE APPROACHES)" "A road takes us close to Everest base camp." "It was built by the Chinese to support their successful ascent of the north face in 1960." "Rongbuk consists of a monastery, half a street, a guesthouse and an almost unbelievable view of the highest point on the planet." "This is the highest monastery in the world." "It's just been rebuilt to replace a much older one destroyed, along with thousands of others in Tibet, during the Cultural Revolution." "The monastery is home to 30 monks and 30 nuns." "(LOW CHANTING)" "It's hard to imagine what degree of devotion enables them to survive the bitter cold and isolation up here." "(PALIN) It's a cold, cold place." "I've brought you this." "The gift I present to the abbot seems to offer a clue." "It's a Thangka - a painted scroll from Kathmandu." "It depicts the Buddha - the Enlightened 0ne." "They look at it with real affection." "The harder their life, the closer it brings them to an understanding of him." "What Buddha would have made of the guesthouse I don't know." "Run by the monks, it's spartan, to say the least." "The consolation is having Everest as my neighbour." "The weather looks good enough for a climb up to base camp tomorrow" " Sunday." "The good news is our transport's arrived." "(FAINT BELLS)" "The only problem with being so close to Everest is that you're very high up and there's very little oxygen and you have to breathe very hard." "When you're dozing off, suddenly you wake up gasping for breath, trying to get that oxygen in." "So it's actually bloody uncomfortable at night." "I know Everest is out the window, but I'd exchange it for something two foot off the ground if it had showers and a flushing toilet." "Conditions next morning are perfect." "Prayers for our safety have been hung up to be carried with the wind up to the gods." "I find walking quite an effort at this height, but as we head towards Everest, I've a feeling that adrenaline will overcome altitude." "I don't know if it's the yaks or the Everest effect or the fact that I don't have a cold, but I'm rather enjoying this." "We're higher than at Annapurna and I'm feeling good." "So I think I'll go a little further up Everest, as they say." "See you." "Hang on!" "(GUIDES CALL AND WHISTLE AT YAKS)" "Sunday lunch is taken at a little over 17,000 feet." "(MIGMAR) This is what we call black tea." "And sampa and butter." "They are leading very simple life." "In countryside or here it's same like this." "Breakfast, lunch and dinner almost all we have is sampa." " What's sampa?" "Oh, barley." " Barley." "Does that make a drink or to eat?" " To eat." "Here's black tea." " Thank you." " Would you like some yak butter?" " Yak butter in it?" "Yes." "I'll have a bit of yak butter." "Does it make it taste better or taste worse?" "Thank you." "Cheers to you all." "Thanks, guys, very much, for getting us up this far." "I don't think much further for me." " Mmm." " Nice?" "Yes, it's good, actually." "It's salty." "Salty tea." "Do these guys have anything other than tea that warms them up on the way?" "They have some chang here." "Barley beer." " Barley beer." " Chang." "Is it good?" "The tea was good." " Would you like to try?" " Yeah." "A rather attractive bottle." "So this is made of barley?" "Fermented barley." "Right." "Lovely." "A bit of chang." "OK." "Cheers." "Down the hatch." "Bottoms up, as they say in the Sahara." "Wow." "Oh..." "Mmm." "It's very cold." "Cold and strong and quite appley." "What do you think I am, an alcoholic?" " Usually we do this." " (PALIN) What do you do?" "First, this is for Buddha." "Second for God." "Third one for heaven." "Then you can..." " Three times." " OK." " The first one for Qomolangma." " I should take my gloves off." "First one for Qomolangma, which is what the Tibetans call Everest." "Qomolangma." "OK?" " Next one for Buddha?" " Yeah." " For Buddha, the great Buddha." " Third one for humans." "For humans?" "Third one for human beings." "Right." "And then drink." "Ah." "That's great." "It's like a sort of appley ginger beer." " It doesn't feel strong." "Is it strong?" " Very strong." "One of the great events of my childhood was the conquest of Everest in 1953, but I can remember being even more fascinated by the idea that Everest might have been climbed 30 years before." "In 1924, a guy called George Mallory made base camp here for an attempt on the north face of Everest." "A few weeks later, he and his partner, Andrew Irvine, were observed disappearing into a cloud a few hundred yards from the summit." "Neither of them were ever seen again." "It's one of the great mysteries - did they climb Everest in 1924?" "I'm not going to attempt anything like that." "I think I'll call it quits here at Everest base camp." "But the yak herders are such lovely people that we might just tag along for a bit." "Much has been written of the lure of Everest and though I don't have the energy to dance," "I do feel a quickening of the heart the closer we come to the mountain." "It's easier if we forget that Everest was named after a Victorian map-maker and call this mighty mountain by her Tibetan name." "Qomolangma" " Goddess Mother of the Earth." "Next time on "Himalaya", I cross the Tibetan Plateau." "See inside great monasteries." "Land up in Lhasa, a forbidden city." "Watch kung fu debating and spinning prayer wheels." "Attempt a builder's line dance." "Icy pilgrims." "Holy lakes on the roof of the world." "Tibet's equivalent of the Eurovision Song Contest." "And all the fun of the horse fair." ""Himalaya" - entertainment at the highest level." "Hmm." "Everest, as we know it, or Qomolangma as the Tibetans know it, has been good to us, but now it's time for me to head to the heartland of Tibet." "I'm going to take the high road to Lhasa." "The Tibetan Plateau, shielded by the Himalaya from the monsoon rains to the south, is a virtual desert, nearly three miles above sea level." "We shall cross it to Yushu - the northernmost point of our journey." "Shigatse boasts the country's second biggest monastery, Tashilhunpo - home to the second most powerful monk in Tibet, the Panchen Lama." "In contrast to the dry hills around, the lush decoration is evidence that religion is not just important, it's at the heart of Tibetan life." " It's an amazing palace here." " Is that the biggest monastery in Tibet?" " I suppose Lhasa's got bigger." " Yes." "I visit Tashilhunpo on a cold, bright morning with my Tibetan guide, Migma." "This has belonged to..." "How can I say?" "...Gelugpa order, Gelugpa sect." "There are 800 monks here." "New ones seem to be joining all the time." "It's an honour for a family to send their sons to Tashilhunpo." "Monasteries are usually like a college or a university." "The monks can study Tibetan medicine and philosophy, history, something like that." "Tibetan culture, also astrology." "So a Tibetan master or doctor graduated usually from a monastery." "I see." "So the top professional people in Tibet would have been monastery educated." "Exactly." "Graduated from a monastery." "Did it make Shigatse very important or was it an important city anyway?" "Yes." "This city has 500 years old." "It is the second biggest city in Tibet." " Why was it so important?" " This is the Panchen Lama's residence." "(PALIN) The Panchen Lama, who's the second spiritual leader." "(MIGMA) There are two spiritual teachers - the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama." "The Dalai Lama is living in Lhasa in central Tibet and this belongs to western Tibet." "At what age do the boys get sent away to the monks?" " Most of them, six years old." " Six?" " Yes." "Six years old." " Are they allowed to go back home?" "Er..." "Just one time a year." "Religion dictates everything, including the colour scheme." "Why is that there when everything else is white?" "Why is that colour there?" " The red colour?" " Yeah." "The red colour is to symbolise the temple." "Inside is an important Buddha." "The white colours there is no Buddha, just a dormitory for the monks." " I see." "The temple only would be painted?" " Yes." "This Buddha is 80 feet high and reputedly the biggest gilded copper statue in the world." "It attracts pilgrims from all over Tibet." "In Buddhism you get better karma the more you come here?" " Yes." " And the better your next life will be?" "Yes." "They hope from the Buddha they get some power or wisdom and for their next life it's better." "(VIBRATING RING)" "Lamps, signifying the light of wisdom and purification, are fed with yak butter." "So this statue is 27 metres high and 11 metres wide." " It's fantastic." " Made from copper." "So it's very important, the act of pilgrimage, in Tibet still?" "Yes." "Some pilgrims come every day because the monastery is very close to their town." "Local people come every day." "Pilgrims are kept to two of the staircases." "The middle one can only be used by the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama." "This may be his home but, after a disputed succession, no one knows where the new Panchen Lama is." "The Dalai Lama's candidate mysteriously disappeared and a rival Chinese candidate is hardly ever seen." "Heading east out of Shigatse, the road leads to Gyantse - a town which grew rich from the wool trade with India and remains one of the best preserved of all the old Tibetan cities." "100 years ago, Tibetans gathered on these walls to repel an invasion." "Not by the Chinese, but by the British." "The Viceroy of India, irritated by having a "closed country" so near his northern border, sent an army in to open it up." "Francis Younghusband crossed the mountains with 10,000 men." "After fierce fighting on the plain below, the fortress fell, allowing the British to take Gyantse and move on to Lhasa - puncturing Tibetan pride and ending their isolation." " Ooh-ah." " Let's sit here." "A tea bar and a ball of string." "This is the old... the markets of Gyantse." "Is there still a wool trade or clothing or anything here?" "Today most of the wool is carried to Lhasa, so now we can see no wool." "Just clothes we can buy here." "Yeah." "I read an amazing thing in a guide book, which said that before synthetic materials, beards for the Santa Clauses in American department stores were made of yak fur." "It doesn't seem to be a particularly big, thriving city." "It's busy here, but the city seems to be quieter now." "Yes." "Because from Nepal to Lhasa, the main way is not here." "It's changed after maybe 20 years." "I leave Gyantse with some regret." "There's a real sense of history here - of the days when Tibetans were monks, merchants and warriors." "Tibet is not a cosy country." "The centres of population are few and far between and separated by hundreds of miles of wild and astonishingly beautiful landscape." "Tibetans have great respect for their surroundings." "Mountains are goddesses and lakes are sacred." "My first sight of Lhasa - once called the Forbidden City - suggests very little is forbidden any longer." "Chinese communism has created a capitalist paradise and Lhasa's now about as dark and mysterious as Disneyland." "But all is not lost." "In the heart of the city is one of the most charismatic buildings in the world." "13 storeys high, it looms over Lhasa like a giant Buddha." "Chairman Mao wanted to blow it up and I can see why." "If a nation could be symbolised by a single structure, Tibet was the Potala Palace." "I can remember seeing this extraordinary building in photos in my encyclopedia." "Quite unlike anything else I'd seen - the essence of foreignness." "Of course I never expected to see it because at that time Tibet was closed." "Now I can come here, but the Dalai Lama, whose palace it was, has gone and it's now just a museum." "The Potala Palace was completed in the 17th century and no expense was spared to make it a home fit for a God-King." "Before skyscrapers, the Potala Palace was the tallest building in the world." "Everything had to be carried up these endless stairs." "0n the roof, you'll find the most enchanting of all the palace's 1,000 rooms - the Eastern Sunshine Apartment." "This was the Dalai Lama's bedroom." "From here he could be the first in Lhasa to catch the rays of the morning sun." "If ever there was a place to feel monarch of all you survey, this was surely it." "It's almost half a century since the present Dalai Lama, the 14th, looked out over his city for the last time." "He'd probably recognise very little of it now." "0nly the heart of the old city has staved off the encircling concrete." "The Barkhor - the market area of old Lhasa - remains the most important meeting place for Tibetans." "But now they're outnumbered in their own city by Chinese immigrants and things will never be quite the same again." "During the past 20 years, the Barkor has really changed, completely changed." "That's because, you can see, there are so many... businesses, all shops here around Barkor." "There are no families living." "Just the second floor there are people living." "I see." "So there are fewer Tibetan families here, more businesses." "Owned by Chinese?" "There are Tibetan also." "Some Muslim people." " Oh, right." " Also Han people." " So the Chinese have put money in here?" " Yeah." "The Chinese authorities have failed to curb the Tibetans' devotion to their religion." "Pilgrims still prostrate themselves in front of the Jokhang - the most sacred temple - or do the "kora" - the traditional walk around it." "Why are so many people here at this particular spot?" "This is holiest palace in Tibet." "This temple we call the Jokhang is Buddha's house." "That means "Buddha's house"." "They say a third of all Tibet's dairy produce once went into the creation of butter lamps." "The Chinese, anxious to drag Tibet into the modern world, banned their use." "Now they've relaxed the rules and butter's back in a big way." "These people who are doing the kora here, they look like they're out of town." " Have they come from the countryside?" " Exactly." "Most of them from the Kham area, eastern part of Tibet, and at this time the eastern part of Tibet is a nomad's area, so in winter time there is no more work." "The pilgrim's progress can take many different forms." "Prostration is an important way of gaining merit and some spend years dragging themselves to Lhasa." "Tell me about the significance of the juniper and those incense burners." "The smoke is next to the sky and the earth, so the Buddha believes that smoke comes down to earth." "So it makes a route between earth and sky." "Right." "This is from Tibetan native religion, not Buddhism." " That's before Buddhism?" " That's Shamanism." "I like the idea of that - you put in some juniper and create this roadway." "Migma and I break our kora at a cafe." " He is teacher." " Yeah." "This was the haunt of Tsangyang Gyatso, the sixth and naughtiest Dalai Lama, from whom, a Western traveller noted," ""no girl, married woman or good-looking person of either sex was safe."" "He stayed with his girlfriends." "He wrote several books of love songs." " This was his place for romantic trysts." " Exactly." " Wow." "Did he have any children?" " No." " It was platonic." "They just read books." " Yeah." "Maybe for his writing he needed to have some idea from girls." " So he wrote poetry?" " Yeah." "Have you read it?" "What's it like?" "Actually, he's very clever and very funny." " Ah, yes." " The sixth Dalai Lama." "Well, Dalai Lamas don't have girlfriends any more." "The sixth Dalai Lama especially!" "Potala Square, a windswept, open space of the sort beloved by the Chinese, was created to mark the 30th anniversary of the day Tibet ceased to exist and became instead the Tibet Autonomous Region of China." "30 years in which a deeply conservative, religious society was rudely forced to confront the modern world." "For an insider's view of these traumatic years," "I've been given permission to talk to Taschi Tsering." "0nce imprisoned by the Chinese, he remained in Tibet and became the first Professor of English at Lhasa University." "I am at the right place." "How do you do, Taschi?" "I'm very pleased to meet you." " Thank you." " Honoured to meet you." "When I was in Lhasa... early '50s... the Chinese Revolutionary Army arrived." "When first they came I was so curious... shocking and curious." "Then also they started building roads and establishing some small clinics..." "Then at the same time they were propagating all kinds of "isms"." "Like feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism - all these isms." "Which I had never heard of before and made me even more curious." "And I started to think that definitely Tibet - the Tibetans, their life... bound to be changed." "(NEWSREEL) The peasants of Tibet, who lived like animals in serfdom, have stood up." "The joyful days which they have long dreamed about are here at last." "The serfs are now free." "The government issues seeds as interest-free loans." "These are truly the seeds of happiness." "(PALIN) But the seeds bore a bitter fruit." "After the Chinese invasion, the Dalai Lama - then a 16-year-old God-King - was stripped of his political power as Mao made no secret of his dislike for religion." "The Dalai Lama met Chairman Mao in Beijing to discuss how Tibet should be reformed." "It seemed amicable enough for a while, but in 1959 things came to a head." "A Tibetan uprising began and was brutally suppressed." "It was the end to any pretence of Tibetan independence." "The Dalai Lama, facing imprisonment or death if he stayed in Lhasa, fled his palace." "Heavily disguised, he and a few trusted followers made their escape across the Plateau and through the Himalaya to the safety of India." "The Dalai Lama never returned." "Taschi, being educated in India, was asked to work with him, but he had other ideas." "A lot of Tibetan exiles were staying away from Tibet." "You chose to come back in 1964." "Why was that?" "I began to think about... accepting the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." "And after some time, I was thinking to take the socialist road." "For what?" "For coming back to Tibet, to cooperate with them, to modernise Tibet, to raise the living standards of the Tibetans." "When I came back, I ran into the Cultural Revolution, and at the end of that I was labelled an American spy and an advocator of Tibetan independence." "OK?" "Then I was thrown into prison and, you know... a few years until Deng Xiaoping - the rise of Deng Xiaoping's power." "So since then, now over 20 years, more than 20 years..." "I'm glad that this government, even though it did not trust me, however, they are not bothering me." "Nor are they bothering the Buddhists." "Politically and economically secure, the Chinese government is now happy to keep Tibet's monasteries open." "This walled garden is in Sera Monastery." " Wow." " (NOISY HUBBUB)" "That is a wonderful sight." "If you want a good argument, you've come to the right place." "Mass debating!" "The Buddha said that his word should never be accepted without question, so the monks developed a verbal martial art - trading propositions instead of punches." "Who's debating what?" " This is debating Buddhism philosophy." " Philosophy, yeah." "Sitting monks usually give the answer..." "ask the question." " The sitting monk asks the question." " The standing monk gives the answer." " Yeah." " So to do this means, "You are wrong."" " Right." " My answer is correct." "So the more points you can make, the better because you demolish this man's argument." "You say, "You're wrong."" "In this school of argument, if you get really worked up, you punch yourself." "Yes." "JJ is the place, is it, for the end of a long day?" "My time in the capital is drawing to a close, and looking for a last chance to taste the delights of the big city," "Migma and I head for Lhasa's top nightclub." "(ORIENTAL MUSIC AND SINGING)" "Beers are bought in slabs of 12." "The audience is treated to Tibetan culture seen through a showbiz filter." "(SPEAKS TIBETAN)" "Later on it gets truly weird and I find myself experiencing profound feelings of déjà vu." "0h, nol 0h, my Godl It's the Eurovision Song Contestl" "(POUNDING POP SONG)" "Migma tells me she's 19 and studying architecture." "Early in the morning of my final day in Lhasa, I'm up in the hills above the city." "This is Nechung, once the home of the State 0racle - the third most important monk in Tibet." "He fled to India with the Dalai Lama and now his monastery, destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, is being restored." "The work is all done by hand - and sometimes foot as well." "(CHANTING)" "Here a work team flattens out a clay floor with a sort of restoration line dance." "They even have people here on work experience." "The walls are like libraries, covered in images intended to teach as well as decorate." "It's more than a monastery that's being preserved." "It's a culture which, thanks to Chinese communism, at one time seemed dangerously close to extinction." "Leaving Lhasa, we pass works that will have profound implications for Tibet - the foundations of a 700-mile railway across the high Plateau." "From 2008, the year of the Beijing 0lympics, high-speed trains will, for the first time, connect Lhasa with the Chinese rail network." ""For the benefit," says the poster, "of all the peoples of China."" "As one ethnic group, the Han, makes up 91% of all Chinese, it's clear who'll benefit most from this impressive feat of engineering." "About 100 miles north of Lhasa, amid swirling steam," "I discover a totally unexpected Nirvana." "Oh!" "Oh, wonderful!" "The problem with Tibet is it's a very big place and very difficult to heat and this is the first time I've been warm in two weeks." "I've had to come to this Olympic-sized swimming pool north of Lhasa, at about 14,000 feet, to really be warm!" "And it's lovely!" "Who needs clothes when you've got the hot springs?" "Ah ha ha!" "Oh!" "Not all the water on the Plateau is as friendly." "These are the icy shores of Namtso Lake - 15,000 feet, 4,700 metres, above sea level." "(M0T0RCYCLE APPR0ACHES)" "Namtso, Tibet's largest salt-water lake, is a very cold, very holy, very busy place." "Well, it really says something for the dedication and devotion of Tibetan pilgrims that here at Namtso Lake on the onset of winter, when it's really cold and windy out here, that they've all turned out." "Because it's a very important lake, this is a very important year - the Year of the Sheep - and it's an auspicious year for people to come to the lake and do the kora - the devotional walk." "There's so many of them, so there must be something in it." "I'll join in and see." "Namtso is one of the four sacred lakes of Tibet and great merit is gained from braving the ferocious elements to come here." "There's one circuit for day trippers, but the truly dedicated can circuit the lake itself." "That's an 18-day walk." "Having walked with people in this numbing cold," "I found myself puzzled and a little envious of the degree of devotion that can turn such a remote and unforgiving lake shore into a sanctuary." "(HERDERS WHISTLE)" "The only other signs of life around Namtso Lake are the herds of yak, for whom extreme cold is a perfect environment." "I'd been warned to be wary of yaks." "They look docile but can get dangerously perky." "In return for help with the herding, Ganden, the local cattle baron, invites me in for a yak snack of butter tea and a slice of dried thigh." "And that luxury of luxuries, a fire." "Yaks, he says, are a man's best friend and provide him and his family with wool, milk, cheese." "He's a nomad, not a farmer, and life is very hard." "Most of the year they live outside in extreme weather, cold and snow." "Luckily, he tells me, the Communist Party of China helps him overcome these hardships and he's very grateful." "I think I've just walked into a commercial." "400 miles north-east of Lhasa, summer has arrived on the Plateau and the yak are fattening themselves up." "Sonam and his brother are moving their herd to make the best of the fresh pasture." "The easy way to do it is on the family motorbike." "Sonam's wife prefers the traditional methods - a whistle and a clod of earth on the side of the head." "I just pretend I'm a tour guide." "I'm not a natural farm boy but, this being a busy time, I offer them my limited skills." "Nothing seems to be happening." "I'm unqualified for milking of any kind, let alone yak milking." "Come on, then." "There you go." "Yes." "There you go." "Come on, come on." "Just a drop." "Just a little drop." "Sonam says I must be firmer with the udders." "Which ones do I?" "There's so many." "OK." "All right?" "Yeah?" "I'm not milking a yak, of course, because a yak is actually the male." "So this is a "dri"." "A dri is what you milk." "There we are..." "There we go." " Soon have enough for a cappuccino!" " (SONAM LAUGHS)" "He's a bit of an enigma is Sonam." "Does he always wear a suit or is it just 'cause we're here?" "The relationship between man and yak seems almost embarrassingly one-sided." "Yaks provide milk, cheese, butter, meat, fuel, fur, rope, skins and transport and in return they get a bell and a very silly haircut." "Ah, thank you." "It's a bit warmer in here than out there." "Hello." "Hello, little ones." "I'm Michael." "Not that you're interested." "The tent that is their summer home is predictably yak dependent." "It's made from their hair and heated by their droppings." "I've come from the winter pasture to the summer pasture which is actually where you only spend about three months of the year." "I got a bit of yak-herding practice and milking practice." "This is incredible." "This is a yak-hair tent." "Everything you see here - there's cupboards, sideboards, all these big pots - everything is brought on the back of a yak, isn't it?" "And this is where you spend your summer with your family out on the fields there." "It may look warm but it was quite chilly this morning." "I could use this hot tea." "Somehow, Sonam, although you can't speak my language and I can't speak yours, we somehow know what we're on about." "Eating, sharing food together, children." "Children are always the same." "Always one's going like that and the other one's going, "Waah!"" "It's the same in England, the same in Tibet." "Funny thing that, isn't it?" "Who needs phrase books?" "Hello." "Hello." "I like to think my help can give the family a bit of a breather, even if I do feel a bit like the au pair." "The whole pace of life sort of changes up here." "Most of the things they do, most of the movements, are fairly leisurely, like this." "Making the cheese." "There's no great rush." "Lots of gossiping goes on, of course, outside." "But those of us who are stuck in the kitchen get into this rather gentle rhythm and it's awfully pleasant." "This would probably be the major occupation of the day for somebody." "It beats presenting." "(MACHINE WHIRRS)" "Oi!" "I saw that." "I saw that." "That's what happens when I leave it." "It gets a mind of its own." "You... stop!" "Cheese, in the bowl." "I saw that." "And your friend." "All right." "Hey!" "Right over!" "It'll be in the camera." "It wants to be stirred." "OK." "All right." "I understand your point of view." "You three are the troublemakers." "No problems here at all." "Oi!" "You're a new one." "You're a stroppy, difficult one." "I'm not having you in my cheese." "So there!" "Hello again." "Don't look so sad." "I've come here to work." "Must be making butter in there." "How does that work?" "Yeah." "No, this is one I haven't done." "Excuse me." "Is it just?" "Push it down?" "You show me." "Right down." "Yeah." "And then up." "Good." "A good manly plunge." "I wonder how long you have to do this for." "A long time?" "An hour?" "Two hours?" "She says yes." "At the end of it, it's delicious butter." "I somewhat reluctantly tear myself away from the warm bosom of Sonam's family." "He's agreed to give me a ride to the horse fair in the nearby town of Yushu." "OK." "We don't bother waiting for the bus." "After days on the sparsely populated Plateau, the metropolis of Yushu comes as a culture shock." "A town springing out of nowhere, alive and buzzing with shops, restaurants and hotels." "And next door, another town is taking shape." "The horse fair outside Yushu is the biggest gathering on the Tibetan Plateau." "Few people can make a living on the Roof of the World, but those that do have come here, often from hundreds of miles away, to meet and celebrate." "Nomads bring their tents and their families here to meet other nomads they'll probably never see for the rest of the year." "The atmosphere is a mixture of home comforts, holiday-camp jollity and Highland games, with the yaks joining in." "Not always happily." "There are retail opportunities with an expanding high street of cafes, stalls, businesses and sideshows." "Elaborately decorated tents go up, creating a bizarre mix of Henley Regatta and the Wild West." "Much of the time is just spent hanging out." "A woman has moved her cafe from Yushu to the fairground." "It's here that I meet Sonam's English-speaking friend, Duker, from whom I learn more about the secret life of a yak herder." "When he was a teenager, did he come here to meet girls?" "For instance!" "(TRANSLATES INTO TIBETAN)" "Yeah." "He met lots of girls." "Did he fall in love with any of these girls or were these just girls he met?" "He did fall in love?" "Did she find the love of her life here?" "Yes." "She says that is her privacy." "Oh, I see." "That's fair enough." "Let's talk about politics..." "Oh, no, no." "(MUSIC OVER P.A.)" "The opening ceremony is all about politics." "Local administrators join with members of the People's Liberation Army to mark the achievements of the Chinese government in opening up the west and providing a brighter future for the people of this benighted land." "(BAND PLAYS CHINESE NATIONAL ANTHEM)" "As the Chinese National Anthem dies away, a good old socialist drive-past begins, which could be in Red Square or Tiananmen Square." "Whilst massed tractors and farm vehicles roll by, the commentary - in Chinese and Tibetan - extols the miracles of modernisation and the promise of even better days ahead." "(CHILDREN CHANT)" "The children seem to be having a ball, but the discreet presence of authority seems to inhibit some of the older participants." "These are Khampa people - the only Tibetans to put up any serious resistance to the Chinese "liberation"." "I wonder what Sonam makes of all this." "What does he love best about it?" " The horses." " Oh, right." "Yeah. 'Cause of your yaks and all that." "Is he a horseman as well?" " Yes." " Does he do the musket?" "Do you do the firing?" " No, never." " That's dangerous." " It's a bit dangerous." " He's got a wife and family!" "But plenty of people will do it, with impressive results." "But the gathering up of the scarves gives the horsemen a few problems." "OK." "Where are we going now?" " We are going to see some coral." " What's?" " Coral." " Coral?" "Coral?" "I know what coral is." "As we both need a break from the fair, Duker takes me shopping in town." "It's motorbike land." "Like the Wild West but without horses and motorbikes instead." " Look at this one." " Oh, right." "Hello." "What are these?" "You wear these, do you?" " Do you wear them?" " Yes." "It's a necklace." "Right." "Like an amulet sort of thing." "For example, this coral, the dark red, is very expensive." " This is the real "zu"." " Yeah." " And these are?" " Yes." "It's a zu." " What's it called?" " Zu." "Zu." "If you have a zu touch your body, it can protect you." "Oh, right." "How much are they?" " 30,000 yuan." " 30,000 yuan." "Wow." "So..." "Ten to a dollar." "That's about $3,000." "More than $3,000." "30,000 yuan divided by ten." "That would be $3,000, wouldn't it?" "Am I right?" "I always get this wrong." "Much nodding from the financial department." "Can we afford one?" "No." "I thought not." "Half?" "You should be in a bank." "You've got so much money around your neck." "You should have security guys." "Maybe they are." "I don't think I want a zu." "I wouldn't mind a "zzz" but not a zu." "By now we've caught the attention of the men in hats." "It's time to move on." "What sort of things are they buying and selling?" " It's caterpillar fungus." " Caterpillar fungus?" " It's very expensive." " Can we see it?" " It's a very expensive herb medicine." " Oh, right." "Can I touch it?" "Yeah." " You see it's an insect, actually." " Yes." " Yes." "There's the head." " And six feet here." "You'll notice some feet." "What is so good?" "What's this?" "The caterpillar's tail?" " No." "This part is." " What is that?" "Grass." "So in the ground it's like that one." "So it comes out like this." " Why is it so valuable?" " It's medicine." "Herb medicine." " What does it cure?" " Everything." "Everything?" "No wonder it's so good." "Will it cure filming sickness brought on by deep fatigue?" " Yeah, you can..." " Only joking." " Can I have 30's worth?" " How much you have?" "The caterpillar fungus, or cordyceps sinensis, sets me back a pound a shot." "Still, if it cures everything." "Thank you." "Very precious." "I'll go and sell them to somebody else now." "(EVIL LAUGHTER)" "Let's go now." "Back at the fairground, in the world of parasols, there's still plenty going on." "Stimulated by the scent of burning juniper," "Duker and I investigate one of Tibet's less well-known pastimes - hoop-la." " One yuan each." "Five yuan for six." " OK." "Let's have three each." "Six." "Every prize is a packet of cigarettes, which for a non-smoker like me is a bit of a bummer." "(DUKER) Go, go, go." " Oh!" " Hey." "Do you smoke?" "No." "We've found the only tobacco hoop-la." "Is there any sort of luncheon meat or smoked oysters down here?" " Cigarette, cigarette..." " Ah, no." "What with this and things like karaoke, there are a number of outside influences on what is essentially a Tibetan festival, and I wonder if Duker has problems with this." "Do you think it's a danger that you lose the Tibetan culture, if people all speak Chinese as well, Tibetan will become less important to people?" "Yes, probably, if you do only speak Chinese, or if Tibetans only speak Chinese and English, then we will lose." "But now we are learning Chinese and Tibetan both, so, yeah, we are still keeping our culture." "Actually, we're trying." "So the Chinese and Tibetans mix quite happily?" " Happily?" "You mean harmony?" " Yeah." "In harmony." "Yes." "It's fine now." "Really fine." " Was it difficult to get that... harmony?" " Not difficult." " Was it always like that?" " Yeah." "It's fine." "For me, I didn't really feel any tension or..." "No." "It's just getting along well." "So your son in 50 years' time, he will be as Tibetan as you were and as Tibetan as your father was?" "My son, if I have a chance, I would like him to get the best education." "That means he has to learn Tibetan, Chinese and English also and, if possible, I will send him to the best university in Peking..." " Oxford!" " OK." "So that's right." "So if he goes off to own a multinational in Shanghai and London, you wouldn't mind?" "No." "Never mind where he is, if he has a better life, it's fine." "You wouldn't like it if he forgot how to speak Tibetan." "No, he would not, because I will let him have a very deep feeling about Tibetan when he is in childhood." " Yeah." "Well..." " His childhood, yes." "I liked being up on the Plateau." "I enjoyed that." "That was much better than being in noisy London." "We can't all have everything we want." "I never thought Tibet would ever remind me of my summer holidays, but it does." "There's a similar atmosphere here to going away to Norfolk and picking a beach hut, and there were people next door - "Who's coming this year?"" "It's that same feeling here, of people letting their hair down for a few days, and it's not just that it's picnics and tents." "It's also people dressed to the nines, the parades and all that sort of thing." "What I sense here is an extra intensity to the enjoyment because for eight months of the year this is such a severe life on the Plateau that when they do get together, they obviously know how to party." "(LIVELY MUSIC)" "This is the Yangtze River where it gathers momentum for the 4,000-mile journey from here to the sea." "This is the farthest north I shall be going on the Tibetan Plateau." "We'll now follow the Yangtze south until it reaches the eastern edge of the Himalaya." "Next time on "Himalaya", I brave the whirlpools of the Yangtze, walk the Tiger Leaping Gorge, see what the doctor orders, learn seduction techniques and join a Chinese hoe-down." "Back in India, I take a train, show my stomach to a head-hunter, search for the perfect cup of tea, see boys playing girls, watch dancing drummers and give an elephant a bath." ""Himalaya" - the highest form of entertainment." "Hm." "At last - a taste of the world's third longest river." "There we are - real Yangtze water." "We're entering the gorge" " Tiger Leaping Gorge." "The combination of swollen rivers and towering mountains make the Himalayan gorges the deepest in the world." "Tiger Leaping Gorge took its name from the legend that a hunted tiger escaped by leaping across it." "The gorge rises nearly 2.5 miles from the river bed to the mountain summits above." "My journey through the eastern Himalaya will take me to Lugu Lake," "Lijiang and the city of Kunming before crossing into Nagaland and Assam to link up with another mountain river, the Brahmaputra." "Though it looks remote, our path is well trodden." "It was part of the Tea Horse route, along which tea from Yunnan in China was traded for horses from Tibet." "My guide, Li Yuan, is from the Naxipeople." "The Naxi, one of many ethnic minorities in Yunnan province, have a long history, a hieroglyphic language going back 1,000 years and are good at running guest-houses." "(TINKLING BELLS)" "While they rest the horses, I head for the restroom." "Going to the lavatory tends to be something you dread in places like this, but this is rather special - the sign says, "Number one toilet on heaven and earth."" "What a claim." "Must be investigated." "Can it live up to that?" "Here it is." "Women..." "Men." "A fairly normal kind of Chinese toilet." "A little trench down here, beautifully tiled, and you sort of squat down." "That's what makes it special." "Look at the view." "The Jade Snow mountains ranged above you." "I'd happily be here for hours." "I might have to be." "(RINGING) 0h-oh." "It's the hotel switchboard again." "You can't escape progress, even up here." "That's the only place they can get reception." "I think I'll go back to Number 0ne Toilet." "Ah, look at that." "We're only halfway along the gorge." "There's another hard day's trekking ahead." "0ur excellent hosts, Mr and Mrs Feng de Fang, bid us a personal farewell." "See you next time." "Whoa!" "It's amazing." "We're about halfway along Tiger Leaping Gorge and that's the Yangtze River." "The broad Yangtze squeezed into that white water pounding away down there." "It really is extraordinary." "I keep thinking we've seen all the mountain scenery, but here at the eastern end of the Himalaya, it just gets more spectacular." "A tiger may be able to leap this but, for us, a trek is the only way to get to our destination - beyond these mountains." "I've reached the easternmost point of my journey." "This is Lugu Lake on the borders of Yunnan and Sichuan." "The people who live around this lake are a matriarchal tribe called the Mosuo." "To find out more about them, I'm going to meet their local hero - a showbiz superstar in China called Namu." "Namu's sunny smile is in marked contrast with the out-of-season chill in this lakeside resort." "But at last I find someone who's prepared to row me across the lake to Namu's village." "(# WISTFUL PIPE)" " Hey, Michael." " Hello." "Namu." "I recognise you, of course, because you're extremely famous." " Michael, tashi delek." " Tashi delek." " Welcome." " Thank you." "Buddhist welcomes and showbiz kisses over," "Namu whisks me off to see the house where she was brought up." "Her people, the Mosuo, are renowned for their unusually open attitudes to sex, typified by what's known as the "walking marriage"." "Namu, can you describe what you mean by a walking marriage?" "It means that we don't get married." "We don't have really a father." "So you don't have a marriage ceremony and you don't have a marriage contract?" " No." "And no wedding rings." " No rings?" "No rings." " How does that work?" " It works fine." "I think it's healthy." "I never see couples fight on the street, in the coffee shops." "Couples never live together." "For example, you and me, you walk to me, I have your baby, and my brother and my uncle will help me take care of my babies." "Then for your sister, walking with some other man, she has kids and you help your sister." "Uncles take the father's responsibility." "A woman wants to have you, don't want to have you - it's their wish." "She wants to open the flower chamber door for you or she doesn't." " The woman takes the initiative." " Yeah." "Mostly we like dancing and singing." "We have circle dancing." "We have 71 different circle dances." "When we're dancing, if I was interested in you," "I would dance with you and do this to your hand." "That means I'm very much interested in you." "(# LIVELY PIPE)" "(LIVELY SINGING)" "Despite my deft footwork, I feel a distinct lack of pressure on the palms." "But Namu hasn't given up on me." "So what happens?" "This is what you call the flower room?" "This is our flower chamber." "For girls." "The girl would be 13 upwards?" "13 they have flower chamber, but they don't go with men." "The mother have to train her in how to serve men." "How you take care of men, receive men sexually." "Not like the Han Chinese, secretive." "We're open." " Your mother told you about sex?" " She told me good sex is good for the skin." "Very good for skin!" "Mmm." "So I'm being sort of buttered up here... with my potato and my mandarin orange." "I'm getting a bit overexcited." "Have we run out of film?" "Oh, dear." " You're lucky to be in my flower chamber." " I'm privileged." "If you want long relationship with this woman, you come to the girl's flower chamber when the mama sleep." "That's why there are so many songs about, "Come on, Mother, go to sleep."" "(SINGS SWEETLY)" "There are so many songs about this... jokings." " Tell me about your flower chamber." " Myself, I don't have..." "You must have had men queuing round the block." "Myself, I never had..." "This room is still virgin!" "Because right after I had my flower chamber, I went to the city." "Namu calls herself a "five-star gypsy"." "The reason she deserted Lugu Lake for the wider world lies deep in her childhood." "She tells me about it over cups of butter tea and crispy pork fat cooked by her aunt." "My mother, to me, is in and out like a wind." "I only remember her as her skirt." " I don't remember her." " Why did she send you away?" "I was her third daughter and my mother wanted boys, so she tried to give me away three times, but because I was a crying baby, everybody returned back." "So she sent me to live with my uncle." "My uncles never speak and yaks doesn't speak, so I was on the mountain for many years by myself just wandering, thinking." "I can't imagine you without someone to talk to." "Now I talk too much because nobody talk to me before!" "Why did you decide to leave?" "I wanted to go Beijing, wear high-heeled shoes and pink lipstick." "But she doesn't want to be forgotten." "So what's this going to be, this huge palace?" " Castle!" " Castle on the hill, yeah." "Actually, this is a museum." "A personal museum." " Oh, I see." " This is such a wonderful view." " It's the best place to see Lugu Lake." " (PALIN) It's a beautiful place." "(PALIN) But it's only been discovered in the last ten years, really." " When you were here there were no tourists?" " No." "No tourists, no cars, no mobile phones..." "No electricity." "But 60,000 tourists came last year." "In the beginning, the idea for them to come over here was just looking for free sex." " They don't get it." " Do they ask for their money back?" "No." "There is something else, like the views, good air and also they sort of come here and wash their heart." "Having washed, or lightly sponged, my heart in the powerful atmosphere of Lugu Lake," "I feel it's time to check the rest of my body." "The foothills provide ideal ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine." "Near the old city of Lijiang lives one of its most famous practitioners, Dr Ho." "Branded a bourgeois and banned from medicine in the days of Mao, he's built up a worldwide reputation." "I've been recommended to him by a Monty Python friend." "Hello?" "Dr Ho?" "My name's Michael Palin." "I'm from London." "I'm a friend of Terry Jones who came here some time ago." " I remember you." " You remember me?" "Was I here?" " I don't think I was." " Nice to meet you again." "Thank you very much for visiting me again." "Come, please." " Your chi seems weak." " My chi is weak?" "Chi means your energy." " Say "Aah"." " Aah." " Your digestion seems weak." " Mm." " What should I eat or not eat?" " Simple food." "Simple food." "I've been having..." "In Lijiang the pork is very good." " Is that good or not good?" " Pork not so good." "You mean..." "Then he compares me to other foreigners." "Compared to foreigners, you are excellent." " Right." "Thank you." " Yes." "Do you understand me?" "You are good." "Pulse, no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, no liver fat, no kidney stone, no gall bladder stone." "Everything is OK." "Only seems weak, your stomach." "A little chi, a little weak." "So don't worry, be happy." "Happiness, it seems, is the best medicine." "Second only to the cooking of Dr Ho's wife, sporting full Naxi costume." " Is this the simple food you talked about?" " No, not really simple!" "She conjures up a gorgeous meal from hyacinth, water lily, anchovy, baby pig, Yunnan ham and everything her husband says I shouldn't touch." "I think I'll settle for her prescription." "The old town of Lijiang is a winning combination of cobbled streets and canals." "Its squat buildings show little sign of the 50 major earthquakes that have shaken it in the space of 130 years." "Today it faces a different kind of seismic threat - three million tourists a year." "Many head for one of the biggest draws in Yunnan, the Naxi Classical Music 0rchestra." "The case for the old music is defiantly made by their leader, Shuan Ker." "They destroy the Chinese traditional music." "The music, it is disappearing." "It is disappearing in the shadow of the Himalaya." "(BASS DRUMS)" "(CHINESE MUSIC PLAYS)" "During the Cultural Revolution, many instruments had to be hidden as the Red Guards set about destroying the past." "Shuan Ker was seen as a dangerous intellectual and spent the prime of his life doing 20 years forced labour in a tin mine." "Now he's a local hero." " How are you?" " Fine." " How are you?" " Very well." "Very pleased to meet you." "I'm with this famous man." "He's a very famous man." " Have you been here before?" " No." "He's not one of your orchestra, is he?" "He is?" "Yeah, but now he retired from the orchestra." " Coffee?" " Here?" " Why not?" " I've been a bit starved of coffee." "So a proper espresso..." "Two cappuccinos?" " Cappuccinos?" " Yeah." "Two." "Lovely." "How do you see the future?" "Do you think you will tour more, travel more?" "No choice." "It's China in two ways." "One is according to the Confucianism and added with Western capitalism..." "mixing together like in Singapore." "What we are doing here, this orchestra..." "No coin from the government." "We make ourselves, selling tickets." "See, lots of audience, full of the concert hall, so it is said my pocket full." "The old musicians, their pockets full." "That's what capitalism makes." "If all dancing and singing groups in China depends on the government - they give money..." "No good." " The people living a better life." " Yes." "A higher standard of living." "But culture lost." "Culture lost." "Even lost their language." "Now they're speaking in Mandarin." "The local old ladies..." "That's not our language." "So they're not interested so much in the Naxi languages..." "The local government is trying to do something for preserving the culture, but, I think, too late." "Too late." "I've been working hard for preserving the music." "Even that changed from original face." "A little bit I catch, otherwise everything gone." "You feel it slipping away." "The new China appears bright, glossy and unsentimental." "Her cities seem only concerned with the future." "In trying to compete with corporate America, China is growing to look like it." "This is Kunming, the capital of Yunnan." "It's one end of what used to be the Burma Road - a supply line in World War Two that connected China with India." "The Hump was the name given to the 500-mile wide, 20,000-foot mass of the Himalaya over which, until the Burma Road was completed, lay the only supply route behind Japanese lines." "Planes were pushed to their limit." "0ver 600 were lost, many plunging into the jungle on the Indo-Burmese border - an area known to this day as Nagaland." "(CHANTING)" "The Naga comprise a dozen different tribes of which these - the Konyak Nagas - were the last to give up the proud tradition of head-hunting." "My friend, Shingwong, is a local official who's brought me to the border of India and Myanmar, formerly Burma." "In the Second World War when they..." "A lot of the RAF pilots who had fallen behind the lines were rescued." " Would it have been by people like these?" " Yes." "My father had given information to all the villages to see that no white man is to be harmed." "We still have a pilot's seat in the chief's house." "A pilot's seat?" "That's great." "So there are some pilots who owe their lives to the head-hunters." "Yeah." "Nine of them." "So head-hunters with hearts of gold." "This weekend, there's a cross-border market." "0ne of the events is this re-enactment of a head-hunting raid." "(GUNFIRE)" " It's a war dance." " You're telling me." "(ECHOING GUNFIRE)" "0n these necklaces, each brass face means a head taken." "I see quite a lot of heads." "The skulls - is that a trophy from the head-hunting days?" " What's that?" " Porcupine." "Porcupine?" "Has he got a buyer?" " Is it quite a delicacy, porcupine?" " Yes." " It's quite nice." "Somewhat like venison." " Venison?" "Ah, yes." "Quite strong, quite gamey." "Yeah." "Is this a very distinguished man?" "He looks rather important." "He might have been a warrior once." " Yeah." " You can see by the tattoo on the face." "What's the largest number of heads anyone's taken?" "One I know from Mon who had got 66 heads." " Wow." " He's no more." "Another ex-head-hunter, I think." "One, two, three, four, five heads." "Five heads he's taken." "Does he remember the British here?" "Did they seem strange?" "(TRANSLATES)" "He was afraid - afraid to go near." "And he thought the white man doesn't have any blood." "(PALIN LAUGHS)" " What's that?" "A tattoo?" " A tattoo of the chest." "What does that mean?" "Oh, it goes all the way down." "There's a lot of history in there." "My stomach's very boring." " Very boring." " Bloodless." "Bloodless, yes." "Not very nice at all." "Oh, yes." "There we are." "I think you win on the decorative stakes." "0ther traditional activities go on away from the market." "So opium smoking still goes on?" " Yes." "Clandestinely, of course." " Do the authorities turn a blind eye?" "No." "They're strict." "There's a restriction." " So what happens if they're caught?" " They may be imprisoned." "Cultivation is also stopped but they, clandestinely, get it from Myanmar." "So how many times a day do they smoke?" "Three to four times daily." "Inside a longhouse, I find a pilot's seat from the Second World War and an old book offering clues as to why anthropologists liked it here." "Perfect bedtime reading." "Next morning, I'm invited to visit the Ang, the local headman, in a huge house made entirely of vegetation." "I've come to see the chief." "Hello, girls." "There he is, watching television again." ""EastEnders"?" "I ask Shingwong if the chief could tell me how the village had changed over the years." "They lived in fear... of people coming from enemy villages attacking them." "The moment the church was built, the moment religion came in... this has all been stopped and they have only one fear - that is fear of God." "How many children does he have?" "Five from the actual queen..." "and two from the concubines, so seven." " And he has ten concubines." " Ten concubines." "I was going to ask, do the concubines all live here with the king?" "They all live together in separate compartments." "Is that still permitted to have ten concubines in this Christian time?" " It's not allowed, but this carries on." " Oh." "What other powers does he have?" "Giving out capital punishment or imprisoning." "Everything will depend on him only." "So he could decide on whether someone was executed or not?" "Capital punishment was given to a person who has spied against the village." " Spied against the village?" " Yes." "Passed some secret information to enemy villages, so they were bound up and thrown over a cliff." "Wow." "One of the great problems on this whole Himalayan journey has been international frontiers - it's always so difficult to get across." "That's why it's lovely to be here in Myanmar and to know that to get into India, I just do that." "The apex of the chief's hut goes along the border." "So this leg is in Myanmar, this leg is in India - a truly international body." "In India, I can hop into Myanmar, I can do my exercises..." "Ho!" "Chest in India, bottom in Myanmar." "I can do international exercises." "If only all the world's frontiers were like this!" "Ooh!" "(VEHICLE APPROACHES)" "We leave just in time." "The rains are coming and they can completely cut off these remote hill villages." "This road, will they eventually make this a hard-top road?" " Yes." "There's a plan, a six-year plan." " A six-year plan." "It's pretty rough and ready at the moment." "How strong is Christianity here now?" "99% of the population is now Christian." "99% are Christian?" "Wow." "Why have so many become Christian?" " It's because of education." " Oh, right." "They've come into contact with the outside world." " The Christian religion provides education?" " Yes." "At the Baptist Cathedral in Mon, 2,500 Naga voices are raised." "(THEY SING "ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS" IN NATIVE DIALECT)" "(TRAIN WHISTLE TOOTS)" "Memories of home ambush you in the least likely places." "The church hymns at Mon were one thing, but something even more poignant is awaiting me in Assam." "Two powerful images from my northern boyhood - a steam engine... and a coal mine." "Tipong mine has been in existence since the 1920s." "As has this engine." "Neither seems altogether real." "It may look like a cross between "Apocalypse Now" and "Thomas the Tank Engine", but it's one of the mines that makes India the third biggest coal producer in the world." "They even have priests on hand to bless the morning shift." "I think I'm beginning to realise what being given the tika by the priest is all about because behind me is a temple, built over the entrance to the mine shaft." "It's a temple to the Goddess Kali, who's the great destroyer." "So I assume it's there and the blessings go on to propitiate the Goddess Kali on behalf of the people who are going under the earth." "They do go down a long way." "I'm told it extends down about 1,000 feet below the temple there, the mine shaft." "Assam is very prone to earthquakes, a strong earthquake area, so I should think that a destroyer needs a bit of propitiating." "As the miners head underground, I have an appointment with Mr Das," "Tipong's chief engineer." "Security patrols keep an eye on us." "Security, like safety, is one of the buzzwords here." "(SOFT MUSIC)" "Mr Das is keen that I hear a safety song." "(SOFT SINGING)" " It's great." "Best safety song I've heard." " They have to sing a safety song..." " About safety in the mines." " Safety in the mines." "They are just going to say to everybody, in true music, one single message - safety first." " Safety not at the cost of production." " That could be a hit." "Could win Eurovision!" "(# REPRISE OF SAFETY SONG)" "They were singing, "Safety first, safety first." ""In every step of work, heed the rules." "It's for us to remain awake." ""There is danger in every move." "If you obey the rules, there will be no sorrow." ""Safety first, safety first."" "(TRAIN WHISTLE)" "What's the economic viability of keeping open a mine like this?" "Does it make a profit?" "Private industry - they are mostly profit oriented." "We have some other duties also regarding coal conservation, service to the community, to the welfare of the community." "So I do not think the way we are running here is the same way a private company would run this mine." "Once the profit stops coming, they would have left this place, leaving the people here in the dark." "There's oil as well as coal up here." "Digboi not only produces oil, it has a museum dedicated to it." "(WOMAN) This is the first oil well in Asia." "This was drilled in 1889 around the same time..." "This derrick came up at the same time as the Eiffel Tower." "So this area was one of the first oil fields to be discovered anywhere in the world?" "Yes." "Coal had been discovered in Margherita just ahead and they were building the railway." "They used to use elephants, so one evening one of the elephants came back with oil on its feet and that's how they discovered oil here." "I see." "Yes, it all figures." "And once the drilling started, the Canadian engineers were so excited, they used to say, "Dig, boy!" because the wells were hand dug and that's how the name Digboi came into being." " Is that true or a well-established legend?" " A well-established legend!" " I think these are great." " This is a BOC petrol pump." " BOC?" " Yeah." "Burma Oil Company." "A hot and heavy morning at Digboi station." "Thanks to the coal and oil, there's been a railway line here for over 100 years." "Morning." "A single to Dibrugarh, please." "Thank you. 18 rupees." "That's very cheap." "18 rupees." "That's about... about 25 pence." "(TRAIN HORN)" "Excuse me." "The next big town is Dibrugarh on the fertile river plains where, in 1823, wild tea plants were discovered by Scotsman Robert Bruce." "Now half of India's tea is produced in the carefully husbanded tea gardens of Assam." "This was the first place in the world where elephant were trained to work." "Now there's much less for them to do." "The elephant minders, called mahouts, face a loss of livelihood and the elephants an uncertain future." "Manosh Jalan is a plantation owner who loves elephants and insists they're the best way to see his property." "What's happening now there's less logging and the elephants are not in demand?" "Can they get other jobs or are they out of work?" "Elephants are doing also a different type of work." "They are pulling bamboo." "They are not necessarily doing timber work." "Do elephants like working?" "Do they adapt to a discipline?" " Yes, they are very obedient." " Obedient, yeah." "Very obedient." "(HE SHOUTS ORDERS TO ELEPHANT)" "Sometimes it looks as though they're being disobedient!" "Like with all wild animals, there's always an element of uncertainty." "Is there anything you can do?" "Of the 20 words you use to control an elephant, are any of them any good when it's bolting?" "No, nothing." "You just have to say your prayers and hope you will survive this and the elephant stops on its own." "0nce I get used to it, I almost forget I'm on an elephant." "It feels more like being on board ship in a gentle swell." "(MANOSH) Tea is more than a way of life in Assam now." "It's absolutely traditional." "The casual employment comes out of the same family." "It's generally the husband and wife working and if one retires, the child gets the job and so the tradition carries on." "Do you expect your son or daughter to go into this business?" "I think that they cannot escape from it!" "Ah." "Very nice." "OK." "After two hours doing the splits, I'm quite glad to dismount." "(PALIN) There's no graceful way of doing it!" "Clearly it's a relief for the elephant too." "We're still terribly close to the Himalayas." "Does that make Assam very different from the rest of India?" "If you look at north-east India as a whole, 98% of our borders is with international countries." " Only 2% we are connected to India." " Yes." "You've got a narrow little..." "So the entire immediate bordering areas of the north-east region are international." "You have Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Tibet and so on." "You've got two enormous countries separated by the Himalayas" " China and India." "Can there be a meeting of minds?" "The mountains are not the barriers, it's the mind-set." "It's a mind-set which looks different from here in Assam - where Hong Kong is closer than Delhi and China is seen as less of a threat and more of a trading opportunity." "The Brahmaputra, rising a thousand miles away in Tibet, pours out of the Himalaya, creating a fertile corridor that splits Assam in half." "Makeshift ferries, packed tight, leave from makeshift jetties." "Nothing is permanent." " The Brahmaputra is a mighty river." " Yes." " This is one little channel." " This is?" " Yes." "There are several channels." " A little channel?" " Yes." "One little channel." " Must be half a mile wide." "In some places it's four, five kilometres wide." "Where does "Brahmaputra" come from?" "Brahmaputra means "son of Brahma"." "Brahma is the creator." "It's the only male river in India." "It looks very calm and serene now, but in the monsoon it's a different mood." "It's my good fortune to be riding the Brahmaputra with Maan Baruja - a 20-year-old walking encyclopedia." "Can you tell me about Majuli, the island where we're going?" "The island has got a lot of these Vaishnav monasteries - what we call satras." "These are great institutions now for Assam because they're 400 years old and they create institutions of art, culture, dance." "Celibate monks live there." "Majuli is the world's largest river island." "250 square miles of flat, fertile mud." "The arrival of a 16th-century saint, Sankardeva, left substantial religious deposits here as well." "This monastery - dedicated to Vishnu - is renowned for its music and dance." "(RHYTHMIC CHANTING AND MUSIC)" "Extraordinary fluid movements." "How long does it take to learn that?" " Five years..." " At least five years." "From the first time you come here?" "Yeah." "From the age of five or six, boys begin the painstaking and sometimes painful process of learning the 64 positions of classical dance." "I have five minutes to master the classical Assamese drum - the khol." "My teacher, Dulala, is 41." "He's been here for 35 years." "And this is called "bayan"." "Bayan means "left side"." "There are three sounds at first." "First is khol... down... down." " There is two different sounds." " I just can't get it." " This is "ta"." "T-A." "Ta." " I seem to be all right on that one." "And you will slowly give breath here and this will be ta." " OK?" " (TAPS DRUM)" "I can't even get mine to resound." "OK..." "Yeah." " So you play." " The concert already?" "It's getting that resonance." "So you see..." "It's just..." "I haven't got the coordination." "What do they give you when you're six?" "A small one of these?" " No, this is same one." " Really?" "The same size?" "That's my entire repertoire." "There's no electricity or running water at the satra." "The vegetarian diet is prepared by tried and trusted methods." "Everyday life here is resolutely pre-industrial." "(SOFT CHANTING)" "The monks have taken strict vows of purity and even the simplest tasks are accompanied by thorough ablutions." "You're washing your hands and the floor." "This is very important, is it, the thing about purity?" " Yes." " Because I'm impure and you're washed." "So you can't touch me or touch anything that's impure." "And if you do touch me now, you then have to go and wash again, do you?" "Yeah." " How long have you lived in the monastery?" " Nine years I live in this monastery." " Nine years." "And Lilaram?" " 16, 17 years." "Right." "So he's been your guide." "He's kind of helped you." "I'm very happy here." "And other monks I meet." " Other monks..." "Love, kisses." " Lots of love?" " Yeah." " Kisses?" "Do you think that you will stay here for the rest of your life?" " Yeah." "I do, yeah." " How old are you now?" " Now 17 years old." " 17?" "So you think you will stay here?" "Yeah." "I think I stay here." " Really?" " Really I think." "Can you marry and stay in the monastery?" "I'll marry, I go to outside." "No marry in a monastery." "No, no." "So you have to be celibate." " No sex, really." "No sex we're monks." " No sex here." "There are women on Majuli Island - some of them engaged in quite bizarre practices." "These ladies are fishing, but not with conventional methods." "Having trapped the fish with their wicker frames, they slip them down their cleavage." "I've always said you see more on a bicycle." "Next day at the satra, preparations are going on for a rare treat." "The monks are showing us an extract from the "Rasa Lila" - a story they normally perform only once a year." "The details of make-up and costume must be as precise as the performance." "Most of the monks will be playing milkmaids." "These two are clearly not regular transvestites." "0ne of my hosts at tea yesterday will play the god Krishna." "Krishna is Vishnu incarnated as a bit of a ladies' man." "When he appears in the fields, all the milkmaids fall in love with him." "(SOFT SINGING)" "This monastery really is a very special place." "Partly because in this overgrown Oxbridge college atmosphere they produce work of great skill and beauty." "And the people here are very friendly - as curious about us as we are about them." "And also it's just such an oasis of serenity on a helter-skelter journey." "It really brings the pace of life right down." "I think I'll surrender to that for a minute." "(SOFT CHANTING)" "Next day, Maan offers to take me to Kaziranga National Park, where he grew up and where he still lives with his father." "Majuli certainly had quite an effect." " It calmed us all down." " It's very tranquil." "Very tranquil, unrushed." "And now we're going to Kaziranga, is that right?" "Is that very different?" "It's formed by the deposits of the Brahmaputra - alluvial deposits." "100 years of conservation has led to a lot of regeneration of grassland and we now have the world's highest population of one-horned rhino, wild water buffalo and swamp deer." "So how was it that you came to be brought up in Kaziranga?" "My father's always been interested in conservation, so he set up a small project in Kaziranga." "He's very unconventional, so he thought he'd give me a better education than in a school." " It worked." " I don't know!" "Is there anything you don't know?" "Probably Petula Clark's middle period." "Got him, you see, straight away." "# Downtown... # 0n arrival at Kaziranga, we strike gold on our first safari." "A long-horned rhino, which this park saved from extinction." "First close encounter with a rhino." "Manju, your son has been a fount of learning and knowledge for us on this trip so far." "What sort of education did he have?" "If he went to school, he'd waste time." "In school you have about two hours of study, which he can do at home." "But to do that two hours of study, it takes six hours to go to the school and back." "Maan's father, Manju, runs Kaziranga's best hotel, but in the 1960s he was a radical Marxist." "When you're young you start off thinking, "I'm going to change the world."" "Every young man - we'll have a revolution, change the world." "After a while they get married and say, "Let me change my wife."" "Then you start thinking, "Let me change my son."" "Ultimately, you think, "Let me change myself."" "Your wife doesn't listen to you or your son, so you may as well change yourself!" "Manju has changed from communist to conservationist - organising an elephant festival, now in its second year." "The organisers hope to dispel prejudice against elephants, who many see as a destructive threat to their livelihood." "The message is that people should see elephants not as an enemy, but as fellow creatures we all have a duty to look after." "Who could hate an animal that plays football?" "They're not natural footballers, elephants, really." "More like a rugby scrum." "(ROARING)" "Just in case there were any doubts as to who is the stronger, a long-suffering elephant takes on a team of tourists, trainers, local politicians and the entire organising committee." "To applause and a roar of irritation from the elephant, he pulls the lot of us out of the arena." " He's weakening!" " Oh, yes, come on!" "At the end of the day, when all the stunts are over," "I have a rare chance to get close to the elephants - on their terms rather than ours." "They have very few sweat glands, so they need to cool off." "It's very important." "So how often would they need to get into the water?" " At least once a day." " I'm not sure about this." "Underwater tusks." "Fine, fine tusks." "They don't need soap or anything like that?" "That's it." "Takes a lot of washing, doesn't it?" "There you are." " 55 years old, this one." " How much?" " 55." " 55?" "Younger than me, then." "Ooh." "It's a rare and wonderful privilege to be able to make an elephant happy." "Who knows?" "He might be a television presenter in his next life." "It's been nice washing you." "Feel better?" "(GRUNTING)" "I'll take that as a yes." "Next time on "Himalaya"." "I'm in the Kingdom of Bhutan - trekking up hidden valleys, meeting a high-altitude poet, sending prayers for safety and watching dancing like I've never seen it before." "Seeing paintings the size of houses, and archery, Bhutanese-style." "I cross the Bangladesh border, take on the traffic in Dhaka, meet friends on the ferry and follow the rivers till they reach the sea." ""Himalaya" - the best way to get highl" "Hm." "Suddenly, and somewhat surprisingly, I'm back in the land of yaks." "I'm in Bhutan for a last taste of the high Himalaya." "Bhutan is a tiny pebble squeezed between the great rocks of China and India." "Mostly mountain and forest, it has few roads, so I'm walking up to Chomolhari, which borders on Tibet." "My guide Dorji wears national costume - as men are expected to in this country." "I favour the international dishevelled look." "There's room to move here." "Bhutan is the size of Switzerland with a population of little more than a million." "It has one of the strictest environmental policies in the world." "A quarter of the country is national park and not even fallen wood can be gathered without permission." "It's a country jealous of its independence, ruled by a much-loved king whose policy is "Gross National Happiness"" "before "Gross National Product"." "The influence of Buddhism is everywhere, like this cliff-top hermitage." "Holy spots seem to crop up all over Bhutan." "What's special about here?" "Legend claims it was founded by a saint" " Guru Rinpoche - who rode here on a tigress 1,200 years ago and turned himself into something so nasty that the evil spirits fled and left the valley to Buddhism." "Wow!" "Fantastic." "That looks like a black rat on the wall there, painted." "What is it?" " It's a weasel." " A weasel?" "You see the thing that's falling off?" "It's a precious stone." "It symbolises wealth, prosperity for the house." "Coming out of the mouth of a weasel." "Is the weasel considered a lucky creature?" "(DORJl) Not the weasel but the actual god of the north holds a weasel in his hand that spits out precious stones." "(PALIN) It's so complicated." "I see." "Gods of the north and regurgitating weasels are a reminder that religious symbolism is at the heart of Bhutanese life." "If you want a safe journey, don't pass a prayer wheel without spinning it." "(DORJl) I'll leave one for you." "There we go." "Bhutan has taken deliberate steps to keep tourist numbers manageable." "Visitors have to pay a minimum of $200 a day - even if you're staying in a tent." "It's amazing how many people you need to enjoy the outdoor life." "In order to travel through Bhutan as we are now and kind of see..."off piste" Bhutan..." "There are no roads, so you need stuff to be carried - hence all the horses." "We've got about 20 ponies here and they have to carry all the gear, really." "All the tents, the kitchen tent down there, chairs, bags, food." "There's a catering cavalry taking all the stuff we'll need for lunch and another camp this evening." "There's six of us - the crew - but the rest are the people who help us live and move and see this wonderful country." "All I have to do is fill my water bottle." "I don't even have to do that, actually." "But I drink it." "As you can see, rather nimbly." "Next morning, nothing happens until platefuls of red rice flavoured with chillies - the magic ingredient of Bhutanese cooking - are devoured for breakfast." "After a few days on the trail, we're out of the woods and into the high country, where one creature dominates." "(DORJl) All depend on the yak for everything." "(PALIN) And every bit of the yak is used, including its droppings." " Yeah." "The dung." " That's for fire, cooking." " Eating?" " No." "We're in amongst the big peaks again." "That's really spectacular." "And the glacier." "Is that one of the highest in Bhutan?" "No." "It must be fourth or fifth highest." "It amazes me that people live here." "This house is at 14,500 feet - higher than the top of the Eiger." "It's the home of a man Dorji very much wants me to meet, a poet who wrote one of Bhutan's hit songs." "Pleased to meet you." "Nice of you to let us drop in." "We just walked in, didn't we, really!" "Sorry." "I don't know his name." " Jumi Doji." " Jumi Doji." "I'm Michael." "Very nice to meet you." "How old are you, sir?" "(TRANSLATES)" " 82." " 82?" "Oh." "He looks very good." "Very good for 82." "A long life." "So he's saying it's like the sun now is fading... his life is also... it's fading." "Still, he looks..." "He's the one who composed this song." " If you want to hear him sing, he can." " Yeah." "He's saying that he's old and his voice is not as good as it used to be." "I would just love to hear." "If he would like to sing, that would be wonderful." "(PROLONGED NOTE)" "Thank you." "That was really good." "I could sing you a song about a lumberjack, but you won't want to hear that!" "You want to hear it?" "Well, it's very silly." " No, but..." " OK." "# I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatory" "# On Wednesdays I go shopping and have buttered scones for tea" "# I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK, I cut down... #" "I sleep all night and I work all day." "I can't even remember it!" "It's not as nice as your yak... song." "We could go on tour together." "Let's go on tour." "You sing your song and I'll do mine." "Thank you." "Tonight we'll be staying at Chomolhari base camp, the highest point on our trek, where the mountain trails lead into Tibet." "A beautiful place for a site." "It's quite enclosed." " This is one of the best camps." " And this is permanent?" "Obviously." "Hi." "How many days before we?" "We start to go down now, really." "How many days before we get to Paro?" " Three days from now we'll be in Paro." " Three days?" "Right." " For the festival." " Yeah." " So it's pretty much downhill from here?" " Yes." "Downhill all the way." "That's not so bad." "It's very nice up here, kind of enclosed." "In the morning, the sight of the mountain passes behind us makes me feel a kinship for those who, for centuries, have kept trade routes open." "It must be in the blood." "Men of the mountains doggedly shifting food, clothes, animals and..." "God knows what." "For me, unfortunately, it's one-way traffic." "This is a bit of a sad moment because up there is probably the last of the great Himalayan peaks I shall see" " Chomolhari." "About 24,000 feet, just over 7,000 metres." "I'll miss the big mountains." "Nowadays I think those are the only mountains." "Anything less than 20,000 feet is just tiny." "So farewell, the big monumental Himalayan peaks." "Farewell, Chomolhari." "Oh-ah!" "This is just the great joyful moment of trekking." "Getting to the end of a trail and then finding you're by a river." "And... a bath for the feet." "Wow." "It's icy cold." "Glacier water." "It looks a bit muddy but it actually is probably pure." "And it is such a relief." "It's the joy of trekking by the river, really." "If it was warmer, I'd have a swim." "Oh, that's just lovely." "Those rocks..." "We did about 15, maybe 20, kilometres today, 18 kilometres yesterday." "It's a lot of wear for feet only used to going up and down stairs." "Trekking is a great leveller." "The river is everyone's bath and the horses are our indispensable companions." "Dawn beside the Paro River." "Another day, another of the world's great campsites, another early-morning call with another cup of "bed" tea." "Oh." "One of the advantages of trekking is that you are absolutely knocked out by the time night comes." "I've slept better here than I probably ever do in London." "The only disadvantage is bodily hygiene." "I haven't seen my body for several days, so when I get back to Paro later there'll be a bit of sandblasting needed." "Otherwise, it's not a bad life" " I say, reluctantly." "What more could we want?" "The horses get ready to carry our bags, there's dried yak buttock for breakfast, no queue for the bathroom and time for leisurely discussion." "The intention is to go to this festival." "What is the festival?" "The festival is very important to the people." "It's got very religious significance." "At the same time, it's a time for the people to wear their best dress and mess around." "It's like a holiday, but it's got a lot of religious significance." "The Buddhists of Bhutan are different from those in Tibet." "Their spiritual leader is the Je Khenpo." "The Dalai Lama has no authority and has never even been here." "Dorji boasts of Bhutanese victories over the Tibetans, whose armies made repeated attempts to invade his country down these very trails." " Wish us luck on the journey." " Safe journey." "Another day's slogging brings us to the outskirts of Paro." " (PALIN) Ooh." " Tired?" "So this is what we've been aiming for." "Yes, I am tired." "I'm very tired." "Well, my legs are tired." "My brain kind of switched off long ago." "Oh, wow." "It's nice to see a village." "This place is rather beautiful." " The start of the route." " Is that Paro there?" "The great castle or "dzong" at Paro dominates the valley." "It's where the Tsechu festival will begin tomorrow." "Is it considered essential to go to the Tsechu?" "It's not essential, but it's... er... of very religious significance and it's very important." " So if you go, you get a bit of merit?" " Yes." "Tsechu means "tenth", the day of the month when Guru Rinpoche's great deeds took place." " It's an opportunity to buy, sell..." " Make some money." "(SLOW CHANTING)" "The way to the castle is lined with monks offering blessings for money, and packs of stray dogs." "In a Buddhist country, all life is sacred, so they're free to be a nuisance." "The dogs, I mean, not the monks." "How many people do they expect for the opening day?" " Maybe about 2,000." " Really?" "Yeah." "(PALIN) Mostly... um..." "Bhutanese?" "Yes." "Mostly local." "As the opening dances begin, everyone tries to grab the best vantage point." "You can't reserve seats because there are no seats, except for senior monks and their families." "(DRUMS, BELLS AND CHANTING)" "It's a long dance." "What are they doing in the dance?" "There's a lot of hand gestures symbolising a lot of things." "(PALIN) But they're basically purifying the area." "Dorji tells me that the long-sleeved tunics were once cover for an assassination." "One... saint who was doing a dance, and there was an anti-Buddhist king in Tibet, so he hid his bow and arrow in the sleeves and shot the king." " So it's symbolic, these long sleeves." " I see." "In a country with few theatres or cinemas, which has only had TVfor five years, this festival is, apart from any religious significance, riveting entertainment." "Monarchy and religion - the twin pillars of Bhutanese society - come together in the Queen Mother's Chapel, to which I've been invited to watch evening prayers." "Music is played and candles are lit to warn off harmful spirits." "I have plenty of time to study the sumptuous decorations and contemplate my own impermanence and the awful fragility of human life." "(LOW CHANTING)" "Next day, the atmosphere is anything but reflective, as Dorji and I join the crowds for the second day of the festival." " Everything seems to be uphill in Buddhism!" " In Bhutan." "It's a steep religion." "And Bhutan, yes." "I suppose because Buddhism is very much a Himalayan religion anyway, so anywhere you go temples will be built high up on the hill." "Oh, wow." "Look at this." "It's amazing." "There are so few people in the country and they're all here!" "It's like Wembley Cup Final." "It's a small place, all crammed, but on the whole it's a very small population." "And nice to see everybody dressed up." "It's wonderful." " Brocade..." " Everyone's got their best stuff on." "It's quite tempting, all that." "What do you recommend?" " Have a dumpling." " Momos?" "Yeah." "OK." "Lovely." "How much are they?" " 35." " 35." " That's 100." " OK." "Thank you." "Some chilli." "The chilli looks dangerous." "You love chilli here, don't you?" "Mmm." "Thank you." "The highlight of today's festivities is the dance of the Judgement of the Dead." "(LOW WAILING)" "The God of the Dead, with his attendants, listens to mortals, weighs up their actions and judges them accordingly." "The dances are a test of stamina for audience and participants alike." "Away from the arena, there are reassuringly familiar things." "A car park, portable cinemas showing the local blockbusters, even Bhutanese bingo." "(CALLER) Four and nine. 49." "Eight and five. 85." "Anyone?" "OK, no one." "Unlucky, unlucky." "The star attraction is archery, which I watch with the King's cousin, Ashi Khendum." " Almost." "That was quite close." " How can you see?" "You can tell." "You sort of get used to it." "(PALIN) You can tell from just the movements of the people." "Archery is the national sport of Bhutan." "Players are allowed, even encouraged, to put off their opponents." "He's a baby." "Take it easy, man." "# Don't let me down!" "The sport is played at the highest level." "This team of Bhutan's elite contains bankers and cabinet ministers not afraid to let whatever hair they have down." "(SING IN DZONGKHA)" "(SHOUTS)" "0n the last day of Tsechu, crowds gather at the dzong before dawn to witness the most important event, a rare chance to see one of the great treasures of Himalayan Buddhism - a tapestry the height of a five-storey building." "(SOFT CHANTING)" "To avoid damage by sunlight, the tapestry - called a "thongdrel" - is unveiled before daybreak." "By the light of butter lamps, one can make out a throng of monks and pilgrims." "For such a devotional people, this is a hugely significant event, attended by the abbot and senior monks in full panoply." ""Thondrel" means "liberation by sight"" "and just to be in its presence earns enormous merit." "As sunrise approaches, the crowd surges forward to be blessed." "Anywhere but Bhutan the crush would be frightening." "But this is not a crush of triumphant winners or angry losers, but a crowd united in a Buddhist way in looking for a better life - either this time or next time around." "Thimphu is the capital of Bhutan." "With traffic police doing T'ai Chi, women wearing national dress and monks out shopping, this is not quite like any other capital I've known." "But behind the facade of metropolitan Buddhism, there are places where confused Westerners won't feel out of place." "At this downtown snooker club, there's chance of a decent drink and a gossip at the bar." "Benji Dorji - sometime Chief Justice, Minister of Health and of Education - is introduced to me by his cousin Khendum who I met at the archery." "This is a rather nice lifestyle." "I'm not sure I expected it in Bhutan." "Here we are having a drink, playing pool and it's a very tolerant bar-type atmosphere." "Is this compatible with the principles of Buddhism?" " Yes, of course." "Tolerance." "Happiness." " Is that what it's about?" " Everybody knows everybody." " Yeah." "That's interesting to hear." "And also everybody should do what makes them happy." " Really?" " Do their own thing." "We're not very judgemental or very conservative." "Are you a practising Buddhist?" "Do you go to temple and all that?" " Yes, yes, I do." "Very much so." " So you?" "For us Buddhism is a way of life more than a religion." "It's more a part of everyday life." "It's not something that you think about and do." "It just comes naturally." " And do you think about it?" " Now and then I think about it." "Because we're from the West." "We're riddled with guilt, basically." " We don't have that." " No guilt?" "I'm multi-denominational so I only think about God when I'm in trouble!" " So you think about him quite a lot!" " Not all of us are like that." "It's just easy." "It's easy." "Do you believe in reincarnation - that you'll be something else in another life?" " Me personally?" " Yes." "I'm not sure." "I have this little problem with reincarnation." "I think some people definitely are reincarnated and have had other lives and are aware and they're very spiritual and holy." "I don't think all of us are destined for greatness and I don't think all of us will be reincarnated or that we had another life or that we'll ever know about it if we did." " I thought that was a basic..." " It is." "Of course it is." "But I personally don't..." "I can't reconcile my belief, my practising of Buddhism, with that aspect of it." " That's an unusual thought." " It is unusual." "I know what I'd like to be reborn as." "A black, seven-foot-six basketball player who earns a lot of money." "I think you're going to have to work hard!" "You might be a little..." " He'll be a cockroach in his next life!" " I'm sure he won't be." " A nine-foot-tall, basketball-playing cockroach!" " Thank you very much!" "Benji's passion has always been the environment and he's taking me to a remote valley to show me his favourite project." "The road runs east from Thimphu towards Popshika in the Black Mountains." "Beyond that, to the south and east, lies my final destination" " Bangladesh." " It's quite a good road." " Yes." "You know, until about 30 years ago there wasn't a road here and you had to..." "How did you get across?" "You'd take pack ponies, riding horses, and it would take you days on the old trail... to get to wherever you wanted to go." "(PALIN) Because this is a main link through the centre?" "Yes, this is the main link through Bhutan, linking east to west." "Bhutan is conditioned, mentally and physically, by the Himalaya." "Mountain ranges split the country into a series of valleys, each with their own character and, often, climate." "0n the other side of this 10,000-foot pass, we leave the snow behind." "This is the Popshika Valley, winter home of one of the world's rarest birds - the black-necked crane." "Most elegant of all Himalayan birds, they fly here from the north, attracted by the marshy wetland of the valley." "Benji has fought to preserve their habitat from being drained by local farmers." " They look quite grand, the houses." " Yes." "Are they quite prosperous farmers here?" "Not necessarily." "Houses are built by communities." " They all build houses for each other." " I see." "So if I'm building a house, they'll all come and help me build my house." " So the people share the cost?" " They share the cost." "In Bhutan, every farmhouse looks like a small manor." "By law, all must be built to a traditional design." "Wood?" "Mainly wood and what?" "Wood, acra, mud." "The lower part is all mud." "They build first the foundation." "They don't have a foundation as such, as a Western house." "They put the stones down, then they compact mud down - a thick wall." "A very thick wall of mud and then on top it's wood and acra." "It's all hand-made... the wooden..." "And most houses in western Bhutan have the phallic symbol." "That's a really wonderfully drawn phallus." "It's to ward off evil and for prosperity and protection." "So that's actually a fertility symbol with the sperm coming out and all that?" "There are half a dozen painted penises in this village." "They were inspired by a 16th-century religious hero called Drukpa Kunley, the Divine Madman, who walked the country preaching and practising his fervent brand of phallocentricity." "And no one here bats an eyelid." "So, Michael, this is a typical Bhutanese stair." " As you can see, it's very steep." " Yup." "There's an art to going up it." "The staircase is really a tree trunk with a few notches in it." "They didn't bother to finish the steps." "You're about to enter a typical Bhutanese village house." "Very rough hewn." "A family of five shares the house." "Dawa Zangmar, the youngest of three sisters, is about to go to boarding school in a town." "She helps the family income by weaving." "She can make a kira - the long skirt with complex textures and colours - in a week." " No knives and forks." " No knives and forks traditionally." "What we do is we take the rice and we fold it into a ball..." "We make it into a ball and then clean our hands with it and you can also use it to clean your dress - it takes off the dust." "So you wash yourself with the rice?" "Then you eat it?" " No, you don't eat that!" " A nice, rich texture!" "Michael, there's an art to going down these stairs." "You have to sort of lean back a little bit and don't slide down." " I'll show you how it's done." " I'll follow your advice." "Keep your feet a little back." "And there we go." " Obviously don't drink much in Bhutan." " How are you doing?" "Obviously don't drink much or they wouldn't make stairs like that!" "Very nice." "Next morning the weather's perfect and we have a clear view of the elusive black-necks." "Despite the Buddhist's love of all creatures," "Benjigot a cool response when he tried to have them protected." "The government refused to stop draining the marsh for a mere 20 birds." "Benji went out and counted 80 of them." "This changed their minds." "A reserve was set up and now some 300 come here every year." " (BENJl) There are 19 of them there." " 19, yes." " Then I can spot about three young ones." " How do you tell the young ones?" "They're a little smaller and grey in colour." "Greyish in colour." "Yeah." "They're handsome." "You can see the black head and neck." "Totally black." "Why are they so important, Benji?" "This particular bird." "You know, these birds are sort of..." "When they arrive at the end of October, early November when they all get here..." " Arrive from where?" " Tibet." "They come from Tibet." "They circle this monastery, so people think it's auspicious, that there's a linkage between the monastery and the birds." "(PALIN) Because there's a lot of religious symbols here." "The prayer flags." " So they think they're somehow sacred?" " Sacred." "You seem to have the balance..." "It feels much better here than elsewhere." " Buddhist philosophy." "Holistic approach." " Yeah." " That all life is interconnected." " Yeah." "The cynic in me says, "Tell that to the farmers who are trying to make a living", but cynicism doesn't work in Bhutan." "It seems out of place in this small, well-ordered kingdom." "While Gross National Product remains less important than Gross National Happiness, the future looks pretty good." "From Bhutan, there's only a narrow bit of India to cross before my last frontier." "I'm now in Bangladesh - a vast alluvial plain created by the Himalayan rivers." "I shall go from Syhlet through Dhaka, the capital, and out onto the Bay of Bengal." "I've come from a kingdom to a republic, from an old nation to one of the newest, from a million people to 135 million." "Good afternoon." "There's my Bangladeshi passport in there." "My Bangladeshi visa, I should say, and British passport." "Bangladesh has had a hard life." "It won independence from Pakistan in 1971 amidst war, massacre and famine which few in the West even noticed." "George Harrison was an exception." "(MUSIC: "BANGLADESH" BY GEORGE HARRISON)" "# Bangla Desh" "# Bangla Desh" "# Where so many people" "# Are dying fast" "# And it sure looks like a mess" "# I've never seen such distress... #" "From the air you can see the cause of so many of the country's problems." "This is the dry season, but even now most of the land is barely above water." "# Bangla Desh" "# Bangla Desh... #" "Huge rivers and torrential monsoons keep Bangladesh both fertile and fragile." "# It looks like a mess" "# I've never known such distress... #" "Not far from the border, rivers are being farmed - providing a livelihood for those who scour their waters, not for metals or minerals, but just for stones." "Whoa." "Boulders like these are Bangladesh's bounty from the Himalaya." "They're washed down from the foothills and gather here on the plain." "In a country that has no stone quarries, these offerings are extremely valuable." "There's money in them thar rocks." "But not for those who gather them." "For a day's hard labour, unskilled workers earn the equivalent of 70 pence." "But thousands of people are desperate enough to work this river, day in and day out, to serve a building boom that they have no share in." "But money has poured in to the town of Syhlet from a group known as the Londonies " "Bangladeshis who've made small fortunes from running restaurants in London." "Brick Lane has become marble and stone." " So this is your newest house?" " Yes." "Abdul Rahman made his money selling chickens in Birmingham and this is what the chickens bought." "15 state-of-the-art apartments for his family." "Should his family want to relinquish them, he wouldn't be short of a buyer." "So much money is coming back to Syhlet that land, he claims, is more expensive than London or New York." "My ambition is to tell you..." "I start from two chicken." " Yes." " Business." "Then fast, big amount I sell 300... chicken." "In the end, 12,000 chicken I sell." "Finish." "Abdul Rahman paved the way for many fortunes when he obtained Britain's first halal butcher's licence." " That I have got first licence." " The first licence in?" "Licence halal." "And I have been explain what the halal, why is the halal, what is the quality?" "English way of..." "Have you killed any chicken, English way?" "Have you?" "I haven't killed a chicken, no." "They wring their necks, don't they?" " English way is squeeze and... pull." " Yeah." " We think this is cruelty way." " You think that's cruel." "We think Muslim way..." "Not only myself, it's Muslim way of life." "We say this is a very, very cruelty because..." "Now, the very sharp knife - very sharp - this is our religion way." "You cut like this, not sharp - no, no." "Very sharp." "And have a quick... throat and let the blood out." "And she's very nicely asleep... finished." "This is halal way." "There are 135 million Bangladeshis." "The building trade that thrives on mansion mania is not the only industry to benefit from a pool of cheap labour." "Construction and destruction are both big business." "This has to be the most extraordinary knacker's yard in the world." "Here in Chittagong, great ships come to die, and they're destroyed not by machinery but by thousands of individuals picking them apart like an army of ants." "Next for the knackers is the "0cean Breeze"." "She was launched by the Queen 50 years ago, but in under six months she will be reduced to a pile of scrap on a Bangladeshi beach." "In the dog-eat-dog world of cheap labour, these privately owned Bangladeshiyards are feeling the pinch." "Many are closing down, their profits eaten away by state-run Chinese competition." "The vast majority of Bangladeshis are poor and live off the land, helped by people like Naila Chowdury, who works for Grameen Phone." " Are they planting at the moment?" " Right now they're planting." "After three months it's going to be OK before the rains." ""Grameen" means "village" and most are built on man-made embankments to keep them above the flood." " Hello." " You've got a welcoming party, Naila." "The idea of the Grameen scheme is to offer loans to villagers to help them help themselves." "We're meeting a lady who's used her loan to buy a mobile phone which she'll charge with solar energy." "Sultana." "And among the ten villages she's the only one holding a village phone." "How did you choose her?" "She came up on her own to take the loan and she really started doing well." "Everybody coming to her." " She's an important woman." "Hello." " Michael Palin." "Nice to meet you." "The scheme has had an impact." "Mrs Sultana can now afford to send her daughter to university." "You were saying it's very important that you've given these loans largely to women." " Can you explain that?" " The loan is for the women." "We feel that women are always staying in a permanent position and the return is far safer also." "This is how you empower the nation because you're building up the family." "She'll ensure that the children study and come up in life." "She said that a lot of the income comes from people ringing their families who are workers in the Gulf, but also do the people ring now within the villages?" " Has it made a difference to village life?" " To the farmers." "They get connected to other villages to find out the rates of the seeds, fertiliser and machinery for farming." "Now nobody can hoodwink them." "They're far more clever." "They can get the prices from other villages and bargain for the right price." "So that's a remarkable improvement." "Can you see in this village..." "You've been here before." "Can you see it's changed?" "I can see pumps around." "I can see wealth creeping in." "I can see the difference." "Creating wealth may not be easy, but a small loan to buy a cow or install a pump has been so successful that it's being copied all over the Third World." "But is it too little too late?" "(TRAFFIC ROARS)" "Bangladeshis are leaving the countryside in such numbers that the population in the capital, Dhaka, is spiralling out of control." "30 years ago this was a city of one million." "Today the population has risen to 15 million and shows no sign of stopping." "0ften the only way to get anywhere is to hire a rickshaw." "The good news is we're in the rickshaw capital of the world." "There are 600,000 to choose from." "The waterways are no more restful." "This is the Sadarghat - centre of river life in the capital." "You have to watch your back here as well." "Here's something I don't understand." "The water's filthy, but the laundry's spotless." "It's from here that boats leave for the south." "Later tonight, with a bit of luck, I shall be on one - a bit bigger than this, I hope." "The paddle steamer 0strich is the name I've been given, but it's only one of dozens of ferries in what looks like a permanent rush hour." "With so many comings and goings, I have to ask around before I find her." "OK?" "Yes." "The 0strich is a venerable old bird, built in 1929." "She carries 700 in steerage and 24 in first class." "I'm afraid I've opted for comfort." "The Sadarghat is wonderfully manic, galvanised by almost permanent hysteria, like Venice on speed." "Six o'clock sharp, we pull away, leaving a swarm of other ferries fighting for our place at the dockside." "Things are no quieter out on the river where the combined waters of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra slurp away beneath us." "Ferries have no radar." "Collisions are avoided only by careful use of the searchlight - or occasionally not avoided at all." "Next morning we pass our sister ship heading to Dhaka." "(HORN BEEPS)" "We're part of the Rocket Service, which has plied the river since the days of the British Raj." "Bangladesh has 250 rivers - 5,000 miles of navigable waterways." "Down here in the delta they're the only way to get about." "Places like Barisal, Jhalakharti, Charkali and Moralgunj depend on the boats, and the 0strich is both local bus and cargo truck." "There's little to do but enjoy the view and meet my fellow passengers - one of whom is Mahjabeen Khan." "Known to all as Moni, she's a professional singer with a repertoire of Bengali classics." "(SOFT SINGING)" " Very good." " Thank you." "That's a lovely song." "Where's it from?" " It's by Rabindranath Tagore." " Yes." "Our Bengali-language Nobel laureate." " Yes." " You must have heard about him." "He was the only Asian Nobel prize winner for Literature." "Yes." "That's right." "Is he still regarded as the great figure of Bangladesh literature?" "Any Bengali would say that he is the greatest Bengali poet." " Rather like Shakespeare of Bangladesh?" " Right." "Will you do another one for me?" "They're lovely songs." "Tell me what it's about." "It's about the people." "It could apply to anywhere in the world." "It could apply to my country, it could apply to India, to any country where the people have a very simple way of living." "Whatever they wish for sometimes is washed away and yet they don't lose hope." "They keep praying to the Almighty that He should be with them." "So this is Tagore - the universal voice, which obviously makes him so popular." "Well, the river awaits." "As do I." "(SOFT SINGING)" "It's hard to believe that in the monsoon season they call this stretch of water "cyclone alley" and the wind rips up it." "24 hours after leaving Dhaka, we arrive at Bangladesh's second port, Mongla." "It's as far south as the 0strich can go." "(HUBBUB OF VOICES)" "It's 90 miles from Mongla to the Bay of Bengal." "The only boat that'll take me there is an ex-lifeboat with a viewing platform grafted on top." "0n either side are the uninhabited banks of the largest coastal mangrove forest in the world." "These are the Sunderbans - habitat of the Royal Bengal Tiger, which, despite appearances on travel posters, runs the yeti a close second for elusiveness." "In a tiny space next to the lavatory, our cooks prepare the last meal of the journey." "Locally caught crab, lobster and the best prawns in the world." "A meal to remember as the strengthening wind tells us the finish is close." "At last the moment has come." "After six months in the mountains, I can sniff the unfamiliar smell of the open sea." "As I head off onto the Bay of Bengal on tons of mud that was once Himalaya," "I feel I've made the last in a chain of connections - between the sea and the mountains we've climbed and the gorges we've walked and the rivers we've sailed - and all the people we've met along the way suddenly seem very close." ""Himalaya" - the high lifel"