01x03 - Full Circle

[bunniefuu]

MICHAEL: Now, let's have a look.

Let's see what we've got here.

Oh, yes.

MICHAEL (VO): When I was growing
up, I dreamed of travel and adventure.

CROWD CHATTERS

Bye. Thank you!

MICHAEL (VO): Then one
day, that dream came true.

This is it.

I'm standing on
the top of the world!

For three decades, I’ve been
lucky enough to travel the world

making documentaries
and sharing my adventures

With millions of viewers.

Michael Palin set the tone
for, I think, all travel TV today.

Ooh! Ah...

It's a bit like a very
friendly steamroller.

He came at the right time, he
had the right daring qualities.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH:
He has huge warmth.

And it's a warmth that spreads
across all kinds of people.

Bye—bye, Kazmir, oh!

HE CHUCKLES Oh! Look at that!

MICHAEL (VO): Now, for
the first time, I'm looking back.

MICHAEL ON TAPE: Laying her
down in What must’ve been my old bed.

Oh, God. — Tucking her
up, making her comfortable.

My way of looking at each
journey as something different

new, special, exciting...

dramatic and challenging

as not really knowing exactly
how it was going to turn out.

These are all the old passports.

At one time, I had three.

Someone said, "Only the
Queen has three passports."

Oh, here we are, yes.

Chile policía internacional...

MICHAEL (VO): I’d been
Around the World in 80 Days

and I'd traveled
from Pole to Pole

and after a feW months at home,
I was getting itchy feet again.

But What journey could
possibly top those two?

So where to next, Michael Palin?

Well, I'm going to
Cardiff next week.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS
— TERRY: That's good.

MICHAEL: In a sense,
it sort of had to be done.

Everything seemed to be
pointing at one more journey

and so, the more ambitious it was,
in a sense, I felt that was necessary.

MICHAEL (VO): Actually,
"ambitious" doesn't quite do justice

to the journey we had planned.

50, 000 miles around
the entire Pacific Rim

this was twice as far as 80
Days and Pole to Pole combined

and it would take
the best part of a year.

The scale of it was
part of the attraction.

It would give you an
extraordinary variety of countries

and landscapes and environments

united by the fact they were
all dependant on the Pacific.

And I suppose I saw it as
the ultimate Palin journey.

There would be
nothing to match this.

Full Circle had
to be as stunning

if not more so than the others

and so we did start at a
remarkable geographical location

this island in the middle
of the Bering Strait.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: These
are the Diomede Islands.

Over behind me is Greater
Diomede, uninhabited, a Russian island

and the one I'm on, Little
Diomede, is American.

About 50 miles to the
north is the Arctic Circle.

Behind me in that channel there
runs the International Date Line.

On Greater Diomede,
it's already tomorrow.

IN AMERICAN ACCENT: So,
we say, "Farewell, Diomede!"

See you in a year.

GREG JAMES: I
suppose, as I grew up

and he wanted to do more adventures
and find out more about the world

it was interesting to...

to see him sort of
dive a little bit deeper

and go into far—flung...

really unseen sort of
communities and put them on TV.

He's someone who has
been a huge inspiration to me

since I was a little kid.

No matter what he
did, he just went in

and just was willing to experience it and
I don't think many people are like that.

SIMON REEVE: It was an
adventure on a totally different scale.

It involved logistics that would
be incredibly challenging now.

NICOLA: Being so far away from
his family, from home, for so long

that had to have
been really tough to do.

MICHAEL: The thing about travelling
is, you had to feel as free as possible.

You didn't really think
about home that much.

Except in the first week,
that was the odd thing

I used to get very, very...
very homesick in the first week

and then after a
bit, you just carry on.

MICHAEL (VO): This epic journey
would take me through many countries

l'd never visited.

But from Alaska, I was bound for
somewhere I had been to before...

Russia.

A country that, since
the fall of communism

had been experiencing
enormous change.

Scarcity, people making do.

Shops that are, you know, not...

that much on the shelves.

There wasn't a
feeling of confidence.

More confusion, I
would say, in Russia.

MICHAEL (VO): Last time, I'd
traveled through western Russia.

European Russia.

But this was the
far east, Siberia.

Infamous as the
land of the Gulag.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: We're taking
one of the survivors back to the remains

of the Gulag camps
where he once worked.

His name is Ivan Yakovlev.

He has not returned to this
harsh wilderness for 50 years.

These are the old uranium mines

where men worked
in grim isolation

to extract the vital ingredients
for Russia's first atomic b*mb.

It was always officially denied
that forced labour camps existed

but Ivan Yakovlev shows
us the remains of a cemetery

on the mountainside, 200
miles north of Magadan.

IVAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN

He told me that the main
causes of death were overwork

radiation and terrible hunger.

MICHAEL ON TAPE: The
grounds of this particular camp

the Gulag... — MICHAEL SIGHS

On all sides are these
mountains full of rubble

great black mountains.
Tips, spoil tips, they look like.

From which the
uranium was extracted.

A complete lack of almost any living thing
when you look up at the mountains around.

It must’ve been most...

most depressing...

most dispiriting.

It struck me as forcibly as
anywhere I had been in the world

as a sort of place of
pure evil, you know.

This was away from
any sort of monitoring

any United Nations envoys
going out to see what it was like.

This was just... they put people
there because there was nothing

for thousands of miles around.

So once you were
there, that was it.

They could make you do
anything, and you were stuck there

and many, many, many
thousands died there.

What a sort of...

horrific glimpse of
what man can do to man.

GREG: The thing that
really becomes apparent

is that he wanted to
not just see it as a jaunt

and he really wanted
to get those stories

and became much better, I
guess, as a journalist in a way.

He managed to tease out stories from people,
and some quite heartbreaking stories.

So, that means you
at home are sharing

that experience, because
for most people at home

it's their first time
seeing these things

so when you're seeing something
for the first time with somebody else

you connect with
them straight away

you know, because you're
both on the same journey

and that's an
amazing skill to have.

You know, you're thousands
of miles away from people

in a box on the... at
the bottom of their room

but you're still able to connect with
them cos you're on the same journey.

He revealed himself at the
same time as revealing...

the world.

And...

we got to know him
in a really different way

and in many ways, that was
a turning point in television

in that we were happy for
characters to become human

rather than
presenters or actors.

And I sit on Michael's
shoulders as a result of that

and able to just be
myself in the screen

but that wouldn't have
been possible without...

Michael making
that transition for us.

MICHAEL: "With the bleakness of
the Gulag still lingering in my mind

it was time to move on.

A flight of less than two hours
had brought me to a country

that could not have
been more different

from post—Soviet Siberia.

Day 25.

So we pass from Russia to Japan

from the land where
everything is difficult

to the land where
everything is easy.

A free, open, affluent,
sophisticated society

in which, according to a recent
poll, 87% of the population

wants to look like
everyone else."

I mean, Japan is beautiful to travel in,
because it's extraordinarily beautiful and...

so surprising, I mean, 4,000
islands, did we know that?

Four hundred inhabited,
didn't know that.

A hundred active
volcanoes, really?

So, Japan is full of glories and
so mountainous and so beautiful

and the people, their First
World way of living is a delight

for anybody who's
a bit afraid of travel.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Konnichiwa.

This is the Zen Buddhist
Temple of Buttsuji.

It's been a place of silence
and meditation for 600 years.

When we're all
sitting comfortably...

nothing happens.

Once I've accepted that
nothing is going to happen

calm descends.

All I have to do is be.

He was just so funny
and so warm and lovely

and just open, really open
to anything that happened.

It was a real adventure to him

and you sort of shared
that adventure with him.

So for me, that was just great.

It was just... This was a
whole new, fresh way of...

of looking at the world, really.

MICHAEL (VO): But for
all its Zen—like tendencies

Japan could be as aggressive
to wards its neighbours

as any other powerful nation

as the next country I
visited knew all too well.

I think getting on
the boat from Japan

to the ferry to Korea,
and it was a Korean ferry

people were just
much more relaxed

just the way they were
sort of sitting in chairs.

The Japanese were
very neat and tidy

and the Koreans were sort
of sprawling a bit more, and...

perhaps the Japanese
wouldn't, I know it's a small thing

but it led me into
realising that these...

these countries
were quite different.

And Korea wasn't just
another sort of Asian country

it was a country that had been
oppressed by the Japanese

who'd occupied the country for
many, many years, quite recently

and it was also
doing extremely well.

The economy there
was beginning to build up

and you could tell that
they could see Japan

as their sort of competitor.

And they could produce more
and better of what the Japanese

were producing.

"Below me, the new high—rises of
Seoul sweep across the landscape

like a steadily advancing army.

In the face of this veracious
display of power and industry

North Korea, I
can't help thinking

doesn't stand a chance."

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: In front of
them all is the motto of the 506th Infantry

some of the 37,000 American
troops still stationed in Korea.

GI: Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the Freedom House.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Today's GIs double as
guides, taking groups of foreign tourists

no South Koreans are allowed

right up to the border itself.

This is it. This is the end of the
road, we can't go any further into Korea

without the risk of being
either shot or arrested.

It comes as a bit of a shock

to find such a heavily
fortified, potentially lethal border

in the middle of the open,
outgoing Pacific Rim area

but I suppose...

the immeasurable
sadness of a place like this

is that it's not a border
between two rival countries.

It's a border that
separates one country...

from itself.

MICHAEL (VO): Then, as now,
the communist regime in North Korea

could never have survived without
the backing of its big brother next door

China, our next destination.

Same slightly intimidating olive—green
uniforms and caps of Communist China

but enormous amount of building going
on absolutely everywhere, look at all...

all the cranes there.

The change in China, in
what was seven or eight years

was so clear.

China seemed to be investing
enormous amounts of money

in recreating itself.

The East, at that time,
was a growing force.

It was quite clear that
China was changing

and becoming a
world economic power.

You could see just
people working in the fields

with bullock carts
and a wooden plough

and then the next village,
you'd see a hotel had gone up

and there'd be some
vehicles working and all that

a new road would
be being laid out.

And I suppose, you know

the industrial revolution
in Britain was pretty fast

but we now look back on it
as being sort of 200 years ago.

Now, in China, that was
happening while I was there.

As a country, more people have
been lifted out of abject poverty

in China over recent decades than
at any other point in human history.

It is a stunning change
and achievement

and Michael's there just as
the country was transforming.

It was just starting to... to...

The glimmers of it
were just appearing.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: What did you do during
the time we call the Cultural Revolution?

What were you doing
here in Shanghai?

Oh, I'm very sorry, you
see, I'm ragged from St Johns

and that would be
very troublesome.

What? Oh, I see,
to talk about it?

Yes. — So, you would not
have been... 20 years ago

you would not have been
allowed to talk to me?

Sure. — Ah!

Hello! — If I do, then
I'm something wrong.

I must be a rebel, what
is it called? — A what?

MAN 2: Yeah, something
would be wrong.

MICHAEL: Yeah,
OK. Well, but now it's...

It's different now,
is it? — Mm—hm.

There's a couple of chaps coming round there
in police uniforms, looking a bit uncertain.

What do you think?

But nowadays, doesn't matter.
They can't interfere, we can talk freely.

Yeah. Yeah.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: I get
the impression that my new friend

is someone I still
shouldn't be talking to.

You've got to be conscious
that you're not going to...

you're not gonna put yourself or
the people you're with in a situation

where the local
"gestapo", quite frankly

turn up and start
asking tricky questions.

"What did you say? What did
you say to the foreign TV crew?"

That will happen.

So you've got to be
aware of that responsibility.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH:
The job of the travel presenter

is to draw out other people

and he's a genius at doing it.

He doesn't just talk to
people who are famous

or have obvious stories

but he will suddenly
just bump into somebody.

The result is, it's a
real human reaction.

MICHAEL (VO): From
Shanghai, we headed inland

where we boarded ferry boat,
The Oriental Star Number One

for a voyage up
the Yangtze River

past the site of another
huge construction project.

This is currently the most important
and probably the most controversial

point on the Yangtze River

cos you can see the workings
for the Three Gorges Dam

which will extend across
the other side of the river here

so that everything from here
on, that we're going to see

the gorges we're gonna go
through will, in 16 or 17 years' time

be totally underwater.

These towns look doomed.

Why change anything when, in a
few years, all this will be engulfed?

NICOLA: It's tough to
watch that, you know?

And talking about all the villages along
the Yangtze that were gonna be flooded.

And you think, you know, what's
gotten rid of in the name of progress.

You think, "My God, how
much culture are we erasing?"

MICHAEL (VO): As we
journeyed deeper into China

we encountered more communities
for whom we were a distinct novelty

until we reached an area
that had been, until recently

completely closed to outsiders.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: There are
few places in the world as untouched.

We're probably the first
foreigners they've ever seen.

INDISTINCT CHATTER — Hello.

Nihao. — WOMAN TRANSLATES

WOMAN TRANSLATES

MICHAEL ON VIDEO:
Unlike many others in China

the Miao are open,
friendly and curious.

Let's go in, shall we? —
INDISTINCT CHATTER

Here we are, barging in
while you're having your lunch.

Can you ask him, has he
ever seen foreigners before?

Ever seen people from the West?

SHE SPEAKS CHINESE DIALECT

THEY CHATTER

TRANSLATOR: No. — MICHAEL:
What do we look like to them?

TRANSLATOR: Quite different,
quite strange, quite different.

How, why? What do we...

I mean, apart from... —
With big nose, they say.

Big noses? Well... —
Yes, have a big nose.

That's just me, not everybody
has a nose as big as this.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

We are so used to seeing
the polished presenter

in the final destination,
delivering his polished piece

and here you have a
character that we know and love

actually having a human response

to something that was just
completely unexpected in that moment

and not only is it
like a real look at...

at what's going on, but it's also
one that, because it's Michael

carries charm and grace and...

and some humour, you
know, and so, wow, you know?

What a wonderful insight

into travel and
filmmaking as well, weirdly.

AMAR LATIF: See, it's like a forbidden
world that he's just entered into.

Culture connecting with people

it makes you realise that your
way of living is just one way.

SIMON: What a stunning
privilege it is to be the first outsider

to walk into that
community, into that village

but what a hell of a
responsibility it is, but if...

Britain was to send
an ambassador abroad

I mean, we could do a lot worse

than send Michael Palin
out there, couldn't we?

MICHAEL (VO): As we moved
on from Vietnam to the Philippines

we'd been travelling and
filming for 700 days straight.

It could be tough going.

And on one particularly
rough ferry crossing

I had a vivid dream of home.

MICHAEL ON TAPE:
As the storm went on

it was strangely comforting.

Really, to be there, lying in
one's bunk, and I had a dream

and Rachael was a baby,
and, er... — My daughter.

wasn't very well,
for some reason.

I remember it was
Whitworth Road, my old home.

My old house in Sheffield! —
Taking her round and laying her down

in what must have been
my old bed. — Oh, God!

Tucking her up, making her
comfortable... — HE LAUGHS

When the rolls were particularly
severe and pronounced

I began to think, "This is it!"

How funny that I had a
dream about my daughter

and me putting her to bed in
my old house back in Sheffield.

Well, must've been so
many things coming in then

not only the family who
you weren't gonna see

for another sort of
four or five months

um, but also...

insecurity, I suppose, as
you're sort of rolling about.

There was a genuine fear
that you might not survive.

GREG: Full Circle, he
was nearly away for a year

best part of a
year, from his family

and it was a very
tough... challenge.

NICOLA: Watching it nowadays, and
you think we're so reliant on mobile phones

we're so reliant on
planning everything out

and then you think, "God,
they didn't have mobile phones."

He mustn't have
spoken to his family for...

weeks if not months upon a
time. That's really, really difficult.

MICHAEL: Because of the
length of it, the time we were away

it made you very vulnerable to
whatever might have gone wrong at home

or the whole feeling of
being away from home.

So, it was a big shock one night
when we got to Kuching in Sarawak

and my wife Helen
rang me up and said

you know, "Don't panic.

Sit quietly, but I've been
diagnosed with a benign...

brain tumour."

We had this long conversation.

I said, "I'll be back," you know,
"I'll come back straightaway."

She said, "No, I'm going into
hospital in three days' time.

By the time you
get back, you know

I'll be aware of you
being in complete panic.

I'm being really
well looked after.

The surgeon who's
going to do the operation

has said he's very
happy to talk to you."

All this sort of thing,
so she played down

tried to play down the thing

cos I don't think she
wanted me to panic.

But that was very... it was
a very difficult period, that.

I never really seriously thought
we would abandon the journey

but it came very close to it.

MICHAEL (VO): With
Helen on the mend

my determination to
see the journey through

was renewed.

We still had over
20, 000 miles to go.

Our route now took us round
the East Coast of Australia. ..

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Oh, my God!

I tell you, I've never done
anything like that in my whole life.

...across to New Zealand...

MAN GRUNTS

Wahoo!

...and then onto the most
dramatic landscape yet.

South America.

MICHAEL: I honestly
knew far less, really

about the South
American countries

so I went with a
completely open mind.

Let's see what it's like.

Let's see what it's
like along the way.

NICOLA: I think it's so
nice to watch him, because

first of all, he approaches everything
with such openness and such kindness.

He's so nice to everybody, he
doesn't go in pre—judging things.

He's willing to let the
experience present itself

and therefore, when
you're alongside him

there's nothing getting
in the way of you learning

about that culture or that place

so it makes it much nicer to
sort of experience it with him.

MICHAEL (VO): We went as
far into Peru as possible by train

then further on by road.

And finally, in the manner
of explorers from another age

on the 450—mile—long
Urubamba River.

"There's no way north
of here except by river.

Over breakfast, I study a
satellite image of our river route.

It shows clearly the line of a rocky
ridge through which the river cuts.

To get through, we shall
have to descend the fiercest

of all the Urubamba Rapids.

the Pongo de Mainique.

I mean, when I started
going down the Urubamba

not making a big thing of it but I was
a bit scared that morning, to be honest

and when we were on these boats,
we could so easily have tipped over.

They're very shallow boats

and it was a very,
very, very fast

very fast foaming current.

And you know, there's a kind of,
"Wow, here we go! Nothing I can do.

Perhaps I shouldn't have signed
up for this, but hey, let's go!"

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Conditions
on the river can change quickly

from docile to lethal.

Wow, just missed a rock by...

the skin of our teeth there.

Jeopardy on camera...

We're so used to, like,
Hollywood and like...

And, like, just such
extraordinary feats of like...

prowess and danger.

I know what that's
like, that's terrifying!

But it doesn't look, on TV, it
just kinda looks a little bit insane

but I know what it's like.

The water starts moving
very, very fast as it flows

literally out of the Andes
and into the Amazon plain

and there we are,
into boiling water.

I was pretty nervous at this point,
because we seemed to be heading...

There we are, we're heading straight
for what seems like a sheer wall of rock.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Glistening granite
walls loom ahead like slowly closing doors.

It's a tricky one, Barry. — Yeah,
he's gotta get it just right here.

If he messes up here, we could
be into that rock or into that rock.

He just shows an
incredible lack of fear

going white—water
rafting and then, you know

going up the Amazon
River in this, you know...

little boat and all
this stuff, he's never...

There's so many points
watching where I went

"I definitely wouldn't
have done that.

I definitely would've
been too afraid to do that."

It's very narrow, now, isn't it?
This whole river just squeezed in.

BARRY: Squeezed in, it's
getting narrower up ahead too.

JOANNA LUMLEY: I think it's
rather lovely when you begin to see

the traveller facing up to things which
are immensely challenging for them.

At home, we're sitting,
we're not challenged at all.

We're on a comfortable
sofa and watching

but you can tell that he went
through hell on a lot of his journeys.

It was massively uncomfortable.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: I expected
the Pongo to be dangerous

but never to be so beautiful.

Rocks which look as if
they've been blasted apart

rise from the river like the buttresses
of some half—submerged cathedral.

The way he
describes it, what is it?

The buttresses jutting up,
you know, like cathedrals?

It, like, puts incredible
images in my mind

and often when I'm travelling, and
sighted people will describe things to me

and I feel I'm the lucky one because
it's almost like I get the book version

instead of the film version!

And as we all know, the book's
always better than the film, right?

HE CHUCKLES

I feel sorry for
you sighted folk!

HE LAUGHS

After three weeks on
the Peruvian river system

we've now reached a crossroads.

We have the Amazon here, has
brought us to Peru on this side

Brazil over there and
Colombia over there.

We can't really carry on with the
Amazon, it goes on 2,000 miles

into the Atlantic so we're gonna
head north through Colombia

and back up towards the Pacific.

Wherever that is.

When we flew to Bogota,
it was just wonderful.

We were booked
into a four—star hotel.

It was just amazing, you know,
and it had sort of sheets on the bed

and little chocolates
and things like that.

And I felt suddenly, we
were back in civilisation

and, you know, then you
realise how tenuous civilisation is.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Colombia's capital is
the biggest city we've seen since Sidney.

It has a reputation for being one
of the most violent places on Earth.

MICHAEL: I think I
developed, after two series

more of an appetite
for information.

I was beginning to realise that you didn't
have to sort of joke about where you were

or find some eccentric thing to
show that you were having fun

and a good time.

There was more of a responsibility
to sort of note what's happening

in rather more sort
of serious areas.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: Tim
is well known round here.

He's reported on these
streets for 20 years.

Back in the car, we head for
the most notorious street of all

Calle Cartouche,
"b*llet Street".

INDISTINCT CHATTER

If they see someone like this going
through, do they see it as a target

something to rob or
possibly...? — Yes, yes.

Yes, they're already
yelling insults at us.

LOUD THUD — Now
they're throwing rocks.

MICHAEL: sh*t.

ROCKS CLATTER — Whoops!

Yeah, they've already
started getting hostile

which is normal, they assume we're
either Death Squad or police or something.

Stabbings are frequent.

They use broken bottles
on each other's faces.

A squabble can
start for nothing.

A squabble over, you know,
50 cents worth of marijuana.

Yeah, so this isn't
glossy travel, here.

Even just showing the
existence of this has a power.

I'm not interested in
filming a holiday brochure.

I think it's incredibly important,
but just more interesting as well

to show what I slightly pretentiously
call, "the light and the shade".

But it's basically, for me, showing the
glory of a place but also the issues as well.

Sometimes things take a
dark turn in a strange way.

Either you get ill, which
we all do when we travel

or you come across something
which is not remotely funny

um, or is desperately
sad, or is...

a sort of a blank wall where
there's no way of getting through it

and then there's no point in
trying to be chirpy about that.

You've got to take it on.

TIM SPEAKS SPANISH

Look at the scars.

That's typical of the
tr*nsv*stite male prostit*tes.

The self—mutilation.

See, he has A*DS
now. He has A*DS.

He has to go back to the foundation
which deals with A*DS patients here.

Will he accept
that? Will he do——

Yes, he wants to
persuade his friend.

The trouble is to persuade the friend to come
in with him cos he doesn't want to leave him.

Oh, dear.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

MICHAEL: I've only got a
small bill, that's all I have. OK?

TIM SPEAKS SPANISH

NICOLA: Going to Colombia
was something that really stuck out

meeting that poor young man
who had A*DS on the street

and he just was so compassionate

and so willing and there's
never any judgement there

of any different cultures or
what people are going through.

MICHAEL: Of all the
places I've been in the world

Colombia was the one
place where local people

were not happy
that I'd been there.

There were actually
some complaints, you know

saying this was not a
fair portrait of their city.

I'm always aware that some...

You go to places where
people have to live with things

that are not always nice

but I don't want to fall in a trap
of saying, "This is a bleak area.

You never want to go there."

There's nowhere on my journeys
I wouldn't go back to again.

Even the really rough places.

I'd say, "Well, you know, I
was wrong, this is lovely."

HE LAUGHS

It's way more interesting
to see people go to a place

and not try and sugar—coat it
or present a certain version of it.

He just went and just...

went in and just experienced it.

It's way better to
watch it that way

and it can't always be positive.

Of course, his
journey is central.

His personality is vital, and
we all identify and travel with him

but what he doesn't do
is impose his view on you.

He allows you, as his companion

to make your own mind up.

MICHAEL (VO): Our journey
through South America was at an end.

After leaving Colombia, we flew across
Central America to our final destination

en route to the USA.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO:
This is the US border.

A ten—foot high steel barrier made from
landing strip sections from the Vietnam w*r.

It's called the
"Tortilla Curtain".

Those who cross illegally are
known as "pollos", chickens.

If you're determined to go

the Tortilla Curtain can
look a very flimsy obstacle.

What's the view of the
Mexicans of a fence like this?

That it shouldn't be there? —
Oh, very, very sad, you know

because don't forget that
all this, it used to be Mexico.

MICHAEL: On the Mexican
side, you had people

a lot of whom had
very little to lose

and on the other
side, the American side

just a few yards away
was a sort of paradise.

MICHAEL ON VIDEO: When
will these guys go, do you think?

Are they... Oh,
they're going now?

MAN: Yeah, they go now.
This is the way they cross.

MICHAEL: It was people
at the end of their tether

trying to break into America.

Prepared to take terrific risks with
the family, the children and all that

just to get in and
enjoy the way of life

in their rich neighbour.

SIMON: If you're a forgotten
people in a difficult situation

it means a hell of a lot for somebody
to turn up and take an interest.

And it's a very powerful thing
for people to think that their story

in whatever form, is gonna be
shared with others around the world

with other human beings.

Other people will hear
about this situation.

That's important to them and I think
it's important for us to hear it as well.

MICHAEL (VO): I never
imagined that 25 years on

this border would become the
huge political issue it is today.

And so, on day 227
of our epic voyage

we began the last leg
up through the States

and into Canada, towards
Alaska, where it had all begun.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

Thanks a lot! Sorry
to stop you, but...

That's alright. — I was told
you would stop anywhere. OK?

The last section, especially
up through Canada

we were all getting
very, very tired.

You see kind of the edited
highlights on television.

The slog of the journey
is what exhausts people

and brings us to our knees.

Sometimes makes us tetchy.

Sometimes makes you think,
"I really can't go on with this."

Looking at a map, it's impossible to
imagine the scale of the Pacific Ocean

and the amount of
places that encompasses.

Trying to do that, and for the
length of time that he did it, was...

incredible and insane, I think.

I think you could tell by the end,
he was ready for it to be over, I think.

MICHAEL (VO): But
the finish line was in sight

so we pushed on north to wards
our original point of departure

the Diomede Islands.

Well, it looks as though the
Bering Strait has defeated us.

The most notorious and changeable
and dangerous weather systems

come through here.

I shan't set foot on
Diomede, but I feel...

I feel that I have
closed the circle.

It is out there. We've
travelled 50,000 miles.

We got within a gnat's of it, a gnat's
of it, and I think that's something.

MICHAEL: "Alaska
time, 10pm, London.

We begin to wrap up the filming
of Full Circle after 245 days.

Captain, who's been steaming
round the island since first light

sets course southwards,
into the wind and the mist."

We couldn't land on the
island, it was so rough.

"We proceed for a mile or so
along the International Date Line.

Even from the Date Line, only
two miles off the rocky shore

it's impossible to make out the
thousand—foot rock where we started."

In many ways, Full Circle
was the best series we did.

The best, because it
had the greatest scope

because it covered the
most diverse landscapes.

And apart from a few
areas, it was very unfamiliar

and it fulfilled all the ideas

that it should be adventure
and it should be revelation

and it should be, you know, informed
by a sense of wonder and all that.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

I think it was just such a big
journey that I felt, "That's it," you know.

"We'll not do anything
better than that."

I felt it was a door
closing there, yes.

It turned out not to be, of
course, because actually

for me, travel
became an addiction.

The Sahara Desert.

I remember looking at it and
thinking, "That would be a challenge."

It just looks totally empty

yet it's a vast area.

There must be things there.

I really wanted to show that the
Sahara had a modern life there

which just people never saw.

Woo!

It was as challenging and as difficult
as any of the ones we'd done before.