Original subtitles

This time, I'm in the wild heart of the Silk Road...

Look at this! It's dried lizard!

..Central Asia.

(MAN SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY) Whoa!

I discover the secrets of survival in this unforgiving land...

(SCREECHING)

Yeah, you can tell I was born to this.

..dive to find treasure in a Silk Road Atlantis...

If I find 200 gold coins, do I get to keep it?

..and unearth the animal that finally persuaded the Chinese

to part with their precious silk...

Are you telling me that's what the Chinese wanted?

..and change the course of human history.

I'm David Baddiel. I'm on the adventure of a lifetime...

Whoa!

..retracing the steps of merchants, warriors and pilgrims

along the largest trade route the world has ever known,

the Silk Road.

As a writer and comedian,

I'm fascinated by people and their stories...

These are amazing.

..and the Silk Road is one of the greatest human stories of them all.

(ALL CHEER)

It's got everything. Religion, culture...

How do I look?

..music, war.

Now I want to live that story. It will push me to my limits.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. (DOG BARKS)

We have got a bit of a situation.

There have been reports of landslides.

This monumental network stretches

across some of the toughest terrain on Earth.

It's like a sadistic army exercise.

The Silk Road witnessed the rise and fall of empires

and shaped the modern world as we know it.

My journey so far has taken me over 3,700km,

from the cosmopolitan city of Xi'an...

The Silk Road began here.

..and across the Taklamakan desert.

I can only hope they aren't the graves of people

who tried to cross the desert by camel.

Now I'm heading into the most dangerous

and remote region of the Silk Road.

So, we've travelled thousands and thousands of miles

since we started along the Silk Route, and we are now in Kashgar,

which is the most westerly city we're gonna get to in China.

In the days of the Silk Road,

Kashgar was an oasis for traders crossing the Taklamakan desert from the east

and the treacherous mountains to the northwest.

As a result, it became a vital trade hub

for merchants from all over the world.

I want to find out what happened

when all these different cultures converged on Kashgar.

The first clues come from the faces of the people here.

As you travel west, along the Silk Road,

what happens is that China becomes less and less Chinese,

as we in the West understand Chinese,

and it becomes more and more Middle-Eastern.

It turns out that around 50% of Kashgar's population

are not Han Chinese.

They're descended from Central Asian traders,

Turkic tribes, and Hun warriors, and are called the Uygur people.

And Uygur people, as you can tell,

are more like people you would get in Baghdad.

I'm intrigued how this cultural melting pot

has influenced global trade...

..and the best place to look

is the world-famous Kashgar grand bazaar.

Local guide Karim is showing me around.

How do I look? (LAUGHING)

Just like in the heyday of the Silk Road,

there are furs to protect travellers from the bitter cold...

If I wear this, I look like a rabbi. I know...

I've not even got to look in a mirror. I know I look like a Rabbi.

..sustenance for long journeys...

That is a very nice nut.

..and ancient organic medicines

that are still used as cure-alls by the Uygurs today.

Wow, look at this! It's dried lizard!

They're the dried lizard.

Wow! Is that an animal? KARIM: Yeah. Animal.

Is that a hedgehog? It's dead. Yeah, dead. OK, great.

So there's dried hedgehog as well.

Goods like these would have helped traders survive

as they headed east and west, selling silk.

But there has been one product traded here

for longer than any other in this ancient gateway city -

livestock...

..and it's still every bit as much in demand today

as it was on the Silk Road.

Traders came from all over the world looking for a deal,

including Marco Polo, who wrote of his visit 700 years ago.

(KARIM SPEAKING)

Right. No any change.

It hasn't changed since Marco Polo died,

apart from some trucks. The trucks are slightly different.

(HORN HONKS) (GOATS BLEAT)

Today, a single sheep will sell for £150,

but a good cow can fetch near £1,000.

Oh, that's a huge amount of money. He give the money, yeah.

(KARIM SPEAKING) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this animal stock-exchange is all overseen by one man.

Oh, yeah. (KARIM SPEAKING)

Oh, are you? Hello, sir. Nice to meet you.

Hello, Abdul Resh. I'm David.

And you own the whole market? It's yours? Wow. OK.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

(KARIM SPEAKING) Oh, for me to buy a camel?

Yeah. If you want to, you can see the camel...

I'm hoping to go back to England by aeroplane, but I'll have a look.

These beasts of burden have been essential for transport

from the time of the Silk Road right up until today.

But they also played a key role in keeping travellers alive.

Abdul takes me next door to show me how on his camel farm.

At least, I hope that's where we're going.

I'm pretty sure that they think this is another camel. (CHUCKLES)

Yup! (CHUCKLES)

Abdul's camels aren't for riding. They're kept specially for milking.

Can you see an udder? I can't see an udder. Oh, wow.

Camel's milk was the "white gold" of the Silk Road.

Look at that foot, it's enormous!

It contains ten times more iron

and three times more vitamin C than cow's milk.

This is really weird. I mean, I've got...

I've got my finger on the... on the udder.

Thank you. Thank you. Can I give you that? Oy vey!

Abdul's herd produces £56,000 worth of camel milk every week...

(LAUGHS)

..and he wants me to try this Silk Road super-food.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE) Cheers.

Cheers. (LAUGHS) Hos, you say? Hos. Hmm.

I just really hope this is milk.

It's good.

Wow. (EXHALES)

Mmm. You had it all? Hmm.

I guess I'm gonna have to do that. (CHUCKLES)

Don't wanna be rude. Mmm.

Cheers. Good.

Next up, more milk. This time, it's been fermented.

Wow, that's actually really nice! (LAUGHS)

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

Amazing. Yeah, yeah.

That camel milk, it's doing you great.

Fantastic! Look at your lung. It's really expanded. (SLURPS)

With my appetite whetted, I'm keen to try

some of the street food available at the market.

It seems the menu hasn't changed much

since Marco Polo's visit 700 years ago.

Most of what's on offer walked here this morning.

It doesn't get any fresher than this.

(KARIM SPEAKING)

Karim tells me that it was the Uygurs

who invented something archetypally Chinese,

which reached the rest of the world along the Silk Road...

..noodles.

(KARIM SPEAKING)

Yeah.

OK.

The theory goes that noodles travelled west

from China to Italy,

so it seems we can thank the Silk Road for pasta, too.

(KARIM SPEAKING)

The Noodle Road. I like the idea that the Silk Road

could have been called the Noodle Road.

Now I must bid farewell to my new friend

and continue my journey along the Noodle Road.

So, what the cultural blend in Kashgar has done

is it's prepared me for the next step of my journey along the Silk Road,

for the "stans".

For Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan.

And so I'm gonna go in that direction,

and the most Chinese of men, Chairman Mao,

is showing me the way out.

Once out there,

I hope to discover just what Mao's ancestors were after

when they set off along the Silk Road's wild west.

That's what the Chinese were drawn by? Yes.

How do I look?

I'm David Baddiel...

Wa-hey!

..and in Kashgar, China, I've discovered camel's milk...

Look at that foot, it's enormous!

..was a Silk Road super-food...

Wow, that's actually really nice!

..and pasta came from noodles.

The Silk Road could have been called the Noodle Road.

Now I'm in Kazakhstan to find out what it was

that first enticed China onto the famous trade route.

I've grasped why the Romans went east in search of silk...

..and many other things that the Chinese could provide.

But a road, obviously, is a two-way thing,

so there's gotta be something

that the Chinese wanted from this part of the world.

And it's here somewhere, and I'm gonna find out what it is.

So far, my journey has taken me through the heart of China.

From Kashgar, I travelled across the Tien Shan mountains

to Kazakhstan to join a northern branch of the Silk Road.

Now I'm heading for the Tamgaly gorge.

The gorge is deep within the steppe,

a grassland which stretches almost one-fifth of the way

around the planet.

So I'm gonna need the help of local guide Alexandra

to find its hidden clues.

So, it's very empty.

At the moment this looks like endless plains,

but who would have been coming across this area over the years?

OK, so this is very much an area

that nomadic tribes would have crossed. Exactly.

3,000 years ago,

the nomads in this region carved intricate images into the rocks.

Actually, I think there's something round here, as well.

And there was one symbol, more than any other,

that the people here in Central Asia revered.

OK, so here they are. So, these are amazing.

What...what are these? (ALEXANDRA SPEAKING)

When the Silk Road first began,

horses were central to life in this region,

and were the secret behind the supremacy of an empire

that was kicking China's arse, the Xiongnu.

Their big, strong horses made light work

of the short, weaker ones that China rode into battle.

If the Chinese were to stand any chance of winning,

they needed an upgrade.

They heard rumours of other huge, powerful horses in Central Asia.

(ALEXANDRA SPEAKING)

OK. And that legend of the horse, that's what the Chinese were drawn by?

Yes. Chinese people were very interested in horses.

And the way to get those strong horses, China realised,

was to buy them with silk.

They sent caravans of silk-laden camels west,

for the first time in history, and negotiated a trade deal -

horses for precious fabric.

With supply and demand opened up at both ends,

the Silk Road was born.

So, you talked earlier about nomads being in this area.

I guess the horse would have been central to nomadic life.

(ALEXANDRA SPEAKING)

I'm intrigued to know if this way of life still continues today.

Do the nomads still exist?

I'm on a mission to find the nomads,

so I'm leaving the Kazakhstan grasslands

and heading south along the Silk Road,

into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

But to get there, I have to cross over the border.

In the past, many of the kingdoms here were at war with each other,

so border crossings would have been fraught with danger.

So, we're at the border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan,

erm, and...

I don't know how long it's gonna take to get through,

because there seems to be a certain amount

of bureaucratic stuff going on up ahead.

Also, I'm not sure we're allowed to film.

Today, all of the "stans" in Central Asia

are involved in border disputes, so crossing them is still daunting.

If I do go missing, and, say, in a couple of years' time,

you see me in the back of a shop,

er, in, kind of, a basement,

can you alert someone? Interpol?

We've been asked to leave the van. Hang on. Yeah.

No, don't film? OK.

I've made it across the Kazakh border.

Now I just need to make it in to Kyrgyzstan.

Passport control might seem like a modern invention,

but 700 years ago,

Marco Polo had his own rudimentary version.

In his day, travellers carried metal plaques called Paizi,

and border guards could be killed for denying a Paizi-holder entry.

It's OK. Thank you.

I tell you, one of the most reassuring sounds in the world

is the... (CLICKS TONGUE) ..clunk of the passport stamp,

particularly in places like this.

Just 25km into Kyrgyzstan is the ancient city of Bishkek.

On my journey so far,

I've been following in the footsteps of Marco Polo,

but here I'm starting to see signs

of some more recent Silk Road travellers,

the Soviets.

I don't think I've ever actually seen goose-stepping

in the wild, as it were.

I felt I could hear the theme music to The Producers,

and then the fountains came on! (CHUCKLES)

The Soviets governed Kyrgyzstan for over 70 years,

and cast a huge shadow on the modern Silk Road.

But if you look beyond the Russian architecture and statues of Lenin,

there are clues to Kyrgyzstan's more ancient heritage.

The legacy of the Silk Road

and the horse becoming important here is clear in the statues,

virtually all of which are horse-based,

are people on horses, except for one I've seen down there,

which is a horse on top of a man.

I need to continue my journey south,

so I want to see what the descendants of the ancient nomads

can offer me in the way of transport.

(IMITATES REVVING) Wow! (SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE)

I can't ride a horse,

so I've been told this is the best they can do

if I want to feel the wind in my hair.

(LAUGHS) I think this is it!

Hello. Hello.

(GREETS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE) Hello. Mansur?

Yes. I'm David. Hello. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too. Is this my bike?

This? Yes. This is my bike. Does it work?

Just like the ancient nomads, Mansur loves to hit the open road,

but he's swapped his ancestral horse for a Ural M63.

I love it, it's great. How old is it?

MANSUR: This is 1978. It looks like that. Perfect.

(LAUGHS) Does it work?

(ENGINE CRANKING)

(ENGINE STARTING)

OK, yeah.

Oi! Oh, no. (LAUGHS)

(ENGINE STARTING)

Whoa! (LAUGHS)

That's hurting me quite a lot every time that happens.

OK, Mansur, is it OK,

cos I don't think I'm an expert on the bike yet,

if you take me out for a test drive, and I'll sit in the side-car?

All right. OK, thank you.

These motorcycles were built for the Soviet army

to cope with the harsh terrain...

Look at that pothole. Whoa! Oi!

...which is fortunate.

This isn't a road, it's just... It's an obstacle course!

After the fall of the Soviet Union, these weapons of the Russian army

became the workhorses of the Kyrgyzstan residents,

as Mansur's friends can testify.

Finally, the Kyrgyzstan chapter of Hell's Angels has turned up!

But before I can join the gang,

I'm going to have to figure out how this bike works.

Oh, the old girl's got some poke!

Home, Mansur, and don't spare the environment.

(SIGHS) Thank you, Mansur, that was great.

A fabulous ride. Yeah. You're welcome.

There's life in the old girl yet. Thank you, my brothers and sisters.

(CHUCKLES) (INDISTINCT)

Oh... (LAUGHS)

Wow. It's amazing.

Look at that, I'm a member of the chapter now, aren't I?

Hey, and I don't have to cut my hand, or be hog-tied, or anything.

OK. One, two, go.

(CAMERA CLICKS)

Now let's go and find those (BLEEP) nomads.

Like the Silk Road traders before me, I'm leaving the safety of the city

and heading for the snowy peaks of the Tien Shan.

The name translates as "Heavenly Mountains",

but given the thousands of traders killed trying to cross them,

"Jaws of Death" feels more apt.

I'm David Baddiel,

and so far, I've discovered the trade of nomad horses

was what lured China west along the Silk Road...

That's what the Chinese were drawn by? Yes.

..and the descendants of the horse traders

are still around today.

Now I'm on a mission to find them.

To feed their livestock, nomads move to high ground

during the summer,

so I'm following the ancient trade route

into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

In the past, this 140km journey

would have taken horse caravans nearly four days.

At this rate, it's going to take my Soviet steed even longer.

And to make matters worse...

(EAGLE SCREECHING)

I've no option but to radio the crew for help.

It's not happy.

I mean, I can try it again, but...

My only hope is that local mechanics can carry out a roadside repair...

..but a broken fuel line means this bike is going nowhere.

It's time to admit defeat and go back to my 4x4.

Something that needs to be said

is that Kyrgyzstan is incredibly beautiful.

Not something, I think, we're aware of in the West.

It's sort of a fairy-tale land.

I expect Hogwarts to appear at almost any minute.

I'm still following the route of the ancient nomad traders,

but there's no sign of their modern counterparts.

We're going up very high. We're at 3,800m now.

I'm three times higher up than Ben Nevis.

At this height,

merchants passing through the Central Asian Silk Road

would have suffered from altitude sickness.

They complained of "Headache Mountains"

where men's bodies became feverish, lost colour,

and were attacked with headaches and vomiting.

I'm not faring much better.

What I'm noticing is shortness of breath...

..and headaches, and...

a slight sense that the driver might have gone mad,

cos we just keep on going up, and up, and up.

At last, the road levels out and we reach the top.

We're nearly 4,000m above sea level,

and there's a frozen lake there.

The reason we're so high up can be explained by Marco Polo,

who talks of the wandering life of what he calls the Tartars,

but he means the nomads as we understand them.

"During two or three months,

they progressively ascend higher ground and seek fresh pasture,

the grass not being adequate in any one place

to feed the multitudes of which their hordes and flocks consist."

We may have slightly overshot it with how high we've come.

Perhaps the nomads I'm seeking

have wandered off elsewhere to find fresh pasture.

I'm heading to the nearest town

to see if anyone can help with my search.

So, we're still on the lookout for nomads,

but the thing about nomads, turns out they move about a lot,

so they're proving quite elusive,

but there's a woman, who I think could be waiting for us

just on this street here, who will lead us to nomads.

I've got a hot tip from her. She knows where they are.

Hello. DINARA: Hello. Hi. I'm David. Dinara.

Hi, Dinara. Can you show us where the nomads are?

Yes, of course. If you like. Can you hop in? Yes.

Dinara is herself descended from nomads,

and knows of a hidden valley nearby

where they come to graze their horses.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

There we go.

Is that them? Over there? Yes. Just over there. Yeah.

We've found them. There they are. That bunch of yurts over there,

looking like a beautiful little glamping section of Glastonbury.

That way, I think.

Finally, the living descendants of the pioneers of the Silk Road -

and their horses, too.

Hello. Sinbad. This is Sinbad. Sinbad.

Hello, Sinbad. I'm David. David. Hi, nice to meet you.

Nomads like Sinbad use ancient knowledge

passed down through the generations to survive here.

How many years has she been doing this?

(DINARA SPEAKING)

Since she was a little girl? Yeah.

Without the nomads, the first travellers

along the Silk Road would never have made it west.

The ancestors of these people had an intimate knowledge of the area,

and carved the first paths through the mountains.

So, using the horses or donkeys they were finding the passes,

the best ways to go, and of course when the merchants came,

they were using the ancient routes of the nomads, originally.

Right. So the Silk Road is following the path of the nomad. Yes.

Nomads are the first people to take, essentially, land,

and say, "OK, we can traverse this, we can make a road across it." Yeah.

But the nomads didn't just open up this stretch of the Silk Road.

They also showed traders how to survive here.

And now this 2,000-year-old knowledge

has finally made its way to a comedian from north London.

It's just days since I milked a camel,

but now I'm discovering another animal used for this purpose

that is not a cow.

I'm gonna milk a mare, cos one thing I've discovered

about the countries along the Silk Road

is that if it's got four legs and some teats,

someone's gonna get some milk out of it.

That foot could take him out for life,

could take out any chances of him having children.

Like camel's milk, mare's milk is incredibly rich,

and a vital part of the nomad diet.

Is it good for the lungs?

If you stay here and drink it for ten days...

Yeah. You turn into a horse? No, you get ten years younger.

Ten years younger?

Or at least you look ten years younger.

(LAUGHS) Yeah. So, yeah.

Well, I hope to look ten years younger.

Cheers. Cheers. Mmm.

(GULPS) Oh, that's interesting.

You can taste the mare in this mare's milk, I tell you.

(LAUGHS)

As their ancestors did, the nomads trade horse milk,

and use their takings to buy things they can't get from the land,

like flour for making boortsog, an ancient form of doughnut.

I might say goodbye to my life of...

flat whites and broadband and showbiz parties,

just to do this and be...

(CHUCKLES) and be ordered about by

ancient nomadic women, how to make bread.

Can I cut it on that? Yeah. OK.

Oh, God. I'll have the little, dainty, small ones. I'll eat them.

I just want it to be a touch browner. I'm a perfectionist.

Ah. OK? Yeah.

Try some. It's not too hot? Not too hot, yeah. It's OK.

Mmm. It's lovely.

It's not what the Atkins Diet would approve of, but nonetheless...

Three! Two! One! Smile!

(CAMERA CLICKS)

My brief time with the nomads has been eye-opening.

But while nomads were the pioneers of the early Silk Road,

I want to find what this wild land was like when trade really took off.

So I'm heading for Lake Issyk Kul.

At the height of the Silk Road, this was a major trade region,

with more than a dozen settlements around its shore.

But since those times, excessive snow-melt

has caused the water level of the lake to rise by eight metres,

submerging its Silk Road settlements.

Now recent archaeological dives

have begun to unearth the remains of those sunken settlements...

..and today, I'm going underwater with archaeologist Vasily Ploskikh

to search the most exciting one of all.

Is that mine? Is this good?

I don't know. I'll put it on first. Snazzy. What do you think?

Vasily believes he's found the site of a palace

belonging to the Mongol emperor Tamerlane.

This wealthy ruler was famous for commissioning ornate,

tiled buildings along the Silk Road,

like those in the city of Bukhara, that still exist today.

Here in Issyk Kul, divers have retrieved

jewellery, pottery, and even bars of gold.

If I find a chest in which there's 200 gold coins,

do I get to keep it? No. No. It's bad, isn't it, the answer?

I can't see anything particularly exciting,

but then I finally spot something.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

The archaeologist, it's a very valuable find.

Oh. Yeah. Hey. (DAVID SPEAKING)

Vasily believes this tile could be a crucial piece of evidence

in discovering if the palace here

was as spectacular as those in Bukhara.

The booty that we've got from that treasure hunt

is this, which is a ceramic tile

which you can still see the glazing on. I think that is amazing.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

My small find here today

adds to an incredible body of evidence,

helping to bring the Silk Road back to life.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE) Whoa!

Coming up, I discover what nomads get up to these days with horses...

and the other animal that played a crucial role for traders

in surviving the wilds of the Silk Road.

I'm David Baddiel, and I'm in Kyrgyzstan.

It's sort of a fairy-tale land.

So far, I've uncovered a sunken Silk Road Atlantis...

I think that is amazing.

..and discovered that the Silk Road

was opened up by the knowledge of the nomads.

So the Silk Road is following the path of the nomad. Yes.

But the thing about the nomadic life is it's not just about movement.

It's also about surviving on whichever patch of land you decide

that this is gonna be yours for now.

And we're on our way now to find out one of the secrets

that have helped the nomads to survive

in the wild for as long as they have.

While horses played a central role in the lives of the nomads,

there was another animal partnership that allowed them,

and the traders who followed them, to thrive in the wilds.

I'm heading for the remote village of Bokonbayevo,

three kilometres south of Lake Issyk Kul,

to meet fifth generation eagle-hunter Talgar Shaibyrov.

Talgar. Hello, Talgar. Are your eagles here? Yeah. Here.

They are? Oh, wow. (SQUAWKS)

Golden eagles were an essential nomad hunting weapon

encountered by Silk Road traders.

A single eagle could feed and clothe an entire village.

Even now, Talgar depends on his eagle Tamara

to help feed his family.

Today, he's agreed to take me hunting,

to teach me the ways of the past and present.

(TAMARA SCREECHES) Ooh, it doesn't like me much.

All right. Whoa. Wait, wait. Yeah, you can tell I was born to this!

Where do they go? In the boot? Yup. (CHUCKLES)

They go in the boot.

Do I just sit here? With the bird? Yeah.

Wa-hey! (SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

This is a strange experience.

Ooh.

We're heading for the hills to find our prey.

Cos of the masks,

it feels like we've taken two birds of prey hostage.

They might seem like pets, but these are fierce predators,

and the masks help keep them calm in the car.

(CHUCKLES) The eagle has somehow slipped its mask,

and I just looked round and saw an enormous beady eye looking at me.

I can't say it puts me at ease,

having Tamara behind me,

staring at the back of my head.

Thinking, "Yeah, I like rabbit, I like fox,

but I'd really like a Jew for dinner!"

Finally, we arrive unscathed

at Talgar and Tamara's favourite hunting-ground.

Hello, wa-hey! (CHIRPS) Cor! Blimey!

Just a slight hint of Jurassic Park.

Right, let's do some hunting.

Talgar has had Tamara since she was a chick,

and spent years earning her trust.

Now we're going to see Tamara doing what she does best,

which is killing. You might be squeamish about this,

and if you are a bit squeamish, I would advise a cup of tea,

possibly, for the next bit.

For Talgar, it's just another day in the office,

but this practice dates back all the way to the Silk Road.

Marco Polo writes about eagles on his experiences.

He says, "They are trained to stoop at wolves,

and such is their size and strength that none, however large,

can escape from their talons."

Its prey today is not that large,

and I don't think it's gonna escape from her talons.

Tamara's seven-foot wingspan

enables her to dive at speeds of over 240km/h.

And with eyes four times sharper than mine,

she effortlessly picks out her victim, a rabbit.

Tamara, quite clearly, as soon as her mask was off,

had focused on where it was, like a sniper's rifle sights.

Tamara's prey provides food for the family,

but it also provides a source of trade

that originated on the Silk Road.

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

So the birds had to hunt fur,

really, wolves and foxes, which would then be skinned,

and then they would be traded along the Silk Road.

The fur hunted by eagles

would have helped merchants survive the bitter cold of the mountains.

The Silk Road isn't just about trade.

It's also about surviving.

And out in the wild,

if you're trying to trade, and you're trying to survive,

and you're trying to live your life, then you need

a way of keeping yourself and your things safe.

And if you have the option of a bow and arrow or an eagle,

I would have gone, with what I've just seen, with an eagle.

(CHUCKLES)

Back at Talgar's house, today's catch is prepared for dinner.

It's one of those times when I'm glad I work in television,

and not in ancient hunting.

(SIZZLING)

Amazing.

My time in Central Asia has taught me that animals,

from camels and rabbits to eagles,

were the key to surviving this wild landscape.

But there's no doubt that one animal really held the key to the Silk Road:

horses.

For nomads, traders and the Chinese, they were almost objects of worship.

Today I'm going to the Horse Games, where horses, in everything they are

and everything they do, will be celebrated

by the local people here in Kyrgyzstan.

And obviously, because it's the Horse Games,

I'm gonna be travelling there on this.

This is the other traditional form of transport in this area,

a knackered old ex-Soviet car, the Moskvitch.

It doesn't actually have a starting mechanism any more,

so I've paid a nomad to push me to get going.

The Horse Games have been celebrated since the days of the Silk Road,

and it's still a highlight in the nomad calendar.

Hey, Dinara. Hi. Hello.

How you doing? I'm good, how are you? Yeah, nice to see you too.

Horsemanship is still prized above all skills in Kyrgyz culture.

And there is one extraordinary sport

that allows men to show off this skill like no other...

..Kok Boru,

a hybrid of rugby and a Texas rodeo

using a headless goat as a ball.

David! Yes, hello. (SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

An assistant ref? Yeah, an assistant referee.

They're asking me to be the assistant ref. Yeah.

OK. Kok Sai. Kok Sai. Yeah. And this is...

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE) Tong. Tong.

So it's Kok Sai in the red hats versus Tong in the blue.

Good. Yeah, no. That's fantastic. OK, yeah.

Thank you very much. It's a great honour.

Thank you. I have to keep score. Yes.

I don't know how... When is a goal scored?

The goal is scored... How do I tell?

There don't appear to be any nets.

When they throw the goat into the tyre? Yeah, it means a score.

When they throw the goat into the tyre, that's a goal.

Yeah. It's a score. Yeah.

We're off!

And they're going for it.

It's turning into an immediate big horse scrap.

It might seem barbaric, but the sport has practical origins,

from when the Silk Road nomads

would have to chase down and retrieve a goat snatched by wolves.

Yes. Who scored? Who scored? Yeah, the Kok Sai.

The Kok Sai scored? The Kok Sai scored. OK, thanks.

It's not normally the case that the fourth official has to ask the crowd

if there's been a goal, but make do and mend. Yeah.

It's great to watch,

but I've got no idea what's actually going on.

Referee! Look!

He's pretending to hit the horse. He's just hitting the other player!

There are children there. Children there! Children!

(DINARA LAUGHS)

(MAN SHOUTS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE) Whoa!

Historically, the winning team would receive the goat,

but today, they're making an exception.

Oh, I appear to be given the goat. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you very much. (DINARA LAUGHS)

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

Yeah. Honestly, it was a great game.

It went a bit tasty, and a bit weird at one point,

but I think overall, there's only gotta be one winner,

and that has to be Kok Sai! Kok Sai! Yeah.

Sorry to Tong. (LAUGHS) Yeah.

As the nomads head back to camp...

Go, go, go, go, go. Bye-bye! Bye-bye.

..I set off west to continue my journey.

So, this bit of the Silk Road's been fairly wild, actually.

It's been very animal-based, and I've drunk a lot of milk.

Horse's milk, camel's milk, even cow's milk occasionally.

But it's been about the land, and about the way that people

use the resources of the land to survive whilst trying to create

trade for themselves. At the end of the day, though,

the Silk Road is about the birth of capitalism,

and so, really, I wanna go in search of trade again.

I wanna go in search of luxury, and silk, and merchandise.

What I'm saying is, "Show me the money."

(MAN GRUNTS)

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Next time...

I go hunting for treasure in the hills of Central Asia...

Gold here? WOMAN: Yes, that's gold.

..immerse myself in the oilfields of Azerbaijan...

There's actually oil coming out of the ground.

..and try my hand at an ancient Silk Road sport.

(GRUNTS) (GROANS) Yes! (LAUGHTER)