All language subtitles for Incredible Journeys with Simon Reeve 1of4 1080p BBC EN

Most of us love going on a journey.

I've been incredibly lucky,
exploring countries

on six different continents.

Now that travel has become a bit
tricky, it's not a bad time

to have a look back.

In this series, I'm going
to be showing you some of

my most memorable adventures.

WHISTLE BLOWS

HORN BLARES

We're on the way.

The landscape is incredible.

The vegetation everywhere you look -
green!

All different shades of green.

If you're going to try and
imagine paradise,

that's it.

And this, this is a real
treasure of Haiti.

I've met hundreds of
incredible people.

Hello, my friend. Welcome to Libya.

SIREN BLARES

Welcome to El Salvador!
Thank you, mate.

Welcome to Uzbekistan.
SHE LAUGHS

I'll be catching up with
some of them.

VIDEO: ..Because they're
cheap, they have nimble fingers...

Oh, mate!

This is a land of utter extremes,
this is where heaven and hell

are said to collide.

And I'll be sharing what
I've learned on my travels...

I have no words, just good luck, OK?
Thank you. Good luck.

What ever you do. Good luck.

..about the challenges and the
solutions for our incredible planet.

There are buffalo once more
on the American plain,

and that's a bloody wonderful thing.

Ready...

HE LAUGHS

Good boy!

I've had a bit more time
at home recently.

Somebody's not complaining!

Come on, ready?

Ah!

That'll keep him quiet
for a moment.

I love the landscapes of our planet,
the wildlife, the food.

But for me, I think the strongest
travel experiences are encounters

with people, and the very human
stories that I hear.

So in this programme, we're going
to be showing you and introducing

you to some of the most incredible
characters I've met on my travels.

Ali! Ali!

Assalamu alaikum, Ali.

I think people are the reason
to travel.

This is Ali the Lion.
Honour to meet you.

There was Ali the Lion,
a tribal leader

from the southern Egyptian desert.
What is this?

Aren't you supposed to do something
like twirling the sticks together

or something? This is cheating!

He showed me some legendary
Bedouin hospitality.

It's delicious.

Bloody hell!

What are you laughing about?

THEY LAUGH

Majd Mashharawi, a Palestinian
inventor,

had come up with a way of making
bricks from the ashes of conflict.

THEY CHEER

People around me said, "You're crazy
if you want to go back."

But I left for the reason to help my
people, so I have to come back.

So this is Father Andreas.

THEY LAUGH

And it's hard to forget the Greek
priest whose hobbies

seemed to be urban warfare.

Thank you.

GUN COCKS

RAPID GUNSHOTS

You do love your guns.

I've travelled through
more than 130 countries -

and there's one in particular where
people are always welcoming

and inspiring.

How are you? I'm very well,
thank you. How are you?

I first visited Bangladesh in 2010.

At the mouth of the Ganges,
it's a beautiful maze

of waterways and rivers.

My guide in Bangladesh
was a very special chap.

Tanjil, say hello. Hello.

I'm Simon. And I'm Tanjil.

In Bangladesh, Tanjil Rahman
has shown me around

every side of this
remarkable country...

Oh!

..and its unique culture.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Yeah, you played good.
You played good.

Your movement and your...
Everything was kind of perfect -

as a beginner.

HE EXHALES

Welcome to Dhaka!

SIMON LAUGHS

Look at that way...and that way.

But he's also opened my eyes to the
reality of life,

including in the slums of the
Bangladeshi capital Dhaka,

really memorable
and moving human stories.

As we've been walking along, we've
gathered, like the Pied Pipers,

a small little group of
urchins around us.

And what they do is walk around,

walk around the streets, collecting
up fragments of plastic or glass,

bottles,
any bits that they can recycle.

Can we have a look in here?

Can we see?

So, look, plastic bottles in here.

Aluminium cans. Yeah.

And then they'll sell them
to a recycling shop.

It's quite hard to see
four-year-olds, five-year-olds

working on the streets
barefoot like that.

The more back streets we went
down, the more I learnt

about the country's
child labour problem.

This is it here?

God, can you hear the furnace going?

FURNACE ROARS

Even a child-sized entrance.

Tanjil took me to a glass-recycling
factory where they were making

bottles for export to South Korea.

Good God.

This is Jahangir. Jahangir.

Hello, Jahangir.
Very nice to meet you.

Jahangir, who was ten at the time,

was working a full shift every day
for the equivalent of about 30p,

but enough to buy a small bag
of rice for his family.

Why did you put that one in there,
Jahangir?

TANJIL TRANSLATES

Ah.

It's basically quality control,
isn't it?

I can still remember how
hot it felt in there.

It was 40 degrees outside,
and the heat by the furnace

was almost unbearable.

The fumes coming from the furnace,

they're really choking.

And we're just here
for a few minutes.

So, he's taking us up
to see where he...

..where he sleeps with his mum
and his sister,

and can you see his sister
is barefoot?

In a glass factory.

This is his bed.
Just right here?

And is it just your family here, or
are there more people who live here?

Do you find it hard,
working in the factory?

Why did Mum want you to come
and live here?

Why did Mum want you to come
to the glass factory?

There have been huge efforts
to eradicate the scourge

of child labour, but still today
it's estimated that in the world's

poorest countries, one in four
children go out to work.

There's a shift change,
new operator.

This operator, can you show
us your arm?

At that moment, it seemed obvious
to me these kids should be stopped

from working immediately,
but the older labourers wanted me

to understand the possible
consequences if some children

were prevented from working
and earning a living.

These men started working
between the ages of nine and 11.

They were adamant simply banning
child labour overnight could

create more suffering, not less.

If you ban child labour and reduce
the ability of kids and families

to feed themselves,
there needs to be alternatives -

government help for the poor
and education for all.

Not always forthcoming in
Bangladesh.

But the United Nations children's
agency UNICEF had set up centres

for working children, and little
Jahangir took me to visit one.

So, this is the centre.

Oh, my good God!

Oh, my goodness!

Hello.
ALL GREET HIM

HE GREETS THEM IN BENGALI

Jahangir,
you've got a lot of friends here!

Gundu. Gundu.

Gundu.

The centre was giving children
a free lunch and a shower,

space to learn and have fun.

Years later, it's still going
strong, offering a basic education

that can help break an endless
cycle which sees generation

after generation stuck in
illiteracy and poverty.

Jahangir, tell us, what do
you like about coming to the centre?

This is your favourite thing about
the centre, is playing this game?

What about your friends?

Good boy!

I felt really outraged seeing
how child labour was blighting

the lives of so many kids,
and I can still remember

what a difference even just a few
hours at that centre made

to Jahangir. That experience,
that encounter really taught me

that you can't always just follow
your knee-jerk reaction,

and that an issue like child labour
can be so much more complex

close up than it can appear
from thousands of miles away.

I don't always get to find out
what happened to people after I film

with them, but in Jahangir's case,
we do know what happened next

because the lovely people at UNICEF
in Bangladesh have kept in touch

with him, and they've sent me
a video with a bit of an update.

Bloody hell.

Wow.

Look at him now!

Jahangir is now 20 years old.
He's married with a son...

..and he works as his own boss,

driving a battery-powered
rickshaw taxi.

And according to the UNICEF team,
who are still in touch with him,

he's hoping to provide a proper
education for his son.

Oh, it's so lovely!

SIMON LAUGHS

They've shown him a video
of our film!

VIDEO: The fumes coming from the
furnace...

Why did you put that one in there,
Jahangir?

They have nimble fingers
and they complain less than adults.

Oh, mate!

Oh!

My goodness! It made such an impact
on me, filming with him.

He was such a sweet young lad,

and I had no idea how his life
would turn out,

whether he would
even survive to adulthood.

Can you believe it?

Oh!

I've met so many thousands
of people across the years

and around the world held back
by their circumstance,

whether war or poverty or prejudice.

But given half a chance,
we can all flourish.

Almost anyone can be
almost anything.

But all too often people don't get
the chance or the luck

to make the most of their abilities.

It's the end of our journey
across Bangladesh.

I've loved every minute of it.

It's packed and poor,
but it's a beautiful, beautiful

country, and I'm really sorry to go.

Today, the people of Bangladesh
still face enormous challenges,

but the proportion of them living
in extreme poverty has halved

since 2000, and more and more
children are being educated.

Farewell, mate.

Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you, sir.

Bye-bye, mate. I feel
quite emotional. Yes. I am also.

Yeah. All right. We had a good time.

We had a very good time.
We'll remember that.

I'll see you again. Yeah.

Until recently, the proportion
of the world's people

living in extreme poverty
had been falling dramatically.

HE GASPS

..that really nice view.
My God! Look at that!

However, another dangerous
phenomenon has been growing rapidly

around the world, and I've seen
it with my own eyes. Inequality.

The wealth here

is just unbelievable.

Oh, bloody hell, this one - look -
this one's got a helicopter on it!

The gap between rich and poor
is becoming a widening gulf.

The number of billionaires
in the world has quadrupled

in the last 20 years.

There's now more than 2,000 of them,
and their net worth is equivalent

to that of the poorest
four billion people.

It's a mad world, eh?

Sometimes, just around the corner
from people living on a few dollars

a day, there exists luxury
on a staggering scale.

For the lucky few, it's a
world of luxury.

Hola!

I feel a bit out of place here,
I tell you.

Something the cat brought in.

Hello.

Like at this flash hotel in Mexico.

Look at this!

Everybody touches their heart.
It's quite moving.

It's our own one and only salute.

Or this 500-room hotel in Turkey...

Welcome to Mardan Palace.
Thank you very much indeed.

..which apparently cost £1 billion
to build.

Wow! Look at the size
of the chandeliers!

I was going to say singular
but plural. Yes, five chandeliers.

I look at it and I worry
about the cleaning.

We have a special team.
I'm sure you do.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you do.

This is our four-bedroom villa.

It has the spa,

their own gym, the media room,

and this is the entertainment area.

So how much does this cost
per night?

$8,000 to $12,000 per night.

15,000 euro per day.

15,000 euros per day.

Who is this gentleman who's walking
around? Who's this? Your butler.

What do you mean, MY butler?

He will assist you during your stay.
Our guest.

Are you suggesting I am
staying here?

I'm staying here? Yes.

Hello, by the way. Hello.
Merhaba. Merhaba.

Simon. Nice to see you again.

I didn't realise you were going
to be, you know,

accompanying us into the room.

THEY LAUGH

It's very nice to see you. Yes.

HE EXHALES

Look at this!

This is the most
how-the-other-half-live place

I think I've ever been to.

Just to be absolutely clear, we are
not paying thousands of pounds

for me to stay in this hotel room.
No letters to Points Of View,

all right? Or the Daily Mail!

Research shows again and again

that unequal societies
are the least happy.

One place where the gap between
rich and poor

is at its most glaring
is California.

Just recently, I travelled the
length of America's richest state.

Look! The Pacific!

It is stunning.

The wealth here is just
on another level.

Los Angeles has been called
the City of Dreams,

but it has staggering
levels of homelessness.

Tens of thousands sleep rough
in LA every night,

many more than in other US cities.

Yet this is also the City of Angels.

Hello!

They're a stoic, memorable
and inspiring people.

I spent a day with Brett and
Gabrielle, two street medics,

part of a team of doctors
and paramedics

who provide free health care to some
of the city's rough sleepers.

In a more traditional clinic,
you could just put tape on this,

but in this environment

Doug is going to be exposed
to the weather, to the... You know,

to some dirt or whatever,

so we wrap up with this
to protect it.

It's all the way, the whole length
of the freeway.

What is? Where they live,
inside the bridge. Goes all the way.

What, inside the structure here?
Yep, right inside.

WOMAN CALLS

This is extraordinary. How are you?

There are voices coming from
inside it.

Hello. Hi. So, erm, our friends
from Great Britain,

and they're doing a video on the way
some folks are living here.

Come inside. Thank you so much.

Shall we follow you in? Sure.

Hey, Amy. Hi.

Thank you for letting us in.

No problem.

TRAIN RUMBLES OVERHEAD

Well...these guys are.

I'm like a sort of really
cheap, shoddy version, yeah.

You just haven't gotten old yet.

I know. Well, I think it's a bit
more than that, but thank you.

Are you a big fan
of David Attenborough?

I'm a huge fan of
David Attenborough.

Do you get to see his
documentaries here?

I don't get to watch a lot of
video here, the power is a problem,

but I do listen to a lot
of podcasts here, so...

Do you?

TRAIN RUMBLES OVERHEAD

I'm trying to take in the artwork...

I thought it was a freeway, but,
actually, it's the train above.

The trains aren't
24 hours, are they?

They stop for about three hours,

like, between midnight and 4.00.

TRAIN RUMBLES OVERHEAD

Are you a light sleeper?

No. All right.

That's probably for the best.

Is it you who's done much
of the painting here?

I've done all of the painting.

I usually call it "the mansion".

This place is giant, and it
gets taller as you go back.

Does it? There's a couple
of rooms that, you know,

I think of as the ballroom and
the room where the pool will be,

and that sort of thing.

But, yeah,
that's my joke with myself.

SHE LAUGHS

TRAIN RUMBLES OVERHEAD

Do you feel safe here?

Yeah.

You know, there's
really only one way in

and the dog scares
people quite quickly.

What the hell is going on, Amy?

There's tens of thousands of people
in Los Angeles living homelessly.

Welfare is really not something
Americans understand any more.

It's a weird thing.

There's so much moral
judgment about people.

I think it's mostly fear, though.

Like, the closer they get,

the more they want to distance
themselves from it

in case somehow relating makes them
susceptible to it.

TRAIN RUMBLES OVERHEAD

Thanks for letting us in, Amy.

It was a pleasure to meet you.

I've seen a lot of stuff
around the world.

I would never have thought, in the
United States, I would see this.

Thank God you're out
here doing what you do.

Since we filmed with her,

the authorities moved
Amy out of the bridge.

She's now bedding down
in a new location.

Brett still checks on her regularly.

I think of her often.

Amy has to be one of
the most memorable people

that I've met on my travels,

and I think it's so easy for
us to dismiss the homeless,

rough sleepers, as "the other", and
imagine that we could never be them,

that we would never
end up in their shoes.

But life so often turns on chance,

a nudge or a push there.

It can just be a bit of bad luck,
a bad decision.

Personally, I know that...

I had some very tough years in
my teens, and I could have lived

a very different,
much more difficult life.

I don't come from wealth
or great privilege.

I grew up in a very ordinary family,

in a very normal part of
west London called Acton.

I flunked out of school
without any real qualifications,

and I spiralled down
into a very dark place.

About as dark as it can get.

But going on benefits actually
really helped me, claiming welfare,

because when I signed on,
I was talking to the lady there,

and she said,
"Don't think too far ahead.

"Take things slowly.
Take them step by step."

It really helped me to get through
a very difficult time in my life.

It became a bit of a mantra
that I still live by today.

There are millions of good souls
out there in the world

making a huge difference
to the lives of others.

In 2011, my travels took me to
a project that was helping people

in one of the most troubled
corners of the globe.

I was heading to Somaliland.

Officially a part of Somalia,
nearly 30 years ago,

it broke away and declared
itself independent.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, hello! Hi!

I was catching up
with an old friend,

and one of those good souls -

Fatima Ibrahim - who
I'd met on my first trip

to this unrecognised
country five years earlier.

Fatima grew up in Wales,
but came back after 40 years

to help rebuild Somaliland
following its years of conflict.

Take your pick. There you are.

Oh, my goodness.
That one to that one...

You mean this is how
we change money? Yes.

On the streets. On the streets.

Somaliland is relatively
safe and secure.

Money changes here work
safely in the open,

and serve it up in brick-loads.

How much is this worth?
Eight. $8.

Yes. OK, so, about £6.

We need some money
for the next few days.

We're going to start with $400,

and see if we can carry it.

Is this all ours?
This is your money.

Oh, no, just feel free!
Give us more.

That's ours, as well?

Into the... Whoa!

Have you ever seen such a sight?

Somaliland has
democracy and stability,

but it's still only recognised
by a handful of countries.

It's dealing with its many
challenges largely on its own,

including thousands of refugees
from war in neighbouring Somalia,

many of them young men
lacking purpose.

Some had been targeted by recruiters
for brutal militant groups.

We've met up with Mohammed here,
who lives in the camp,

and he's just going to
take us back to his home.

You've been here three years.

What led you to come to the camp?

What led you to come to Somaliland?

FATIMA TRANSLATES

Mohammed had trekked 500 miles
to come here with his family.

Eight of them were
sharing this tiny shack.

To help keep boys and
young men from the refugee camps

away from militant groups,
Fatima was running a project

offering help, education,
a future and some fun.

She invited me along on an outing
she'd organised to the seaside.

Fatima, why are you doing this?

Why are you taking
them to the coast?

For children who have
actually witnessed murders

and people being killed
in front of them...

So, they have no childhood.

There's no sense of what
childhood should be like.

You're drawing them away
from potentially bad things

that they could be doing,
things like piracy,

joining gangs or joining militias.

We're going to the coast!
This is exciting.

Put your hands up if you
haven't seen the sea before.

Whoa! This is very exciting!

Mohammed, you've never seen the sea?

Never? Whoa!

What's "we're going to
the seaside" in Somali?

FATIMA TRANSLATES

SIMON REPEATS PHRASE

Yes.

SIMON SHOUTS PHRASE

Yeah!

Look. Can you see the ship
out there, Mohammed?

We're here.

Come on, let's get off. OK.

Let's go to the sea.

My goodness!

It's beautiful.

Beautiful!

For the first time,

I think it's quite a privilege
for me to be here with you.

Look, feel it!

The Indian Ocean, Mohammed.

Yes. The Indian Ocean!

Indian Ocean.

There you go.

A tiny crab, look.

I have some really powerful memories
from that part of the world,

and Somalia is where I picked up my
favourite ever travel souvenir.

I was able to buy a Somali
diplomatic passport,

with my own name and my own terrible
photograph in...

..from a man called Mr Big Beard.

It's not a bad souvenir, is it?

I didn't go on exotic foreign
holidays when I was a lad.

There's me and my brother
James there,

on a beach, somewhere along
the south coast.

I didn't get on a plane

until I was an adult and I
started working,

so I don't take any of this
for granted.

It was really getting a job
when I was on the dole

that turned my life around.

I didn't go to university,

I started out working as
a post boy on a newspaper.

Yes, sorting the post.

But within quite a short space
of time there,

I was doing a bit of research
and some writing.

I've got my old cuttings book here.

So strange to get this out.

I haven't looked at this for
at least 20 years.

But this is the first piece,
as it were, that I got my name on.

It wasn't even the piece.

I just did this box, did a bit of
research for it,

and they very kindly put my
name on it.

"Compiled by Simon Reeve"

in size 8 font.

My family was so proud of this.

Doors began to open for me there.

I was given responsibility
and a chance,

and within a few years I went
from being a terrified,

suicidal teenager to a writer.

For years, I worked on
investigations,

sometimes undercover,

and wrote several books
on terrorism.

In the aftermath of 9/11,
I began travelling more extensively.

Ooh, no!

Ooh!

And I found myself on the road
in Central Asia

with a camera pointed in my face.

We've just suddenly come across this
old Soviet missile testing site,

as you do when you're in Kazakhstan.

2003, my first TV adventure -

a journey through the area north
of Afghanistan...

We're driving across what used to
be the sea,

..to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Many of my first TV trips were to
countries that had been part

of the Soviet Union, which had
collapsed a decade earlier,

often into chaos and conflict.

The front line here is still
very dangerous.

There was a guy killed here just
last weekend.

Right from the start...

God, look at that.

..it felt like I'd gone off
the map...

I'm not sure it works with
the trainers.

..into places where anything
was possible.

Mr President.

Like bumping into the
President of Georgia in a lift.

..BBC, hello. Nice to see you.

Nice to see you, too.

Or being forced to play a
bonkers sport...

..where the ball is replaced
by a headless goat!

Even the Taliban outlawed this
for being immoral!

I even had a tour of a rather
sinister-sounding research centre

for dangerous viruses and diseases.

And these? Plagues.

Plague? This plague is in here?

Plague, plague, plague,
plague, plague.

That's a lot of plague.

Yes.

I've now travelled fairly
extensively around the planet.

Rita? Yes.

Hello, Rita.

In almost every country
there's been a guide,

or fixer, as we sometimes
call them...

Tariq!

..welcoming me...

Welcome.

Amra, hello!

..and, more importantly, you
to their patch of the planet.

Simon.

Hello, nice to meet you, finally.

Like Batsola, my guide in
Madagascar,

who insisted I try a national dish,

featuring a very particular
cut of meat

from the local Zebu cattle.

We eat Zebu crock.

Crock? Crock. Penis? Yes.

Zebu penis. Why?

Is good.

In England you have tea,
here we have soup.

You have soup? Yeah.

And there is different kind of soup
and one of them zebu cock soup.

I know what's going to happen now.

Cut to a restaurant.

I know this is going to happen,
I might as well just surrender.

Maybe we need to wait for it
to cool down. Yes, yes.

Oh, my God!

It's still moving.

Ready? I feel like I'm crossing
my legs now.

Oh, my God.

Here we go. Come on, then, be brave.

It tastes sort of like...

..gelatine.

A blob of... Oh!

With a slight...

..a light kick in it.

I swear to God, I think I can
taste urine.

Not all of my guides are on
our side.

In some countries, the governments

require us to have an official agent
travelling with us,

monitoring and even spying on us.

We call them minders.

In 2010, I travelled overland,
across the Sahara Desert,

to Libya, just a year before the
fall of its notorious dictator,

Colonel Gaddafi.

HE GROANS

And we've arrived.

This is Libya.

This is the Acacous Tourist Hotel.

The gentleman behind me, though, is
our government minder.

He looks like a mini
Colonel Gaddafi.

Anyway, this is where we're
staying tonight,

and then we start heading east.

CLATTERING

Bloody hell!

Broken the bloody door!

Look, well, if there's any doubt
about where we are,

the man himself.

I'll just fix the door.

Ahmed was one of our jollier
minders.

Oh, thank you very much.

But several people told me
his likeness to Colonel Gaddafi

wasn't actually a coincidence.

Can I ask you... Yes? ..has anybody
told you that you look

like Colonel Gaddafi?

Ah!

My grandfather before...

Back. OK, back.

Back. Yes, yes. OK.

In Mecca. In Mecca. Yes.

My grandfather and grandfather
Gaddafi...

..brothers. Brothers. Yes.

So not only do you look like
Colonel Gaddafi,

but you are related to
Colonel Gaddafi.

Gaddafi. And we're going to go
swimming together.

Is good.

It's good, but it's cold. Yes.

Any crocodiles here?

Snakes?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Are you sure? Very nice.

It's amazing! Swim, swim, my friend.

Swim. All right.

Sun and water and Sahara...

..and my friend, good friend.

Thank you, my God.

If I'm not meeting people
and learning about their lives,

I'm not on a proper journey.

They're experiences to treasure.

Travelling around the Mediterranean

took me to the Italian island
of Sicily.

Look at Mount Etna!

Sicily is stunning,

but for decades, people
on the largest island in the Med

have lived under the shadow
of Cosa Nostra -

the Sicilian Mafia.

I travelled through the island's
rugged interior

with my friend
and fixer in Italy, Lorenzo Tondo.

OK, they got it.

We're going to follow them.

So the Land Rover in front
has got some farmers inside -

three sisters who we are following
to their patch of the planet.

It's such a privilege to step
inside people's lives just briefly

and hear their story.

And for me, it's still the point
of travelling.

Salve! Ciao! Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao!

Marianna, Ina and Irene's family

have farmed wheat and hay
on these highlands for generations.

So you've got quite a large,
beautiful patch of land here,

haven't you?

What's happened here?

Are we being... Are we
being press-ganged here?

Come on! We're happy to help.

It's wet. That's why it's so heavy.
I know! Argh! Oh, no!

OK! OK!

Grazie, grazie.

Grazie, Simon. Grazie.

It's an idyllic but
tough life up here,

made infinitely harder
by a curse many Italians thought

was largely a thing of the past.

They poisoned your dogs?

When you say THEY are doing
classic intimidation,

who is they?

Many people are saying the Sicilian
Mafia has been beaten,

has been destroyed.

The Sicilian mafia, Cosa Nostra,
has been partly neutered

by a clamp-down. With bosses in
prison and drug networks disrupted,

it had been battered but not
destroyed. A Mafiosi

had retreated to their rural
heartlands and were using extortion

and intimidation to grab
valuable land.

The sisters, though, were
having none of it, defiantly

rebuilding their perimeter fence.

You're heroes. Keep fighting.

You're Italian heroes.
You really are. Mm!

There are so many brave
and inspiring people out there.

It's humbling to see the risks
ordinary people, campaigners

and investigative journalists
are all prepared to take to tell us

about the situation where they live.

Daphne's car transformed into a ball
of fire with her inside.

The world can be a particularly
dangerous place for journalists -

556 have been killed
in the last decade.

SIRENS WAIL

In 2010, I travelled
to Culiacan in Mexico.

It was the most violent
peak of the brutal war

between the authorities
and the drug cartels.

I met up with a legendary
Mexican investigative writer

called Javier Valdez.

Does it feel like Culiacan
is under siege

from the drug gangs?

Javier spoke truth to power.
He wrote

fearlessly about the cartels
and also corruption in Mexico.

Javier has since been murdered
for his work.

He was gunned down in the street
by cartel killers.

Another phenomenally dangerous place
to be a journalist or campaigner

is Burma, or Myanmar.

For decades, this beautiful country
was and has been dominated

by a repressive and powerful
military.

In 2010, very few people dared
to speak up against the dictatorship

that had the country in its grip.

But one rare voice prepared
to take incredible risks

was a campaigner
called Cheery Zahau.

Hi! Cheery!

Oh, my goodness!

When I last saw Cheery...

Cheery! Can I come in?

Oh, my God!

..it was an emotional reunion.

A few years before,
she'd risked her life

to show me and a couple
of brave colleagues what life

was like inside Burma.

Minorities were being horrifically
oppressed, including the ethnic

group Cheery was from,
the Chin people.

Cheery was living in exile
abroad at the time.

She didn't need to go back
into Burma, but she wanted to.

She agreed to smuggle me
into the country to show

what was really going on there.

It was among the riskiest things
I've ever done, but it was even

more dangerous for Cheery.

So that's in Burma?
Yeah, that's in Burma.

It's always dangerous when you go
to Chin State. When you go to Burma,

you don't know what will
happen, really. Um...

Yeah, they don't want me
to be there.

They put me on the wanted list
in 2007, but... You're actually

on the Burmese military
wanted list, are you?

I didn't know that. Yeah,
they said that I am...

..being empowered by the Western
rich nations,

and now I try to disunite
the Union of Myanmar.

To get into Burma, we needed
to cross the river that marked

the border with India.

God, he's in the water!

For some reason, one of the people
waiting for us on the other side

began swimming towards us.

They saw some people hiding
from some troops, hiding out there.

Sorry, Cheery...

Just trying to get my head round
this - what are you saying?

You're saying that Burmese troops
are hiding just round the corner?

Yeah. They just saw now.

God, I feel sick!

I don't know what to say, really.

I'm just a bit shocked.

Suddenly, soldiers appeared.

This was a nerve-racking moment.
Had we narrowly avoided an ambush?

I don't know.

A few minutes later, we were told
the troops were not actually

from the Burmese army after all.

So who are the soldiers?
The Chin National Army -

insurgency groups fighting
against the Burmese regime.

So, crucially,
they're your friends? Yeah.

OK.

We decided to stick to the plan,
and it turned out the villagers

had their own makeshift
way of crossing the river.

Here goes!

Bloody hell!

Oh!

OK, well, here goes. Ready? Off
we go to Burma. Are you ready?

Yeah, as I'll ever be.

Bloody hell!

HE GREETS THEM

Whoo!

We've arrived.

We've travelled from the world's
largest democracy on that side

of the river to one of the most
repressive countries in the world

on this side.

All right, we've got a long walk.

Let's get going.

The further we trekked,
the deeper we went into what felt

like enemy territory.

There were dozens of Burmese
army bases in the area

and thousands of troops.

How does it feel to be back here,
Cheery? A bit fearful. Fearful?

Yeah, the Burmese troops
are not so far from here.

It's why the villagers are
always, um...

..be careful and scared
of the Burmese troops.

Whenever they are there,

it involves forced labour,
extortion, sometimes rape

against women, and child labourers.

The Burmese military really are
an occupying force in Chin State?

Yeah, Chin State and all over Burma.

Oh, my goodness!

There's huts! Huts!

SCREAMING

You can hear children screaming
when some of them see us.

Oh, my goodness! We've arrived!

We've made it!

THEY GREET EACH OTHER

I'll never forget the sense
of relief as the villagers came out

to meet us.

THEY GREET EACH OTHER

THEY LAUGH

Oh, my goodness, everybody!

I've got tears welling up inside me.

He doesn't know what it is!

THEY CHAT

Has he seen white people,
foreigners, in the village before?

It's what you meant
when you said forgotten people

in a forgotten land.

Yes, absolutely.

No-one's rich here.
Nobody knows they exist here.

Yeah.

A humanitarian group called
the Free Burma Rangers was also

operating covertly behind the lines,
delivering vital medical care

that was being denied to the Chin
by the government.

They were risking everything.

If you were caught by the Burmese
authorities doing this,

what would happen to you?

If they catch us, they will kill us.

Is it really...
Is that really possible?

Yes, it's possible.

All the Burmese regime wants us
to do is to surrender but, instead

of surrendering, we're trying
to help ourselves,

we're trying to stand up

so there's a ray of hope
we can build.

We were due to stay the night
in another village,

but then everything changed.

A messenger arrived with news that
a large army patrol had suddenly

appeared in the next village
and might be heading

in our direction.

I think we should go back.

Oh, my God!

We decided to make a risky dash
under cover of darkness back

to the border. Every noise
from the jungle

might have been an ambush.

It was one of the longest
nights of my life.

It's one thing to cross
a river like this in daylight.

It's completely different
crossing it at night.

WHISPERS: We're just
a few minutes from the border

between Burma and India.

We've just sent one of our
village guides ahead of us

to try and check if there's

any Burmese military down
by the river.

Suddenly, there were voices.

Some people are coming.
Put the light out.

MAN CALLS OUT

That's our guide.

Bloody hell!

I thought we were screwed then.

We've made it
at least to the border.

But there is somebody
over there.

I think, if we can try
and signal to them,

we might be able to get back.

The locals who'd built the zip wire
had come to the river at four

in the morning to help us escape.

Hello!

OK.

India, here we come!

We're back in India! We've made it!

Cheery has to be one of the bravest
of the thousands of remarkable

and brilliant people I've been
honoured to meet on my travels.

Welcome back to India. Thank you.

Welcome back to India too.
And thank you for taking us.

Thanks for coming.

And now you experience a very
different life in Burma, isn't it?

It's an incredibly
different life, yeah.

I mean, it's a totally...
It's a totally different world.

Some of my dodgiest...

It's like Alice In Wonderland
meets Narcos.

..and most dangerous adventures.

How does he know it's al-Shabaab?