![]() ![]() I went to my room about 3.30 in the afternoon, coughing and snivelling, and went to sleep. But before we got up to the highest point, we stayed in a hut. It was pretty grim but I staggered on and made something of the fact that I was poorly. I’d just had a cold, and that combined with the lack of oxygen as we got higher and higher made feel really sick. ![]() But it’s worth it for those special moments. You’ve got to get all that material and it’s got to work out, and it’s got to go home, and it’s got to be developed and all that… So, there’s a lot of anxiety there in getting the material. You’re only going to be, usually, in an area for one day or two days at most. You have to make sure that you don’t waste any time. It is hard work, day in, day out, and you’re filming all the time. My confidence had been a bit shaken, but then things began to change and we just had to take a bit of a gamble.Ī sense of excitement is really important. I wasn’t intending to go to North Korea beforehand and, in fact, I’d had some doubts because the Americans and North Koreans had been shouting abuse at each other rockets were being brandished and it looked as though there might be a global war because of what was happening. I say, well, I’m afraid I want to find that out for myself, if I can. So, when someone says that you shouldn’t go somewhere because there are horrible people there and it’s a disgusting regime, and blah blah blah. It’s rather like when I was at school and teachers would say, “Stop laughing, Palin”. I’m always really interested in places that people say you shouldn’t go to. Had you always had a fascination with North Korea? Maybe it’ll simply reveal the extent of poverty and hardship. But whether the wealth will filter down, I just don’t know. What will happen is they’ll be flooded by Chinese tourists. The sort of people I spoke to wanted to know about London, but weren’t allowed to say that on camera because the regime depends on denial of almost everything else outside it. ![]() They’re trying to engage with the rest of the world and let people go abroad yet keep control. What’s happening with North Korea (DPRK) is different. But 8 million people watched that episode in the UK. When I went to the BBC with the idea, I expected them to say: can you go somewhere where it’s not just sand and rocks? But I managed to persuade them – though I was far from sure how it would go down… If people knew that for the next half-hour they’d be watching life in Mauritania today, you’d think it would be a switch-off. From what I’d read, I felt it wasn’t a blank there were a lot of trade routes that, historically, went through there, so there had to be things to see. The crescent of the Himalaya was there all the time it’s always present. Himalaya is the most beautiful of all the programmes I’ve done. After the ‘big journey’ series, Sahara (2002) and Himalaya (2004) were very different in terms of pace – you kept to a region, for a start. Then we went into South Africa and apartheid was beginning to crumble, but still hanging on. In Zambia as well – President Kenneth Kaunda was replaced after 25 years. We went into Africa and the Ethiopian Revolution had just happened – all the boys from Tigray were swarming towards the capital where they defeated the dictator. Within three months it had collapsed and Odessa was part of the Ukraine. The Soviet Union was still in existence when we left Odessa. In terms of political change, it, was extraordinary. And so, for two days I was quite depressed that I’d left my guys behind. I thought: you don’t know how lucky you are. When I got to shore, the first night was at a smart hotel, full of rich people shouting at porters. ![]() I mean, that was so moving, and made me feel, well, this is not just what you’re seeing, it’s how you’re seeing it and the ability of people who don’t speak the same language to communicate. There was a moment when Kasim, who was the older man, just grabbed me when I left the boat and gave me a hug. By the end, and I’ve never had this since, there was a kind of emotional bond between us and them. A lot of it would be waiting around, then someone would see a fish and they would get their fishing cord out. So it wasn’t a question of getting the story of their lives it was just how they lived each day on board that boat. Only one of them spoke a little bit of English and that was the captain. You mention the dhow a lot and even went back to find the boatmen 20 years later in a follow-up show. ![]()
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