All language subtitles for Joanna.Lumleys.Postcards.S01E05.Trans.Siberian.Adventure.720p.HDTV.x264-QPEL

'With a lifetime of globetrotting,
I'm not a timid traveller.'

Get over it and just do it.

'I'm game for most things. I
like getting back to nature...

meeting new people...' Yassas.

'.. but also taking the time to stop

and drink in unfamiliar surroundings...'

It is absolutely staggering.

'.. different skies, different waters...'

The sun's beginning to go.

'.. watching the sun set from
all angles across the globe,

and taking you with me...'

Fantastic. Extraordinary journey.

'.. sending you a taste of
my adventures by postcard.'

I'm on the peak of the world.

And over there, to the north,

are two of the most
colossal empires on earth.

This is Hong Kong.

I was here when I was a little
girl and I haven't been back since.

And I'm about to start on one
of the most exciting journeys

you can make on land,

which is through China and Mongolia
on the Trans-Siberian Express.

'Hong Kong -- once a British colony
and protected by the British army

and my father,

who was stationed here
with his Gurkha regiment.'

Of course, Hong Kong is
bound to have changed,

but I think, more than
any city in the world,

Hong Kong is the one that has
altered its whole nature.

So much land reclamation.

You see that big, scooping building,

like a great biscuit
with the tower behind it?

All that has been stolen
back from the sea.

And where we're going now was
water and it's now been grown out.

It's thrilling to be back.

It's terribly beautiful.

And I don't remember any of it.
It's as if I've been in a dream.

'All I know is that we
lived on Chatham Road.

It used to be on the water's edge.'

It's the strangest thing in the world

because I've got a picture
of me as a little girl...

.. in Hong Kong with my
mother and my older sister.

And we're standing, I think,
somewhere pretty near Chatham Road.

But here you can see the
coastline so close to us,

and now... we're in the middle of a city.

It was a block of rather Victorian-y flats

with little balconies.

And we kept guinea pigs
called Sammy and Michael.

And the guinea pigs whistled.
Mummy taught them how to whistle.

And sometimes sailors
would come onto shore,

on their shore leave. Walking past,

they'd hear the guinea pigs
whistling and they'd whistle back,

thinking there were girls
whistling down to them.

What is the top of your
travel bucket list?

What do you want to see in the
world before you turn to stardust?

Well, I'll tell you.

On most people's list is
the Great Wall of China

and the other is Outer Mongolia.

Where's more remote than that?

You wouldn't have one without the other

because the Great Wall was built
to keep out its neighbours,

principally the Mongolians.

Now, you can travel
between the two provinces

because the Trans-Mongolia Railway

forms the first leg of the
Trans-Siberian journey,

which in itself is a trek

that most of us would
think once in a lifetime!

And you can do it. And I did
it, I did it the whole way.

And I started in Beijing.

'New Beijing is officially
still Communist,

but it's embraced
consumerism with open arms.

It's a shopper's paradise.

Luxury labels are everywhere.

And British brands are top sellers,

with a 30% hike on London prices.'

Is this the silver Wraith, this one here?

'Mr Wilson runs the most successful
Rolls-Royce dealership in the world

here in the capital of Communist China.

He introduces me to one of his
favourite clients, Madam Liu,

to whom he recently sold
his 1,000th Rolls-Royce.

You can buy them here
for half a million quid.

The average annual wage
is just over £2,000.'

Wow! Look, we've got stars on the ceiling!

This is the stars at night.

~

This is what she likes most.

The glitter, the bling,
the starry, starry night.

How do I get to close the door?

Joanna, you can just press that button.

I never thought I'd see Beijing
from the heart of a Rolls-Royce.

It seems extraordinary. Who buys them?

Where does the money come from?
Cos this is riches beyond belief.

Definitely from the very rapid
economic development in China.

For sure.

Darling, I think probably not with
the mobile phone at the moment.

Because now we have so many
successful, rich people in China.

- Yes. - And then they
enjoy the finer things.

Darling, not the phone. You must just...

Wilson, will you ask
Madam Liu very kindly?

Ah.

Madam Liu, what is it that you
love about the Rolls-Royce?

~

Because she believes that
Rolls-Royce is the pinnacle.

And then it's a symbol
of success and status.

'Beijing, once famous for
its millions of bicycles,

in now cars bumper to bumper.'

- ~
- Sorry, Joanna.

- No, it's them.
- ~

- She said, if we were doing
it in her home town... - Yeah?

.. she could arrange blocking the roads...

.. for us to do the filming.

Because she has the connections
with the authorities.

Beijing -- much to film here.

So hot, that I do remember.

The low-lying lanes which
still criss-cross the city

are steadily being replaced
by astonishingly tall

and eye-opening buildings.

The were out of this world.

Honestly, it was like being
in a sort of cyber city.

Skyscrapers, endless wide ring roads,

which make walking anywhere impossible.

Supper at a Mao-themed
restaurant, that was astonishing.

'Now, I've travelled the world

and eaten in every type
of restaurant imaginable,

but this one is by far the weirdest.'

~

'In the form of the most bizarre cabaret,

large helpings of Mao's
cultural revolution

are served with wild enthusiasm,

along with pizza and
cold beer, if you wish.'

'It's an odd atmosphere,

given that in Mao's cultural
revolution in the '60s,

some 1.5 million people were killed

and countless millions of
others suffered banishment,

imprisonment and torture.'

Tell me, what did you enjoy
most about this evening?

~

What are your thoughts
now of Chairman Mao?

'If you're ever in Beijing and
you fancy Chairman Mao and chips,

then this is the restaurant for you.'

Now, back to the bucket
list and the Great Wall.

It stretches 5,500 miles,

which is here to New York and back again!

Built on the most
perilous mountain ridges,

it's sensational.

When visiting dignitaries
come to the wall --

there's a concrete coach
park, some nice steps made up

and it's all been cleared
away -- they can stand there

and this beautiful view of the
wall is snaking away behind.

I didn't want to go there.

I wanted to go to one of the wilder parts.

So I met with an Englishman
called William Lindsay,

who's got a Chinese wife, and
he's made it his life study

to know everything about the wall.

And I think he's walked it
twice, or something. Unbelievable.

I went with him, climbing up
through the wild, jungly bits,

before dawn broke to see the
Great Wall as the sun came up.

So it's just before four in the morning.

The moon is still up,
but it's sinking down.

I can hear cocks beginning to crow.

We've got an hour's walk ahead of us.

You can see, it's quite cold.

The path is wet with dew.

So this is onwards and upwards
to the Great Wall of China.

Yeah, it's a bit er...

This is the steepest part and er...

- .. once we're through here...
- This is the steepest part.

Good.

The next corner, we may have a view.

Wonderful. The sky is
beginning to become paler.

Oh, my God, there is the wall.

This is extraordinary.

Even though I've seen
this hundreds of times,

it's still magnificent.

Worth getting up in the
middle of the night to see.

I would say so.

Next, I have postcards
from magical Mongolia,

just over the border,

and a close-up of a
statue of Genghis Khan.

For most of the 20th century,
Mongolia was shrouded in secrecy.

You couldn't get in.

It was the byword for remoteness
and the back of the world.

But in the 21st century, it opened up

and the people from
Mongolia began to travel out

and tourists began to flock in
to see the ravishing landscapes.

And, of course, the best
way to get into Mongolia

is on the Trans-Mongolian Railway.

'I've leapt off the train to spend
some time with a family of nomads.

There are twice as many wild
horses as people in Mongolia...

and I'm hoping not too wild.'

I don't know why I feel
my enormous English bottom

is going to have a bit
of a struggle in there.

My father, who was quite horseman,

always said that when
you're on top of a horse,

to stop it ever knowing
that you're feeling nervous,

or anything like that, you've got to sing.

So it might be a bit of melody,

the hills might be alive
with the sound of music.

There we go. There we are.

♪ It's the same the whole world over

♪ It's the poor what gets the blame ♪

'The nomadic lifestyle has hardly changed

for thousands of years in Mongolia,

where a third of the
population are still herdsmen.'

'It's not only the cows that are milked,

mare's milk is big business in Mongolia.

And milking occurs four times
a day and it's quite an art.

Foals are used to
stimulate the mare to milk

and then pulled away.'

It seems fairly hazardous, this milking,

cos you just go in amongst
the herd of horses.

You can see that this
young one was suckling,

the foal was suckling anyway.

You just leap in there, balance
the bucket on your knee,

sort of shout at the other
horses if they come too close

and look a bit rough.

Shall I have a go? Yeah?

~

- No? Put my bucket over there? - ~

- ~
- Oh, my love, I can't do it.

I'm not doing it properly.

- I'm not doing it properly.
- Oh, that was feeble.

'Some of the mare's milk
makes a lethal brew.'

Oh, the smell! This has got the most...

So, when it's cool, the milk goes in here.

And you zhoosh it about
and it turns into alcohol.

This is like a kind of still.

'I can't wait to try the alcoholic
sour mare's milk nomadic cocktail.'

Delicious!

This looks like beautiful,
very thick cream, I guess.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

- Mm-mm! Mm-mm!
- That's delicious!

It's rather like eating a
scone, I guess. It's wonderful.

'They kindly invited me to stay the night.

Nomadic people are famous
for their hospitality.

And if they're away, they'll
leave the gere unlocked

in order to allow any passer-by to rest

and enjoy the treats which are
left on the table for visitors.'

A lovely night here.

It got jolly cold, even though
I had a beautiful extra quilt

over my sleeping bag.

But something lovely happened.
There was a great kind of bump

at about two or three in the morning.

That kind of phrrp! That
lovely heavy breathing sound

of a big beast coming along and
standing and breathing beside me.

I've only ever had that
before in a tent with a lion,

so it was nice to be up in
Mongolia, and it was a cow.

'Morning rituals with a modern twist.

As Mr Ochure gets up and
Mrs Ochure makes the cheese,

their son goes out early to
round up the distant horses.

By the time he's back,
Dad is up and ready.

And in a beautifully-coordinated dance,

ancient and modern
herding methods combine.'

It's been extraordinary
staying here for the night.

There's something really
pared down and simple,

hardworking, disciplined,
a sense of order...

An extraordinarily simple
life, which I suppose...

all our ancestors lived.

So all of us used to live like this.

How different it is from the world today!

But most impressive of all

is something that I've
found around the world,

which is that the poorer
and the simpler people are,

the more they welcome you into their homes

and the kinder they are,

the more they give you
the best place to sit

or to eat, the best bit
of food, the best bed.

We've pulled away from this
in our smart, civilised world

and I wonder if we haven't gone too far.

When we were out in the plains,

we went, towards evening,
into a wood to visit a shaman.

He was actually a young man
who seemed to be possessed

by a voice which was pretty weird.

One of those sort of voices.

And all the people, the local people,

were sitting around with absolute belief,

waiting to hear what the
shaman would say to them.

I was secretly dreading
that he'd call me up.

Of course, he did call
me up and then, oddly,

he told me something about my
mother which he couldn't have known.

Yes, she was.

And at the end, when he kind
of came out of his trance,

he said to me, in an ordinary,
ordinary boy voice, "Was that OK?"

While in the towns of Mongolia,

everything's burgeoning
and modern and new,

they've kept in touch
with all their old arts.

China lost all its crafts under Communism,

they were all stamped out and disappeared.

But in Mongolia they didn't have
a great regime to have to follow.

And so they've kept everything
alive and fresh and sweet,

including a two-stringed fiddle
and a kind of singing called kumi.

'I'm under strict instructions
from my musician husband

to track down the legendary
Mongolian throat singers.

This group play traditional instruments

and do a form of throat singing
that's quite incredible to hear.'

Bravissimi!

That was wonderful.

'That throaty sound and that
pure, high overtone sound

are both coming from this one man.'

Will you stand and teach me to do this?

Very poor.

But, you see, I'm trying to
be a man as well as singing.

The capital of Mongolia is Ulaanbaatar

and the people there have
just suddenly reawakened

their pride in the warlord Genghis Khan.

He slaughtered millions.

They've named a square
after him in Ulaanbaatar.

I mean, here in London
we gave Nelson a column.

Wait till you see what
they gave Genghis Khan.

'60 miles from Ulaanbaatar, on the plains,

I met one of the most powerful
men in Mongolia, Mr Batalga.

He's a politician and
hugely wealthy businessman

who dreamt up and then had built
this tribute to Geghis Khan.

Almost as high as Nelson's Column,

it dominates the landscape.'

It looks as though it's made from silver,

- but what is it? Aluminium?
- ~

So it's been made of stainless steel.

- So it will always gleam like this.
- Actually, you can...

- You can go up.
- You can go up onto there?

- So we can get onto the horse's head?
- Er... yes.

Joanna, he's going to tell you
to turn around and open your eyes.

Then can you look at it.

- ~
- OK, turn around.

That's extraordinary!

Incredible expression of determination,

authority, kindliness...

Probably not kindliness.

'"Chingis Khan", as he's pronounced here,

and his armies are estimated to
have slaughtered 40 million people.

So his status as hero is,
of course, subjective.'

Why did you think it was important
to have a statue of Genghis Khan?

Since we came here and I've
seen what Mongolia is... like,

I mean, it is just literally endless,

this phenomenal statue
seems to be to scale.

You can understand why
this man, Genghis Khan,

800 years ago, ruled the world.

His army stretched from the
Pacific right across into Europe,

from what is now Russia
right down to India.

An empire that's never
really been matched.

So it's rather good to be here
looking up at his huge silver face.

This is Genghis Khan...

and this is his Mongolia.

Who knew that Mongolia would
be such a dream destination

if, like me, you like outdoor living.

You get space and peace
and a vast blue sky.

Join me again for more concise
correspondence in my postcards.