Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

Hey!

Out! Go!

Hey!

What is your name? Romesh Ranganathan,

a comedian from the UK.

What are you doing here?

Well, I'm going to countries, that sort of

because of their reputation, people don't tend to go to,

and I'm going to be visiting Haiti, Ethiopia and Albania.

Really? Why?

Why would you do that?

LAUGHTER

I mean, he's got a point.

Why can't I go somewhere like Australia?

Cos Dara O Briain did a show about that.

OK, what about Thailand?

Karl Pilkington's been there.

Temperatures in the Albanian Alps

will range between minus 5 and minus 10.

I've got it, I won't strip down.

Jack Whitehall went there with his dad.

Of course he bloody did.

Ethiopian roads are some of the worst in the world, Ron.

Road traffic accidents are really, really common.

Michael Palin.

Michael Palin.

Michael Palin.

Jesus Christ, Michael bloody Palin.

THEY YELL

WHISPERS: Did you see that out there?

I think it might be what's left of my dignity.

I mean, my intention is to fully immerse myself

in the country and the culture.

Is Ethiopia...

..all about famine?

Is Haiti all about poverty and earthquakes?

Is Albania just bleak and communist?

If it's shit, I'll tell you it's shit.

It is genuinely one of the most incredible places

I've ever been in my life.

That was horrible, I hate Albania, man.

Right. Is your mum coming?

No. Why would my mum be coming?

Is your mum coming?

My understanding of Haiti is, it's hot.

Er...

There was an earthquake there about eight years ago,

and they like voodoo.

Yeah, that's it.

According to this,

it's been called the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

President Trump called it a shit-hole.

I don't think I've heard a positive news story out of Haiti.

This happened cos it's violent there, there's an earthquake happened,

there's looting afterwards - none of those things that you associate with

Haiti as a result of what you're seeing on the news

makes you want to go there.

Holy shit! Cite Soleil is a red flag zone.

The gangs no longer rule, but murder, rape, kidnapping,

looting and shootings are still common.

I tell you what, if they're going to change my attitude towards whether

you should visit there, it's going to have to have a hell of a view.

OK, you rolling?

I travel from London to the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

Haiti lies in the middle of the Caribbean, surrounded by Jamaica,

Cuba and the Bahamas.

For some reason, just over half a million tourists

visited Haiti last year.

Five million went to the Dominican Republic,

including my uncle.

But, having spent the 14-hour flight imagining the myriad of ways I might

get killed, I arrived in a state of high alert.

Hello.

How's it going?

Er...

It was going all right until...

..just before I got on the plane,

a woman getting on asked me what I was doing coming to Haiti and

I just sort of said, "Recreational trip."

I couldn't be arsed to go into the details of it.

Then she started telling me how likely it is I'm going to die.

This is Rom, this is security.

Nice to meet you. Stu.

Hello. Romesh. Security for who?

We've got to go.

Security for me?

Are you shitting me?

OK, let's go.

Everyone I've spoken to about doing it said that they wouldn't do it.

My wife said she wouldn't do it.

My mum, the night before I got on the plane last night,

came to my house at 11 o'clock to give me a blessing

and pray for my safe return.

It sort of was undermined slightly by the fact she was still

wearing her Royal Mail uniform.

That's a cock, isn't it?

Why would you have this right at the front?

This is... I mean, that is genuinely terrifying.

The hotel has just got a really weird vibe.

Like, really weird.

Do you know anything about voodoo?

Well, I've watched Live And Let Die.

That's kind of...as far as my research into it has gone.

And what are your impressions of Haiti so far?

At the moment...

..I'm sort of a bit nervous, I'll be honest.

CRICKETS CHIRP, DOG BARKS

I was due to meet Jeremy,

a Peabody Award-winning local journalist

who would show me around and give me an inside guide to all things Haitian.

Jeremy, how are you doing? Good, man.

How are you doing? Yeah, good, thank you.

Basically - I'll level with you - I'm sort of trying to, er...

..to get as much of an in-depth insight into Haiti

and the culture and stuff,

but I also, er...

Yeah. So I've got those two things,

like, contradicting each other.

I mean, what is actually the real level of danger out there?

I'm not going to say that, you know, it's, I mean, like,

you will be in a place that's completely safe,

but Haiti is not, like, the craziest destination on Earth,

so this is how they always picture Haiti.

Right. The Cite Soleil?

How bad is that? Would you advise outsiders to go there?

Let me tell you one thing about...

You might get the impression I'm obsessed with danger here,

Yeah, well,

I totally understand if this is what you have in your mind,

but there are normal people, man. I'm telling you.

All right? There are, like, regular, normal people

Yeah.

And, like any other place,

if you have 300,000 people in one poor neighbourhood

with no basic services, living with less than two dollars a day,

Yeah, yeah.

Of course Haiti has a lot to do to improve,

but Haiti has all the potential as well.

To be the, like, next big thing, you know?

Jeremy had outlined the plan for the week.

We would be spending the first few days getting to grips with

Port-au-Prince before heading south to the beaches at Jacmel.

We would start with a trip to the area where Jeremy grew up - Solino.

Listen, when I arrived here, I saw all this.

I'll be honest with you, it freaked me out.

JEREMY LAUGHS

Seriously. Look at that.

There's a penis with spines on it.

You don't need to be scared, man, come on!

Not scared, but, like, when you first arrive at a hotel...

Yeah, this is not the first thing that you would expect.

Is there a voodoo connection with penises and nails?

That's just a thing.

No, no. This is just a thing.

You know, some art.

It's just the thing people are going Yeah.

Yeah, but it's not...

We have the same thing in the UK with decking.

How are we getting there? A tap tap?

Yeah.

After you. This is a tap tap? Yeah, it's a tap tap.

Feels like as soon as we stepped out of the hotel into this,

it just feels like...

Exactly.

So what is this music we're listening to now?

Raboday.

Raboday is a very popular music among the young, so this is

Marinad 007.

Yes.

Maybe you should meet Marinad 007.

Yeah.

I'll organise that.

Are you being serious right now?

No, I'm serious.

I mean, I want that CD, man, come on.

This is Solino, right here. This is where I grew up, man.

This is where you grew up?

Yeah. The crossroad right here, that very intersection.

You used to have tyre burning, you know.

People were mad, people protesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's get off here.

Aha!

HORN HONKS REPEATEDLY

This is where Jeremy grew up, so he's just sort of showing

me around and introduced me to a couple of his mates.

What's your impression of it so far?

Just mad.

Inside of here is like a soccer field.

That's literally where my house used to be.

Yeah.

Everyone seems very nice, but it is hectic.

So it's chaos rather than fear.

There's fear of chaos.

It's a lovely neighbourhood, I mean, you know.

It's a poor neighbourhood...

..obviously. People struggle to make a dignified living.

People are very creative in areas like that, you know,

because there's not much You know? Yeah.

A quarter of the population of Haiti live in Port-au-Prince,

and it felt uncomfortably hectic.

Maybe because he could sense I was beginning to shit myself,

Jeremy lined up something a bit calmer,

making good on his promise to introduce me to Marinad 007,

the famous local Raboday artist.

Yeah.

Marinad.

This is Marinad.

Nice to meet you.

I heard and loved your song in a tap tap recently.

JEREMY TRANSLATES

IN OWN LANGUAGE:

So, has his life changed as a result of that song coming out?

Have you made a lot of money off of the song?

He's very succinct, isn't he?

A concise guy.

Says a few words.

Is it possible for him to do the song for us now? No?

Nice one, thank you. Thank you. Merci.

So, this is where the magic happens, this is the recording studio.

DRUM MUSIC PLAYS

Spitting the bars fresh once again, live,

for the man like Romesh and Jeremy, Yeah.

What do you think of that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good, right? Embarrassing but good.

Yes, yes, Marinad 007!

Ou kwe se mwen

Wi se mwen

Ou kwe se mwen

Wi se mwen

Blode a plase a manzel

Men manzel kite l l al pran on lepe

Woy

Men madan papa

Gade madan papa

Fanm ki madan papa se fanm k ap vire ak lepe...

MUSIC STOPS

That was great.

Just how I remembered it in the tap tap.

Better. Is it possible I can, like, join him in a little collab?

Do some English bars on there?

You're coming in as well. No, that's...

Yes, no, yeah. You're coming in as well.

That's not my shit at all. No, but you're my guide.

I know, I'm right here. I'll have I'm not a Raboday expert, myself.

I'm just coming in and getting involved, man.

I don't know, dude. I don't sing. I don't have a good voice.

Neither do I.

Yes, yes!

Ou kwe se mwen

Ou kwe se mwen!

Ou kwe se mwen

Ou kwe se mwen!

Blode a plase a manzel

Blode a plase a manzel

Men manzel kite l l al pran on lepe

Don't know that bit!

Oh, my gosh, I'm here with Marinad

Romesh, and you know that I'm superbad

I'm in a mic, here with the Jeremy

To get me off your mic you're going to have to bury me

I'm here, I am not Haitian

My name is Romesh Ranganathan

And also I am Asian

I'm killing it with mandem at the train station!

Yeah, yeah!

Step up to the mic...

I don't know anything on that.

You're just going to make me look like a moron.

I'm sorry!

Sorry!

ROMESH LAUGHS

Yes!

You're just going to make me look like a moron.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Merci.

You were amazing, man. All right, man.

I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Jesus.

You were brilliant.

You were. I promise you.

The Raboday music had come as a welcome surprise.

A few days ago, all I knew of Haitian culture

was that it's the island that voodoo is from.

Haitian voodoo is a mix of Catholicism

and traditional West African beliefs brought over by slaves.

Despite repeated attempts to wipe out its influence,

it remains the dominant religion in Haiti,

with over five million believers.

So, thank you very much for taking me to Solino.

Solino.

No, Sol-ee-no.

No.

No.

You're saying it wrong the whole time.

Jesus. Yeah, Solino.

Yeah. Sol-ee-no. Sol-ee-no.

You see?

Erm...

Mm-hm.

So, basically, when I told my mum I was coming to Haiti,

she was like, "Oh, my God, be careful of the voodoo,

"be careful of the voo..."

because she's not completely clued up on it.

Nor am I. So, what exactly is voodoo?

First of all, voodoo is a religion.

Voodoo is part of Haitian culture.

You have so many people with other faith,

but they still practise voodoo.

And what exactly can you do with it?

I mean, you can cure, you can curse.

It's all about the spirits.

Like, any voodoo priest can be possessed by the spirit.

And have you seen this happen?

All the time?

Like, seven months ago, I was in, like, a voodoo ceremony.

20, 25 people got possessed.

25 people?!

Can I request some voodoo help?

Every time I'm about to go on stage doing stand-up,

or just any time in my life when I'm about to do something challenging...

..I get, like, really sort of anxious

and I visualise it going horribly wrong,

and then that freaks me out.

Well, just stop being a pussy, then!

Just stop, you know? So, that's what I'm asking for.

Is there some sort of thing that can stop me being a pussy?

I don't know at this point!

I still don't know at this point!

JEREMY CHUCKLES

So, Jeremy said he could hook me up with a voodoo priest

to help with my anxiety.

We decided to use the hotel phone to, er...

..give the guy a call and see what exactly was required,

so we miked up the phone so that we could catch everything he was saying

and we found out that the phone that we spent a while miking up

only makes internal calls,

so unless the guy happened to be staying at this hotel,

it's going to be fairly difficult to get hold of him.

So, then we decided to call from a mobile.

It went to voicemail five or six times.

Yes, it says, "I can't take your call right now."

When we did get hold of him,

it turns out he's in the middle of something.

He's in the middle of something now.

How smoothly do you think this is going, out of ten?

What I would say is, in summary,

that my first experience with voodoo has been fairly negative.

If anything, it's added to my anxiety.

The next morning, Jeremy packed me off to the Iron Market,

which specialises in all things voodoo

It's like Tesco's, but for black magic.

Anyway, I was instructed to track down a guy called Reggie,

who would call the voodoo priest for me

and help me buy the ingredients I'd need for

a voodoo ceremony later in the week.

I've experienced stuff like this before, like, my dad's funeral.

Like, the priests performing the ceremony for the funeral,

they asked for a number of things that we had to give

for my dad's journey,

BUT what they asked for was, like, an umbrella, shoes, a hat,

and I started to think, "This priest needs a new wardrobe.

"I'm not convinced this is for my dad's journey to the other side."

This place is mad.

Originally erected in 1891,

the Iron Market was one of the first structures

to be rebuilt after the earthquake.

It is now seen as an iconic symbol of the city's rebirth,

home to over 900 vendors.

You seen Reggie? Reggie?

Jesus...

Reggie? Reggie? Reggie, Reggie, right here.

Yes, sir.

Nice to meet you.

That market...

..is crazy. Like, it's just so intense.

What can I do for you today?

Well, basically, I need to get some stuff...

I need to get some bits and pieces for, like,

OK.

Do you mind, like, showing me around and, like...?

Thanks.

Come on, let's go this way. Now, we've got voodoo dolls, OK?

So, what do you do with these dolls?

It depends on which one. You've got to choose one

and I'll explain it to you,

cos all of them are for different purposes.

OK, what about this one with the red...

Are you allowed to point at them? You can point, you can touch.

What about this one with the red hair here?

OK, this is Grandmother Brigitte.

She's from the cemetery.

OK. And then what do you do with this doll?

If you have problem kids, Yeah.

..you have to go and talk

and give out some sacrifice and do certain rituals

and ask them to watch over your kids

so that they won't die before their time.

So she specialises in sorting out your kids.

Yes, they are spirits, OK?

And the spirits get to transform themselves, through the power

that they have, to talk to you. Right.

We also have voodoo flags.

These flags, that's minimal, that's minimal.

Do these flags all signify different things?

Right.

For example, right, her.

Yeah, yeah.

They actually exist.

Mermaids exist?

They really exist.

In the ocean.

And what would you get from her?

She specialises in two things - That's great.

That's a good combination. Yes!

Reggie's assertion that there are mermaids in the ocean seemed unlikely...

..but I needed his help to call the voodoo priest,

so I decided not to call him out on it.

OK...

SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

One minute. One minute.

Let me get...

I've got a pen. OK, go.

OK. Samedi, c'est ca...

Like that?

Sam... S-A.

No.

S-A-M-E-D-I...

Oh, got you.

OK, put this in English - "leave me alone".

What the hell is going on?

These are the names of the spells we're getting.

They have names, you know?

Yeah.

Are you sure this is not just what he's telling you to do on the phone?

SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

HE SHOUTS

No, dog, no!

I think it's going badly.

Tell everybody to back off, OK? Cos we're trying to hear something.

It's so weird. So, Reggie, he's showing me around the market stall,

he's, like, "This is this, this is great."

And then I saw how Reggie deals with other people

and, I've got to be honest with you, I found it terrifying.

No, this is the way we actually...

You sounded like you were really pissed off.

Well, no. Our language is really a pissed-off language

Right, right. But it's not really like this,

you know? It's different.

Yeah, go.

OK. Listen, listen.

SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Yeah.

Now do you understand?

Yeah, but that sounded quite aggressive.

No, it's not aggressive.

OK. Let me just run through this.

Right. ..white string...

..seven brightly coloured scarves...

..good luck shampoo...

..rum...

Uh-huh.

.."leave me alone" powder...

Uh-huh. .."what I said goes" powder...

..hurry up powder...

Right.

..golden dream cologne...

Right.

There could be another...

There's another thing that I don't remember

which one it was. Let me check it out.

All right, well, let's go get this stuff. Come on.

In my experience, the best "leave me alone" shampoo is no shampoo

but Reggie insisted we needed everything on the shopping list,

and so he led me around the market

playing some sort of voodoo Supermarket Sweep.

So, I've got all this stuff.

I got myself a little purchase.

It's something that sort of spoke to me.

You put this up and it protects you.

I got it for a cool, flat $100.

How was the Iron Market?

I would start off by saying

I've never seen anything like that before.

It's just a very intense experience.

But you didn't feel it, like, threatening or like,

you know, like, scared?

No, I didn't feel scared.

Oh, that is some progress, hearing that from you.

You are talking like I've made a massive breakthrough.

"You've made some progress,

"you managed to walk through the Iron Market

"without shitting yourself."

We are going now to the tailor.

Jeremy explained that we were heading to pick up

some specially tailored Haitian clothes.

Before flying out, I'd been asked to supply my suit measurements

as part of what I presumed

was going to be some sort of highly predictable, hilarious prank.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

I'm actually going to try it on here?

You need to try it, man, come on.

All right, I'll stay outside.

There you go.

Look at you, man.

Now you look like a local.

You are so full of shit right now.

No, no.

No, no, no, I'm telling you.

Is this shirt tailor-made?

Huh?

Did he make this shirt?

I mean, how does it fit you...

..just fine? How?

I don't know, like, coincidence? Coincidence?!

It's just that... Look.

Let me show you why I am...

"Made in Haiti."

Yeah.

He's put it in? "XL?"

I mean, you're obviously an XL.

I mean, no offence.

OK, so he made this shirt and then stuck that label in.

Yeah, to make you feel more local.

He put the label in to make me feel more local?

You're so full of shit.

THEY LAUGH

I mean... Now you are making me laugh.

Come on, dude.

All right. Anyway, I like it, so thank you. Let's go.

But I'm not wearing the hat any more.

Having dressed me like a moving target,

Jeremy decided it was time to discuss a trip to Cite Soleil,

which has nothing to do with that French circus

but is, in fact, the most dangerous place in the country.

This is the bar here?

Yeah, the bar is inside of here.

This is the view. This is crazy, man.

Yeah, man.

He had arranged for me to be guided in by Yvonne,

a local who grew up in the slum and can assure our safe passage.

He was also hard enough to survive in Cite Soleil

having the name Yvonne.

How you doing, my friend?

Romesh.

Oh, nice to meet you, my friend.

Nice to meet you, nice to meet you.

So you're from Cite Soleil, yeah?

Yes, I'm from Cite Soleil.

I've been talking to Jeremy about maybe going.

How bad is it?

You can be robbed, you can be kidnapped.

Yeah.

I can see the panic in your face.

There's no panic! There is no panic.

You are not panic, you hear you could be kidnapped

and you not panic?

I'm... I am on high alert.

I know.

If we go with you...

..then we're kind of safe.

Yeah, everything will be OK. If we don't go with you...

I don't know what will happen to you.

No.

If I'm going down there with you,

I can call them, "Hey, guys,

"I'm coming with a friend down to Cite Soleil."

So, what, will you have to let...? Will you let people know in advance?

Yeah. I will have to.

Basically, I am using deflected trust.

The point is that Yvonne...

..said as long as I'm with him, I should be OK.

But he did say that one of the reasons you can get killed is

in the crossfire between two rival gangs,

which I'm not convinced you can phone ahead and postpone.

Who do you call, though?

The gang leader.

And say you are coming with me? Yeah, "I'm going with..."

Yeah.

There's this guy. He has this local shirt on.

Yeah, the local shirt.

Yeah.

Don't shoot in that area.

Don't shoot him. Don't shoot in that area.

Jesus.

It's not funny.

Still rolling?

Shit.

All right, good. Yeah, that looks the same.

Jesus.

This looks completely different.

I wasn't sure how I felt about visiting Cite Soleil.

Jeremy's thinking was that to really understand Haiti,

I needed to see what it's like

to live in its most deprived neighbourhood.

My thinking was that Jeremy was going to get me killed.

Yvonne is on his bike ahead of us...

..and we are following him into Cite Soleil.

To say there are kidnappings, stabbings and shootings

and to be aware of it...

I mean, OK, I'm aware of it.

I don't think it makes me any better at dealing with it.

I will not suddenly, because of my awareness to stabbings,

become impervious to a knife blade.

This might be the one experience I have in my life

where my lazy eye completely opens.

I know.

But it's better than Yeah, yeah.

But still a red zone.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

So, do you know all these people?

Seeing this level of poverty is horrible.

It's genuinely horrible.

It's very heartbreaking seeing...

It's such an obvious thing to say,

but seeing the kids run around like this...

It is genuinely breathtaking what we're standing amongst here.

Yvonne told me that around 400,000 people inhabit Cite Soleil,

most living on less than a dollar a day.

He offered to take me to his childhood home to meet his mother.

This is the place?

Hey.

Bonjour. How are you?

How long have you lived here for?

OK. What's the situation with water and electricity?

Right.

Oh, OK.

Right.

Pretty amazing.

But how do these people, living here, fight the system?

How do they get out of this?

I don't want to say I feel uncomfortable,

but the longer we spend here,

the more we are likely to sort of cause an issue.

THEY SPEAK IN OWN LANGUAGE

HORNS BLARE

Right, shall we make a move?

Yeah.

Thank you very much, Yvonne.

Really, honestly, you've been such a great host, I appreciate it.

The build-up to all of this has been,

"It's dangerous, anything can happen.

"There are guns here, you can get kidnapped, you can get killed."

Etc, etc, so that was what I was geared up for,

I was geared up for feeling on edge, being nervous,

and what happened was we went into a situation

that felt a lot less dangerous than I anticipated.

But what I wasn't prepared for was...

..just the level of poverty there.

I've got to be honest, I actually felt...

..like we shouldn't really be filming that.

It felt like, you know,

us Westerners coming in and pointing our cameras

at these people that are living in horrible conditions.

It felt a little bit icky.

That was, without a doubt...

..the worst poverty I have ever seen in my life.

It's been interesting seeing what Port-au-Prince is about,

but there's nothing to recommend it for the travel

in terms of having a nice time as such.

When I went to the Iron Market,

it was good to see it -

did I have an enjoyable time there?

No.

You know, going to Cite Soleil,

was that an interesting experience?

Yes.

Was it challenging? Yes. Did I have a good time? No.

The truth is, it's not set up for people to visit.

It's not set up for the people that live here,

so there's no way it's set up for people to visit.

It's just...

It just doesn't feel like it's got anything.

You are going around,

it feels like you're walking amongst a series of buildings

that should be abandoned. Except they're not abandoned,

they're rammed with people, so I cannot imagine

that anything's going to happen between now

and when I leave here that's going to change my conclusions

about what I've encountered since I've been here.

This is like... So, this road.

Walking along here, this has got a different vibe to it,

Yeah.

It's like Crawley High Street.

It's unsurprising that, in a country with such extreme poverty,

people are attracted to the idea of getting rich quick.

Jeremy had explained to me that the lottery

is almost a national obsession in Haiti.

Haitians spend 1.5 billion dollars a year on lottery tickets -

almost a fifth of their GDP.

Is this it?

Yeah. This is the place, man.

People choose their lottery numbers by interpreting their dreams.

If you dream of a coconut, you play the number 70,

an ambulance is a 30.

We decided to try our luck based on the images

I'd been seeing in my sleep since my arrival in Haiti.

So, what was it?

Quatre...

14, 20, and 04.

Right.

The next thing I want to look up is...penis.

What's this? Well, let's go...

Yeah, partie sexuelle.

Yeah, sexual parts. Man.

One, ten, 31.

OK.

I've got this.

Yeah?

And how much are we likely to win?

50,000?

We could win if we get all of these? Oh, my God.

Yeah? What are we waiting for? Come on.

All right.

Fingers crossed, man.

Do you have "fingers crossed" here? Fingers crossed.

Can't wait for that 80-20 split, man.

No, 50-50.

I was surprised to learn that Haiti did once have a tourist industry.

Jeremy told me that, in the 1970s,

cruise ships used to dock in Port-au-Prince,

and tour operators offered direct flights from Europe.

But a succession of brutal dictators

severely damaged the country's reputation

and tourism has never really recovered.

Why aren't there any, like, tourist attractions and stuff like that?

Somewhere you can like, take photos and put them on Facebook,

and make other people feel bad, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Well, eight years ago, when this earthquake happened,

it destroyed everything.

We are close to the former cathedral now.

Let's just drop by OK.

Wow.

So, this all came down pretty much straightaway?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Basically, 50% of the buildings in the city are destroyed.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, where were you when the earthquake hit, then?

Oh...

..I was visiting a friend...

..and I heard that...

..strange noise, you know, come...

Coming from, you know...

..under the ground...

..and I started feeling the, you know...

..the shake.

And I feel, "Oh, shit, what is that?"

So, I keep going and, like, you know,

10-15 metres on top of a little hill.

So, I saw the whole city just, you know, like a powder.

Then I realised what I was in.

There's no way you can actually explain...

..what I experienced that day.

Yeah.

Do you know people that...?

Oh, yeah. I mean, let me tell you.

At this point, every Haitian knows somebody...

..that lost their life.

Pretty shocking, coming in here.

It sort of just makes it very, very real.

You know, I've come here thinking,

"Is this a place that you'd want to visit?"

And then, you've got that tourist critical eye

that you are casting across everything,

"Are people being friendly enough? Am I being welcomed enough?

"Are there enough facilities? Is my hotel good enough?

"Are there places to visit?"

And you sort of wander around and have a look and think,

"Why should anybody here give a shit about that?"

They've got other things to be worried about,

do you know what I mean?

You know, it's just desperately unlucky.

And they're such horrible victims of fate.

So the idea you could come here and sort of complain,

or demand that entertainment

is laid on for you,

that facilities are laid on for you,

feels insensitive in the extreme, really.

The earthquake destroyed almost

all of Port-au-Prince's historic buildings

but one of the few to survive was the hotel that I was staying in,

the Ollofson.

A crumbling old gingerbread style mansion,

it was built in the late 19th century,

home to a powerful Haitian family.

It became famous as a setting for Graham Greene's novel The Comedians,

and remains an iconic local landmark.

Oh, hello, mate.

So, these lottery tickets we bought,

if we won the big jackpot,

what would you do with the money?

Can't tell you, man. What do you mean, you can't tell me?

Because I have...

I always have secret project.

"Secret project"?

I might have invested in that secret project.

Do you know that almost 100% sounds like a crime?

Uh-uh.

The way you are saying that, it sounds like a criminal activity.

Do you understand? It is not.

When you say, "I'm doing a secret project."

And you've got a newspaper.

All you need is a cat and you're a Bond villain, mate.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Well, let's go find out, then, if we've won.

Yeah. I mean, it's right on the corner.

You remember where to queue.

So, I'm going on my own to get the results and what are you doing?

Reading what the other Bond villains in the area are up to?

Well... It is whatever you think, so...

I mean, dude, it's right there.

There's nothing... All right.

So, just go and get the results.

I'm going. Just so you know, you just lost yourself 5% on the deal...

..because I'm having to go. It's still 50-50%.

It's not 50%, it's 55-45

because you are sitting on your arse reading the paper,

working out your little criminal Yeah, yeah.

See you later, Goldfinger. See you later.

HORN BLARES

All I do is win, win, win, no matter what

Got money on my mind, I can never get enough

And every time I step up in the building, everybody's hands go up.

And?

Your secret project is still a secret.

We hadn't won the lottery,

but Jeremy decided we were still flush enough

to get a plane ride south to the beaches in Jacmel...

..which, I guessed, was the location of his secret volcanic island.

I mean, this is so beautiful out here, man.

Thank you very much, Jeremy.

You are all welcome...brother.

Port au Prince had seemed so hectic and desperate that, at times,

you completely forgot you were on a Caribbean island.

Jeremy had told me that the beaches

were THE big hope for tourism in Haiti, and I was minded to agree.

With an abundance of white sand and cheap lager,

throw in some banana boats and foam parties,

and Brits could be flocking there in their thousands.

Mostly, I was preoccupied with my own concerns.

The long-awaited anxiety-curing voodoo ceremony

was due to take place that night.

Thank you.

Watch out for that cock.

Oh, come on, man.

This is nice, mate.

I like the smile on your face.

I'm already feeling...

..good.

Pool...

Yes. Maybe...

Weird sculpture of two people snogging.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God.

Do you think?

Yeah. I'm buzzing.

This is Haiti, baby.

Next time, open with this,

is my advice to you.

It's a different energy here, you know, like...

When we were in the city, it's just like...

Just constant kind of chaotic vibe,

and you are conscious of that the whole time you're there.

Here, it feels like all that's gone and...

..it's very, very nice.

Except for the fact that tonight I'm taking part in a voodoo ceremony.

The priest that Jeremy hooked me up with...

The last person I believe he spoke to on my behalf was Reggie, so...

..God knows what mood he's in after that conversation.

For the ceremony, we've got some rope, some flags...

..some rum...

..some weird liquid,

two types of cologne, some deodorant...

..and this tiny chair.

I'm assuming that the voodoo priest has a very small friend.

"This is Bob. He never normally has anywhere to sit

"during these ceremonies,

"so it's nice of you to bring him something.

"We're now going to tie him to it and deodorise, and aftershave."

ROMESH AND PRODUCTION TEAM LAUGH

Come on, man.

You're making me extra anxious, the way you're driving, you know that?

Be quiet.

Or say something... You're adding to anxiety.

You're like a voodoo priest that adds to anxiety, you know that?

It just so happens. It's just another bump here.

Oh, come on.

Do I need to be scared? Be honest with me.

You don't have to be scared, my man.

You're my friend, you know?

We're partners now. Yeah, but friends can die.

All right.

Jesus Christ. Let's get this done.

All right, lead the way, then. All right, I'll lead the way

cos it's a little bit dark,

so be careful around here.

All the way up here.

Whoa!

What the shit?

We're here, man.

Yeah. Can I put this here?

Yeah, you can put this here right now.

All right.

I'm so scared.

Look, your forehead...

OK. Do I look sweaty?

Sweaty, yeah. Totally.

Everything about this...

..feels frightening,

and that is partly because of...

..my sort of ignorance,

but also partly because...

..it's terrifying.

I'm more anxious than I've been in a long time.

Have you seen the chickens? Where, where?

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Why are there chickens there?

This is part of the ceremony.

I know, I know. I know.

But what is he going to do I don't know.

I'm not even a priest.

Yeah, but are they going to come to harm?

That's what I'm asking.

Probably.

I am a vegan.

It would be offensive to me

if he started making an omelette,

let alone killed those chickens.

I can be here for...

Oh, my God.

Was that supposed to happen?

No, I think it's the...

The generator?

Great.

If they can't get the generator working, we can reschedule.

Everything about it felt frightening.

I don't understand the language, obviously,

but I believe that somebody said to someone,

"Romesh doesn't look like he's shitting himself enough.

"Could you pull up a car and switch the headlights on

"so he properly shits his liver out through his arsehole?"

So, we've got full beam headlines on us,

like they're preparing for me to be abducted.

He's set up all the ingredients.

It's all there.

They've put a symbol down on the floor in the powder,

the go-away powder, which a mouse came over to.

Completely ineffective, that powder.

I must speak to Reggie about that.

DRUMS PLAY

We then start the ceremony.

They bring the two chickens over to me

and I assume, "That chicken's dead."

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Jeremy spoke to him. He said,

"No, we're going to liberate the chickens at the end."

So I was like, fine, great.

Actually, if I don't lose my anxiety from this,

at least two chickens are freed as a result of me doing this.

DRUMS PLAY

The singers are going, the drums are going.

I'm sitting there, on this wooden chair, shitting myself.

SINGING AND DRUMMING

So I had to hold the chickens up here, then turn to the right...

..then hold the chickens up there and turn to the left.

What essentially he was asking me to do

was some sort of chicken Macarena while he held the can of deodorant.

I can't...

I'm not laughing at the thing.

It's just because I've never said the sentence,

"I was holding two chickens and he had a can of deodorant."

It's just strange. Anyway...

He poured each of the different liquids -

the shower gel, the cologne, the deodorant - and he lit them.

I had no idea that good luck shower gel

was that flammable.

Why would you put that on your body?

I'm getting anxious and thinking, "Where is this going to end?"

Because now we're going to go to this little house over there,

and I think, "Oh, my God,

"what's going to happen at the little house?"

He pulls back a curtain, behind which is a coffin.

In my head, I'm visualising him opening the coffin and going,

"Now you get in this for 12 hours."

Anyway, what he wanted was a tip,

so I was happy to give that to him.

Took the cash out, put it on top of the coffin,

gave him a five-star rating and left.

That's the end? Yeah. That's the end.

If I'm looking at this objectively,

I would say that going into that ceremony I felt extreme anxiety

and now I don't feel anxious at all.

Now, you could argue that

that is because that ceremony worked

and I'm now completely free of anxiety,

or you could argue that I'm completely free of anxiety

because that ceremony's over.

This isn't a road.

With my anxiety apparently cured,

Jeremy wanted to take me to an easily accessible local beauty spot.

In comparison to their near neighbours,

the number of people coming to southern Haiti is still tiny.

But the hope is that,

if they can entice just a small percentage of Caribbean tourists,

it could kick-start the entire Haitian economy.

Clearly, they're going to have to fix the roads first.

Whoa!

The Bassin Bleu - or "blue basin" in English -

is a famous 30-foot high waterfall

that daring locals like to hike to and jump off into the waters below.

Welcome to Bassin Bleu, brother.

Oh, shit!

Had Jeremy explained this part of the challenge earlier,

I would have told him to piss off.

Wow.

This is amazing, man.

It genuinely is beautiful.

Are you coming as well? No, I can't swim.

But I think... Why would you bring me here?

I think you should go,

you know, and have a good time.

Fine. Do me a favour, while I'm there,

climbing up the waterfall and jumping off, you just say safe.

All right. I will.

Go on, Rom, make me proud, brother.

Make me proud.

All right.

Just a few more steps.

Thank you.

Once I got up to the top...

..it felt like I couldn't see water any more.

Like, I literally just looked over the edge and I could just see rocks.

Just going out so far.

The thing is, it's like you try to visualise something going well

before you do it, and I couldn't.

All I could see was brown chutney down the rocks

where my body has sort of been spread across the face.

So, that is not a good place to put yourself in

when you're stood at the top about to jump off,

do you know what I mean?

Stop being a pussy, man, just jump!

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

This music's a bit much.

Yeah!

That was good, man. That was good.

All right.

Ah!

But that was a good jump, brother.

Yeah. You actually make me proud.

Yeah, and you know what?

When I looked back at you and I thought,

"For him to have the courage

"to stand on the rock and shout shit..."

HE LAUGHS

..it really touched me, man.

When I was on the plane on the way over here, I've got to be honest,

I felt frightened.

I felt worried and nervous about what I was going to find here

and I didn't feel massively comfortable about coming.

I feel like my time here

has essentially demystified Haiti for me.

It doesn't feel like this mysterious land now.

Look, the truth of it is,

Port-au-Prince - I would not recommend at all.

I mean, look, if you're the sort of person that enjoys...

..getting involved in the culture of seeing a place,

you certainly get a strong and immediate idea

of what Port-au-Prince is about.

There's no denying that.

And there are nice hotels.

But I'm not the sort of person who wants to stay in a nice hotel

while just beyond the boundary wall is some of the worst poverty

I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't feel comfortable with that.

So I would say I just couldn't recommend that as a place to visit.

When you come here, what you are getting is beautiful beaches,

nice hotels, you can drink fresh coconut water.

All the things that you stereotypically want

from a Caribbean holiday.

But the truth of it is,

if you were to look at this on a purely clinical,

holiday destination basis,

you'd have to say you'd probably be better served

by going somewhere else. That's the honest truth of it.

But what you can't do is ignore the fact that Haiti needs tourism,

arguably more than any other location of its kind.

So, if you're an ethical tourist,

if you're somebody that actually thinks about the impact

that you're having when you go travel somewhere,

then I would argue that you choose here

because Haiti needs the tourism

and it's the right thing to do.

So are you coming back next year?

No, I'm going to Portugal.

Africa.

Essentially all I know about Ethiopia is famine.

Rastafari.

That's one of the worst things I've ever seen.

I think camping's for knobs.

It's amazing.

Africa.

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