All language subtitles for Michael Palin Travels of a Lifetime 3of4 1080p BBC

Let's have a look.

Let's see what we've got here.

Oh, yes.

When I was growing up,
I dreamed of travel and adventure.

Bye. Thank you.

Then one day, that dream came true.

This is it.

I'm standing on the top
of the world.

For three decades, I've been lucky
enough to travel the world,

making documentaries and sharing my
adventures with millions of viewers.

Michael Palin set the tone
for all travel TV today.

Oh. Ah! It's a bit like a
very friendly steam roller.

He came at the right time.

He had the right daring qualities.

He has huge warmth,

and it's a warmth that spreads
across all kinds of people.

Bye-bye, Kazmir. Oh! Look at that.

Now, for the first time,
I'm looking back.

TAPE RECORDING: Laying her down in
what must have been my old bed...

Oh, God!

My way of looking at each
journey as something different,

new, special, exciting,
dramatic and challenging

was not really knowing exactly
how it was going to turn out.

These are all the old passports.
At one time, I had three.

Someone said only the
Queen has three passports.

Oh, here we are, yes.

"Chile Policia Internacional."

I'd been around the
world in 80 days

and I'd travelled from Pole to Pole,
and after a few months at home,

I was getting itchy feet again.

But what journey could possibly
top those two?

So, where to next, Michael Palin?

Well, I'm going to Cardiff
next week. That's good.

In a sense, it sort of
had to be done.

Everything seemed to be
pointing at one more journey.

And so, the more ambitious
it was, in the sense,

I felt that was necessary.

Actually, ambitious doesn't quite
do justice to the journey

we had planned.

50,000 miles around the
entire Pacific Rim.

This was twice as far as 80 Days
and Pole to Pole combined,

and it would take the
best part of a year.

The scale of it was part
of the attraction.

It would give you an extraordinary
variety of countries and landscapes

and environments united by the fact
they were all dependent

on the Pacific.

And I suppose I saw it as
the ultimate Palin journey.

There would be nothing
to match this.

Full Circle had to be as stunning,
if not more so, than the others.

And we did start at a remarkable
geographical location,

this island in the middle
of the Bering Strait.

These are the
Diomede Islands.

Over behind me is Greater Diomede,
uninhabited and a Russian island,

and the one I'm on,
Little Diomede, is American.

About 50 miles to the north
is the Arctic Circle.

Behind me, in that channel there,
runs the International Date Line.

On Greater Diomede,
it's already tomorrow.

The locals are,
frankly, unimpressed.

They've seen travellers here
before trying to cross the

ice bridge between Russia and
America, or on their way

in and out of the Arctic.

This is just one more crazy
departure for a people

who wouldn't exchange Diomede
for anywhere else on Earth.

So we say, farewell, Diomede.

See you in a year.

I suppose as I grew up and he wanted
to do more adventures and find out

more about the world, it was
interesting to see him dive

a little bit deeper and go
into far-flung, really unseen,

sort of communities and
put them on TV.

He's someone who has been a huge
inspiration to me since

I was a little kid.

No matter what he did, he just went
in and just was willing

to experience it, and I don't think
many people are like that.

It was an adventure on
a totally different scale.

It involved logistics that would
be incredibly challenging now.

Trying to do that and for the
length of time

that he did it was incredible
and insane, I think.

You know, what must have been
so far out of his comfort zone,

being so far away from his family,
from home, for so long,

that had to have been
really tough to do.

The thing about travelling was

you had to feel
as free as possible.

You didn't really think
about home that much,

except in the first week.

That was the odd thing, I used to
get very, very, very homesick

in the first week.

Then after a bit, you just carry on.

This epic journey would take me
through many countries

I'd never visited.

But from Alaska, I was
bound for somewhere

I had been to before - Russia.

A country that, since the
fall of communism,

had been experiencing
enormous change.

The roads of Vladivostok
are full of Japanese cars and the

midday bustle in the streets has
an almost European feel.

It's hard to believe that the
city was closed to foreigners

as recently as 1992.

It was closed because it was the
home port of the mighty

Russian-Pacific fleet.

It remains their home,

but the fleet now goes on joint
manoeuvres with its old enemies,

America and China,
and is no longer mighty.

It was like Russia was now
thinking like America,

it was becoming its own big,
sort of, capitalist country.

And yet, you know, the
infrastructure was still sort

of communist -
pre-Berlin Wall scarcity,

people making do, shops that had
not that much on the shelves.

There wasn't a feeling
of confidence,

more confusion, I would say,
in Russia.

Last time, I'd travelled through
Western Russia, European Russia.

But this was the Far East, Siberia,
infamous as the land of the Gulag.

Magadan was built by
slave labour in the 1930s.

It was the administration
centre for the mineral mines

of the nearby Kolyma region.

Most of the inhabitants
of this bleak city are the sons,

daughters, grandsons
and granddaughters of prisoners

and prison officials.

This is where Stalin sent
the enemies of the people -

writers, artists, lawyers, anyone
on whom his suspicions fell.

In the very heart of Magadan
is the start of the long road

that led to the camps.

It runs for hundreds of miles.

It too was built on slave labour,
laid literally over the bodies

of those who perished.

We're taking one of the survivors
back to the remains of the Gulag

camps where he once worked.

His name is Ivan Yakovlev.

He's not returned to this
harsh wilderness for 50 years.

These are the old uranium mines,
where men worked in grim isolation

to extract the vital ingredients
for Russia's first atomic bomb.

It was always officially denied
that forced labour camps existed,

but Ivan Yakovlev shows us
the remains of a cemetery

on the mountainside
200 miles north of Magadan.

There is clear evidence here
to prove that someone knew

who was buried in these
communal graves,

for each one is marked with
an identification disc made

from an old tin lid.

F... No, that's a G,

Russian G, 24.

IVAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN

He told me that the main causes
of death were overwork, radiation

and terrible hunger.

The grounds of this particular camp
in the Gulag,

on all sides are these mountains
full of rubble,

great black mountains, tips,

spoil tips they look like,
from which the uranium is extracted.

A complete lack of almost any
living thing when you look at

the mountains around.
It must've been the most...

..most depressing,

most dispiriting.

It struck me as forcibly as
anywhere I'd been in the world,

as a sort of place of pure evil,
yeah.

They put people there
because there was nothing

for thousands of miles around.

You were stuck there.

And many, many, many
thousands died there.

What a sort of...

..horrific glimpse of what
man can do to man.

The thing that, that really becomes
apparent is that he wanted to not

just see it as a jaunt.

And he really wanted to get those
stories and became much better,

I guess, as a journalist in a way.
He managed to tease out stories

from people and some quite
heartbreaking stories.

Everything felt
like a new experience.

So that means you at home
are sharing that experience.

That's an amazing skill to have.

You know, you're thousands of miles
away from people, in a box

at the bottom of their room,
but you're still able to connect

with them because you're on
the same journey.

With the bleakness of the Gulag
still lingering in my mind,

it was time to move on. A flight of
less than two hours had brought me

to a country that could not
have been more different

from post-Soviet Siberia.

"Day 25. So we pass from Russia
to Japan. From the land

"where everything is difficult to
the land where everything is easy.

"A free, open, affluent,
sophisticated society in which,

"according to a recent poll, 87%
of the population wants to look

"like everyone else."

I mean, Japan is beautiful to
travel in because it's

extraordinarily beautiful
and so surprising.

And the people, their way of living
is a delight for anybody who's a bit

afraid of travel.

This is the Zen Buddhist temple of
Buttsuji.

It's been a place of silence
and meditation for 600 years.

When we're all sitting
comfortably, nothing happens.

Once I've accepted that
nothing is going to happen,

calm descends.

All I have to do is be.

BELL RINGS

Then, as calm is descending
for a second time,

something finally happens.

HARD SMACK

Just as I'm wondering what it
must be like to be hit so hard,

I'm offered the chance to find out.

HARD SMACK

And in the true spirit of Zen,
I thank him.

I learn afterwards that this is
the "keisaku", the warning stick,

a means of ensuring that meditation
does not become an excuse

for a quick nap.

But for all it's a
Zen-like tendencies,

Japan could be as aggressive
towards its neighbours as any other

powerful nation,

as the next country
I visited knew all too well.

I think getting on the boat
from Japan to the ferry to Korea,

people are just much more relaxed,

just the way they were sort
of sitting in chairs.

The Japanese were
very neat and tidy.

The Koreans were sort of sprawling
a bit more and you can have

a bottle of beer with them.

But it led me into realising
that these countries

were quite different.

And Korea, who wasn't just
another, sort of Asian country,

it was a country that had been
oppressed by the Japanese,

who'd occupied the country for many,
many years quite recently.

And it was also
doing extremely well.

The economy there was beginning
to build up and you could tell

that they could see Japan
as their sort of competitor,

and they could produce more
and better

of what the Japanese were producing.

What do the Koreans think?

Are they very proud of what
they've done here in Seoul?

Yeah, they are very proud.

I mean, you figure,
they've just gotten out of a war

just 20 years ago.

Who do they sort of measure
themselves against, the Koreans?

They always look to Japan.

They always measure themselves
against Japan,

because Japan was also

levelled by war and they rose
out of the ashes and became

a great economic power.

So, the Koreans, naturally, look
to their neighbours. Yeah.

Do they still harbour a grudge?
Oh, yeah.

There's still a great deal of
anti-Japanese sentiment

among Koreans, especially the
older Koreans.

Japanese pop culture, music,

cartoons, things like that,
are still banned in Korea.

Japanese cars are banned.

"Below me, the new high rises of
Seoul sweep across the landscape

"like a steadily advancing army.

"In the face of this voracious
display of power and industry,

"North Korea, I can't help thinking,
doesn't stand a chance."

In front of them all,

there's the motto of the
506th Infantry,

some of the 37,000 American troops
still stationed in Korea.

Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the Freedom House.

Today's GIs double as guides,
taking groups of foreign tourists -

no South Koreans are allowed -
right up to the border itself.

Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the MAC Building.

The MAC building is where the
four types of meetings essential

to the supervision of the
ceasefire agreement are held.

Therefore, those of you on my left,
welcome to communist North Korea,

while those you to my right are
relatively safe in Republic.

If you wish to make across into
North Korea, please do so at
that end of the table.

And when those of you in North Korea
wish to turn back to Republic,

also please do so at that end of the
table. If you have any questions,

I'll be located at the southern end
of door. ROK soldier.

Busy in North Korea.

Try and get over...

LAUGHING AND CHATTERING

I've been around a bit,
but I've never known a more bizarre

way to enter a new country.

HE SIGHS

Crossing the frontier
has been reduced to something

halfway between a parlour game
and a visit to the house of horrors.

Nearly there.

Inches to go.

North Korea.

This is it. This is the
end of the road.

We can't go any further into Korea
without the risk of being either

shot or arrested.

It comes as a bit of a shock to
find such a heavily fortified,

potentially lethal border
in the middle of the open,

outgoing Pacific Rim area.

But I suppose

the immeasurable sadness of a place
like this is that it's not a border

between two rival countries,
it's a border that separates one

country...from itself.

Then, as now, the communist
regime in North Korea could never

have survived without the backing
of its big brother next-door -

China, our next destination.

Same slightly intimidating
olive green uniforms and caps

of the Communist China, but enormous
amount of building going on

absolutely everywhere.

Look at all the cranes there.

The change in China in what was
seven or eight years was so clear.

China was seen to be investing
enormous amounts of money

in recreating itself.

The East at that time was
a growing force.

It was quite clear that China
was changing and becoming

a world economic power.

For a communist country, China's
trains have always

been conspicuously class-conscious.

Now the difference between hard
and soft class seems to be widening.

Hello. Hello.

Taking pictures of Chinese
eating breakfast? Yes.

VOICEOVER: In today's China,
wealth, it seems, can be flaunted
without risk.

As Deng Xiaoping himself said,
"To be rich is glorious."

I'm invited to share a table
with a businessman who honed

his skills in Canada and is
now one of Shanghai's

many new entrepreneurs.

Do you find there any problems
running a business in China

that you wouldn't have elsewhere?

Over here, there are problems.

The people are not used to
the way we're running things.

They've been working for
the communist kind of way

for the last 40 years.

But they're learning.

You could see just people
working in the fields with bullock

carts and a wooden plough,

and then the next village you'd see
a hotel would've have gone

up and there'd be some vehicles
working and all that.

A new road would be, being laid out.

And I suppose, you know,
the Industrial Revolution

in Britain was pretty fast.

But we now look back on it
as being sort of 200 years ago.

Now in China, that was happening
while I was there.

"I was last here seven years ago
in the steps of Phileas Fogg.

"Then, it was a city of awesome
scale bursting at the seams.

"Since then, old seams
have burst and new ones

"are already under threat."

"The pace of construction
is relentless, but we're rudely

"reminded that the wind of change
blows only in certain directions.

"Economic liberation should not be
mistaken for political relaxation."

What did you do
during the time we call

the Cultural Revolution? What were
you doing here in Shanghai?

Oh, I'm very sorry.

You see, I'm ragged from
St John's and

that would be very troublesome.

What? Oh, I see.

To talk about it? Yes.
So you would not have been...

20 years ago, you would not have
been allowed to talk to me?

Sure. Right. Hello.

To them, I'm something wrong.
I must be a rebel.

A what?

Yes, something would be wrong.

Yeah. OK.

But now it's diff...

It's different now, is it? Mm-hm.

A couple of chaps coming around

there in police uniforms,
looking a bit uncertain.

But now it doesn't matter.
They can't interfere.

We can talk freely.

I get the impression that my
new friend is someone

I still shouldn't be talking to.

The job of the travel presenter
is to draw out other people,

and he's a genius at doing it.

He doesn't just talk to people
who are famous or have obvious

stories, but he will suddenly
just bump into somebody.

The result is it's
a real, human reaction.

From Shanghai, we headed inland
where we boarded ferry boat,

the Oriental Star Number 1,
for a voyage up the Yangtze River,

past the site of another
huge construction project.

This is currently the most important
and probably THE most

controversial point on the
Yangtze River,

because you can see the workings

for the Three Gorges Dam,
which will extend across the

other side of the river here
so that everything

from here on that we're going to
see, the gorges we're going to go

through, will, in 16 or 17 years'
time, be totally under water.

The homes of over a million people
will disappear beneath a lake

370 miles long.

The project promises safe
navigation, cheap electricity

and an end to devastating floods.

The cost will be the
loss of all this.

These towns look doomed.

Why change anything when in a few
years all this will be engulfed?

We decide to stop
here and look at the town.

It's called Wushan, a small,
hard-working place of few luxuries.

For some reason, Wushan is
full of hairdressers.

I decide to treat myself.

Can you do one of those
like you're doing to him?

I don't think this happens very
often in a town like Wushan,

judging by the audience.

People here don't really see
any Westerners at all.

We've hardly seen anybody here.

The other sad thing...

..is that in seven years...

..this high street
will be completely dead.

It will be evacuated.

And in a couple of years after that,
about ten years from now,

it'll be underwater.

It's tough to watch that, you know?

And him saying, you know,
this could all be gone in ten years

when talking about all the
villages along the Yangtze

that were going to be flooded,

and you think, you know,
what's gotten rid

of in the name of progress,

you think, "My God, how much
culture are we erasing?"

As we journeyed deeper into China,
we encountered more communities

for whom we were a
distinct novelty.

Until we reached an area

that had been, until recently,
completely closed to outsiders.

There are few places
in the world as untouched.

We're probably the first foreigners
they've ever seen.

Hello.

Ni hao.

Ni ma hao.

Ni hao.

Unlike many others in China, the
Miao are open, friendly and curious.

Let's go in, shall we?

Here we are, barging in while
you're having your lunch.

Is this some...?

CHATTERING IN MIEN

Yeah. Do they have a big meal in
the middle of the day and then

go back to work?

SHE TRANSLATES

Yes. Yes.

Can you ask them if they've
ever seen foreigners before?

Ever seen people from the west?

SHE TRANSLATES

What do we look like to them?

Quite different.

Quite Strange. Quite different.

How? Why? What do we...?
Apart from...

With big nose, they said.
Big noses? Yes, a big nose.

That's just me. Not everybody has
a nose as big as this.

EVERYONE CHATTERING

It's like a forbidden world

that he's just entered into.

You know, culture,
connecting with people,

it makes you realise that your way
of living is just one way.

What a stunning privilege
it is to be the first outsider

to walk into that community,
into that village.

But what a hell of
a responsibility it is.

But if Britain was to send
an ambassador abroad,

I mean, we could do a lot worse
than send Michael Palin out

there, couldn't we?

"Although the Communist Party
was still very much in charge,

"the pace of change in
China was dizzying."

"And as we moved on into Southeast
Asia, this feeling of rapid

"transformation only grew stronger."

It felt on the Pacific Rim,
certainly on the Asian side,

that a lot of history
was happening very fast.

Vietnam was remarkable
because I was sort of brought up

on the Vietnam War,

the colossal amount of damage
the Americans had inflicted

on the country.

I'd expected to find a Vietnam that
had been punched senseless,

a bit like Europe after the war,
and it was more like

a Jack-in-the-box had
suddenly sprung back.

Vietnam was, in a very, very short
time, being transformed from

somewhere that had been devastated
to somewhere that was working

perfectly well and had
great potential.

The old imperial city
lies on the Perfume River.

One of the fiercest battles of the
American war took place here,

and the central span
of this bridge was bombed

into the river.

Today, it's busy all day long,
as is every other thoroughfare

in this crowded land.

These people were not sort
of driven by anger or revenge or

even bitterness against
the Americans.

As we draw closer to Saigon, we pass
an extraordinary

relic of war.

These are the Cu Chi Tunnels,
a 100-mile underground network built

to house guerrilla armies fighting
the French and the Americans.

Despite being blasted with bombs
and raked with defoliant,

they were never destroyed
in 35 years of warfare.

How many people could be hidden
underneath the earth

and these tunnels at any one time?

Normally, about 5,000
guerrilla forces can stay

inside a tunnel at one time.

Then I sort of realised
that although history seemed to be

made in very short bursts,

these were very,
very ancient civilisations

that had been through all this long
before in many different ways.

This is a much, much older
civilisation and much more complex

history than our own, really,
where we're late comers compared

to what's been happening
in China and Vietnam.

As we moved on from Vietnam
to the Philippines,

we'd been travelling and filming
for 100 days straight.

It could be tough going.

And on one particularly rough
ferry crossing, I had a vivid

dream of home.

TAPE RECORDING: As the storm
went on,

it was strange, comforting
being there, lying in one's bunk,

and I had a dream,
and Rachel was a baby and...

My daughter.

..wasn't very well.

For some reason, I remember
we were at Whitworth Road,

my old home...

My old house in Sheffield.

TAPE: ..kicking around and
laying her down in what

must've been my old bed.

Oh, God.

TAPE: When the rolls were
particularly severe and pronounced,

I began to think, "This is it."

Funny that I had a dream
about my daughter and me

putting her to bed in my old house
back in Sheffield.

There must be so many things
coming in there,

not only the family, who you weren't
going to see for another

sort of four or five months...

..but also...

..insecurity, I suppose.
as you're sort of rac...

rolling about, there's a genuine
fear that you might not survive.

Full Circle,

he was nearly away for a year,

best part of a year from his family,
and it was a very tough challenge.

Watching it nowadays and you think
we're so reliant on mobile phones,

we're so reliant on planning
everything out, and then you think,

"God, they didn't have
mobile phones."

He must not have spoken
to his family for weeks,

if not months, at a time.
That's really, really difficult.

Because of the length of it, the
time we were away, it made

you very vulnerable to whatever
might have gone wrong at home

or the whole feeling of
being away from home.

So it was a big shock when I got
to Kuching in Sarawak and my wife,

Helen, rang me up and said,
you know,

"Don't panic. Sit quietly.

"But I've been diagnosed
with a benign brain tumour."

We had this long conversation,
I said, "I'll be back.

"I'll come back straight away."

She said, "No. I'm going into
hospital in three days' time.

"By the time you get back,
you know, I'll be aware

"of you being in complete panic.

"I'm being really well looked after.

"A surgeon is going to
do the operation."

She said, "He's very happy to talk
to you," and all this sort of thing,

so she played down,
tried to play down things,

cos I don't think she
wanted me to panic.

That was very... It was a
very difficult period, that.

I never really seriously thought
we would abandon the journey,

but it came very close to it.

With Helen on the mend, my
determination to see the journey

through was renewed.

We still had over 20,000
miles to go.

Our route now took us round
the east coast of Australia...

Oh, my God.

I tell you, I've never done anything
like that in my whole life.

..across to New Zealand...

..and then on to the most dramatic
landscape yet - South America.

I honestly knew far less really
about the South American countries,

so I went with a
completely open mind.

Let's... We'll see what it's like.

Let's see what it's like
along the way.

It was more rugged.

The whole experience was much more
down to topography and landscape,

and, of course, the Andes sort of
dominating all the way we went

up through South America.

It was very odd the South American
side, it was like being in a story

somehow, you know, a magical world.

And there's a lot of magical realism
with the writers there and all that,

and you kind of know why they do it.

It was almost like it hadn't
been tamed, like the sort of

Asian side had been tamed.

Getting a bit hungry now.

Asado? Ooh.

Oh, a little tasting first.

Mm.

Perfectly done. Mm.

Pas cinco. Very good roast lamb.

Can I have a little bit?
It will be very good.

Don't worry about them. It's me...

Roast lamb in brown paper.
Oh, thank you.

Complete Sunday lunch.

How much? Cuanto es?

Cinco. Cinco. Si.

There we go. Don't bother them.

Hey! Ooh, that's...

MICHAEL LAUGHS

"We went as far into Peru
as possible by train,

"then further on by road,
and finally, in the manner of

"explorers from another age, on the
450-mile long Urubamba River."

"There's no way north of
here except by river.

"Over breakfast, I study a satellite
image of our river route.

"It shows clearly the line
of a rocky ridge

"through which the river cuts.
To get through,

"we shall have to descend the
fiercest of all the Urubamba rapids,

"the Pongo de Mainique."

When I started going down the
Urubamba, I'm not making a big thing

of it, but I was a bit scared
that morning, to be honest,

and when we were on these boats, we
could so easily have tipped over.

They're very shallow boats and
it was a very, very, very fast,

very fast foaming current.

And, you know, there's a
kind of, "Well, here we go.

"Nothing I can do, perhaps I
shouldn't have signed up for this,

"but hey, let's go."

Conditions on the
river can change quickly from

docile to lethal.

If there's too much water
flowing, the boats can be swept

out of control.

If there's too little, rocks
and shoals close to the surface

can flip us over.

Wow. Just missed a rock by the
skin of our teeth there.

The water starts
moving very, very fast

as it flows literally out of the
Andes and into the Amazon plain.

And there we are,
into boiling water,

I was pretty nervous at this point
because we seemed to be heading...

There we are! We're heading straight
for what seems like a sheer

wall of rock.

Glistening granite walls loom ahead

like slowly closing doors.

It's a tricky one, Barry.

Yeah, it's going to get
it just right here.

If he messes up here, we could be
into that rock or into that rock.

Very narrow now, isn't it? This
whole river just squeezed in.

It's squeezed in. It's getting
narrower up ahead too.

This must be just incredible
in the rains. Yeah.

It's the fact that the rock
is black,

the weather's clouded over,
it's beginning to drizzle,

it's like... Someone described them
as the gates of Hell.

I expected the Pongo to be
dangerous, but never

to be so beautiful.

Rocks, which look as if they've been
blasted apart, rise from the river

like the buttresses of some
half-submerged cathedral.

The way he describes it, what is it?
"The buttresses jetting up,

"you know, like cathedrals,"

it, like, puts incredible
images in my mind.

And often when I'm travelling
and sighted people will describe

things to me,

and I feel I'm the lucky one
because it's almost like I get

the book version instead of the
film version. And as we all know,

the book's always better
than the film, right?

LAUGHTER

I feel sorry for you sighted folk.

After the noise and chaos of the
rapids, the river has fallen

still and quiet.

The only sound is from the water
pouring out of the jungle, carving

a weird and wonderful architecture
on the canyon walls.

Travelling doesn't
get much better than that.

I must have read things like that,
when I was growing up,

endlessly in books, because that's
all I read, books about adventures,

different parts of the world.

And there it was all happening,
just in that little section there.

That's just pure adventure.

I remember thinking, "You know,
I wouldn't mind staying here for

"the rest of my life."

After three weeks on
the Peruvian river system,

we've now reach a crossroads.

We have... The Amazon here has
brought us to Peru on this side,

Brazil over there and
Colombia over there.

We can't really carry
on with the Amazon.

It goes on 2,000 miles
into the Atlantic.

So we're going to head north
through Colombia and back

up towards the Pacific.

Wherever that is.

Bogota was, in a way, a bit
of a paradise after nights and

nights going up the Urubamba River.

We're living just in tents
on the riverside,

there was lots of bugs around and
all that,

and it was very hot and
uncomfortable.

So when we flew to Bogota,
it was just wonderful.

We were booked into a
four-star hotel.

It was just amazing.

You know, and it had sort of sheets
on the bed and little chocolates

and things like that.

And I felt, well, suddenly
we're back in civilisation.

And then you realise how
tenuous the word civilisation is.

Colombia's capital
is the biggest city

we've seen since Sydney.

It has a reputation for being one
of the most violent places on Earth.

To try and find out why, I go to see
Tim Ross, a British journalist

living and working here.

I'm told you do a great city tour.

Well, the city is great.

I think it's fun, but it's not
a city exactly with tourism.

That has ended here because of the
problems and dangers.

A city with one of the world's
highest per capita homicide rates,

like, 100 murders
per 100,000 population here.

Like, 50 times the
British murder rate.

I think I had developed,
after two series,

more of an appetite for information.

I was beginning to realise that
you didn't have to sort of joke

about where you were or find some
eccentric thing to show

that you were having fun
and a good time.

There's more of a responsibility
to sort of note what's

happening in rather more
sort of serious areas.

Tim is well-known around here.

He's reported on these
streets for 20 years.

Death squads work this
area consistently.

They come around at night
killing people.

Now, this next street ahead here,
they've actually put posters up.

But who are the death squads,
who do they compose of,

and what justice
are they dealing out?

Justice - bullets in the head. Yeah.

It's shopkeepers, off-duty
policemen, private security guards.

Sometimes simply people who've been
mugged and are fed up with it,

go back with a gun and kill
street people, particularly...

So they're sort of vigilante squads.
Vigilante squads, yeah.

And do they kill people?
They do. Regularly. At what rate?

Sometimes three, four, five,
six cases a week,

two or three people
a night killed.

Back in the car, we head for the
most notorious street of all,

Calle Cartouche, "Bullet Street".

If they see someone like this
going through, do they see

it as a target or something to
rob...? Yes. Yes.

They're already yelling
insults at us.

ROCK HITS CAR

Now they're throwing rocks.

MORE ROCKS HIT CAR

Yeah, they've already started
getting hostile, which is normal.

They assume we're either death squad
or police or something.

Stabbings are frequent.

They use broken bottles
on each other's faces.

A squabble can start for nothing.

A squabble over 50 cents'
worth of marijuana.

I mean, I generally feel that
somehow we're going to be all right

because why would anyone
want to shoot us?

But then you don't know.
There are many reasons why
they might want to shoot you,

or they might just miss
the person they're shooting at

and it hits you if there's
bullets flying and all that.

There's definitely this feeling
that unless you had a weapon,

you were probably going to
end up a victim.

You weren't tempted to get
a weapon though?

I wasn't... The BBC didn't
allow me to get a weapon.

They allotted the contract.

So, this isn't glossy travel here.

Even just showing the existence
of this has a power.

"I'm not interested in filming
a holiday brochure."

I think it's incredibly important,
but just more interesting

as well to show what I,
slightly pretentiously,

call the light and the shade,

but it's basically, for me,
showing the glory of a place,

but also the issues as well.

Armed police patrol neighbourhoods
reduced by the

drug trade to war zones.

Tim knows many of the casualties.

TIM SPEAKS SPANISH

It was a knife stab. Right.

They had to open it up to
stitch him up inside. Wow.

THEY SPEAK SPANISH

It touched the heart.
Who did that and why?

TIM TRANSLATES

Up on Seventh, the main street
just to rob him.

But he's a street person,
a drug abuser, I mean...

Those are the stains of drug use,
marijuana and basuco,

that bright, bright orange.

You're lucky to survive that.

TIM SPEAKS SPANISH

Look at the scars.

That's typical of the
transvestite male prostitutes,

the self-mutilation.

He has AIDS. He has AIDS.

He has to go back to the foundation
which deals with AIDS patients
here.

Accept that? Will he do it? Yes.

He wants to persuade his friend.
The trouble is persuading the friend

to come in with him, cos he doesn't
want to leave him.

Ah, dear.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

I've only got a small bill,
that's all I have. OK?

Going to Colombia was something
that really stuck out,

and meeting that poor young man
who had AIDS on the street,

and he just was so compassionate
and so willing.

And there's never any judgment there
of any different cultures

or what people are going through.

Of all the places I've been in the
world, Colombia was the one

place where local people were not
happy that I'd been there.

There were actually some complaints,
you know, saying this was not a fair

portrait of their city.

I'm always aware that we go to
places where people have to live

with things which are not
always nice.

But I don't want to fall in a trap
of saying, "This is a bleak area,

"you'd never want to go there."

There's nowhere on my journeys
I wouldn't go back to again.

Even the really rough places,

I'd say, "Well, you know,
I was wrong. This is lovely."

Our journey through
South America was at an end.

After leaving Colombia, we flew
across Central America to our final

destination en route to the USA.

Mexico.

At first, Mexico felt more
prosperous than some places

on this leg of the journey.

But as we approached Tijuana,
the sheer inequality of life

in the Americas came sharply
into focus.

This is the US border,

a ten-foot high steel barrier
made from landing strip sections

from the Vietnam War.

It's called the Tortilla Curtain.

Those who cross illegally are
known as "pollos", chickens.

If you're determined to go,
the Tortilla Curtain can look

a very flimsy obstacle.

What's the view of the Mexicans of
this, of a defence like this?

They think, should it be there?
Very, very sad, you know,

because, don't forget,
all this used to be Mexico.

On the Mexican side,
you had people, a lot of whom had

very little to lose,

and on the other side, the American
side, just a few yards away,

was a sort of paradise.

Everything was more settled,
it was more comfortable,

there was more money,

so the starkness of the difference
between Tijuana and San Diego

could not have been greater.

When will these guys go, do you
think? Ooh, they're going now.

Yeah, they go now.
If there's a way, they cross.

I mean, I could get under there,
I suppose, and go to America.
Yes, sure.

I could... You can go if you want.

Look right, look left.

Here I am.

This is America.

That's America.

No passport, no papers... Nothing.
..no queues at Immigration.

We are pollos already.

Vehicles patrol along here,

so are we being observed
at this moment?

You think somebody's keeping an
eye on us? Of course.

I think we'd better leave
the land of the free

pretty quick just in case. Yes.
We'd better go.

Last year alone, over half a million
people were arrested for crossing

this 60-mile stretch of the
Tortilla Curtain, but still they go.

It was people at the end
of their tether trying to break

in to America.

Prepared to take terrific risks
with their family and their children

and all that, just to get in
and enjoy the way of life

in their rich neighbour.

The privilege is that you're able
to move fairly freely

between countries, but the privilege
is also that you're able to get

the story from both sides.

What's your feeling about the
people that you pick up?

What do you feel towards them,

that they're just legitimately
trying - well, not legitimately -

they're trying to get some work,
or what? It's a push-pull effect.

They're pushed up here
economically and they're drawn

up here economically.

I think that if I was
in their shoes,

I'd be doing the same thing.

If you're a forgotten people
in a difficult situation, it means

a hell of a lot for somebody to turn
up and take an interest.

And it's a very powerful thing for
people to think that their story,

in whatever form, it's going
to be shared with others

around the world,
with other human beings,

other people will hear
about this situation,

that's important to them

and I think it's important
for us to hear it as well.

Like so many experiences
on the journey, this sobering

reminder that we live in a world
of have and have nots made a big

impression on me.

INTERCOM: Welcome to the
United States of America.

But I never imagined that,
25 years on,

this border would become the huge
political issue it is today.

And so, on day 227 of our epic
voyage, we began the last leg

up through the states and into
Canada, towards Alaska,

where it had all begun.

Thanks a lot. Sorry to stop you,
but... That's all right.

I was told you stop anywhere. OK?

The last section,
especially up through Canada,

we were all getting very,
very tired.

But I think it was only the
Canadian Lumberjack Festival

that finally cracked me.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
please give a warm Squamish welcome

to Mr Michael Palin!

I once sang a song about
lumberjacks

and today, in Squamish,
I'm going to pay for it.

The Annual Logging Games always
start with a bang

and this year, I've been
asked to provide it.

Has it got a kick on it? Just a
little. A little kick, yeah?

All right, you see that tree with
the red marking? Yeah.

No excuses now.

Ready?

Aim...

fire!

EXPLOSION

Wow! We've never had anybody do it.

You did it!

Mike Palin, ladies and gentlemen.
CHEERING

Then, just as I think
it's all over,

I make the fatal
mistake of getting excited.

LAUGHING: You're going
the wrong way.

Pride comes before a fall.

Contestants ready.

One, two, go!

CROWD EXCLAIMS

It's no good.

I think I've lost the will to win.

LAUGHTER

Oh, my goodness. How about it?

Let's give him a super big...

I want to go home!
I want to go home!

And everyone thought that was
hilarious, but I really felt it.

I really... That was my...

I think one of the few moments
in all the series ever done

where I've had a heartfelt
desire not to be where I was.

But the finish line was in sight,

so we pushed on north towards
our original point of departure,

the Diomede Islands.

The US Coast Guard, who offered us
a ride down the

Aleutian Islands chain when
we started out a year ago,

had promised to help us
on our return journey.

Today, they're as good
as their word.

Their ship, the Monroe, is in
the area, winding up routine

patrol duties in the Bering Sea.

Thanks, guys.

If anyone can get us onto Diomede,
it's the US Coast Guard.

Oh, Captain, it doesn't
look too good.

What are the chances of
getting me onto Diomede?

Not very good, I'm afraid.

Winds are about 30 knots.

The seas are about 12 feet.
HORN BLOWS

And as you can hear, the fog
signal's going off, which indicates

reduced visibility, particularly
around Diomede.

So I don't think we'll be able
to fly the helicopter in either.

Well, it looks as though the
Bering Strait has defeated us.

The most notorious and changeable
and dangerous weather systems

come through here.

I shan't set foot on Diomede,
but I feel...I feel that

I've closed the circle.

It is out there.
We've travelled 50,000 miles.

We got within a gnat's of it.
A gnat's of it

and I think that's something.

"Alaska time, 10pm London,
we begin to wrap up the filming

"of Full Circle after 245 days.

"Captain, who's been steaming
around the island since first light,

"sets course southwards into
the wind and the mist."

We couldn't land on the island,
it was so rough.

"We proceed for a mile or so along
the International Date Line.

"Even from the Date Line,
only two miles off the rocky shore,

"it's impossible to make
out the 1,000-foot rock

"where we started."

In many ways, Full Circle was
the best series we did.

Best because it had the
greatest scope,

cos it covered the most
diverse landscapes.

And apart from a few areas,
it was very unfamiliar

and it fulfilled all the ideas
that it should be adventure

and it should be revelation and it
should be, you know, informed

by a sense of wonder and all that.

HE MOUTHS

I think it was just such a big
journey that I felt, that's it.

You know, we'll not do anything
better than that.

I felt it was a
door closing there, yes.

It turned out not to be, of course,
because, actually for me,

travel became an addiction.

The Sahara Desert. I remember
looking at it and thinking,

"That would be a challenge.

"It just looks totally empty
and it's a vast area.

"There must be things there."

I really wanted to show
that the Sahara

had a modern life there,
which, just people never saw.

Woo!

It was as challenging and
as difficult as any of the ones

we'd done before.