Shrines of Gold • 2015 • episode "1/2" • Wonders of Burma

59:10

Simon travels from Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory or 'Top End', across to the remote Cape York Peninsula, and on to the Great Barrier Reef. Simon sets off from Kakadu, the largest national park in the world, where the wildlife is under threat from the march of millions of poisonous cane toads. He joins a team of toad-busters catching the amphibian invaders - originally introduced to the country to kill pests. In Robertson barracks Simon meets Australia's best - and only - tank regiment. They will soon host 6,000 American Marines - evidence of Australia's strategic importance in the Asia Pacific region. On the Cape York Peninsula Simon joins scientists catching deadly box jellyfish, whose venom could prove to have great medicinal value. And on the Great Barrier Reef he dives in search of the starfish destroying coral, before flying 100 miles out into the ocean to watch as a huge tanker is expertly guided through the fragile reef.

2/3 • Australia with Simon Reeve • 2013 • Travel

58:46

Adventurer and journalist Simon Reeve heads to Vietnam to uncover the stories behind the nation's morning pick-me-up. While we drink millions of cups of the stuff each week, how many of us know where our coffee actually comes from? The surprising answer is that it is not Brazil, Columbia or Jamaica, but Vietnam. Eighty per cent of the coffee we drink in Britain isn't posh cappuccinos or lattes but instant coffee and Vietnam is the biggest supplier. From Hanoi in the north, Simon follows the coffee trail into the remote central highlands where he meets the people who grow, pick and pack our coffee. Millions of small scale famers, each working two or three acres, produce most of the coffee beans that go into well known instant coffee brands. Thirty years ago Vietnam only produced a tiny proportion of the world's coffee, but after the end of the Vietnam war there was a widescale plan to become a coffee growing nation and Vietnam is now the second biggest in the world. It has provided employment for millions, making some very rich indeed, and Simon meets Vietnam's biggest coffee billionaire. But Simon learns that their rapid success has come at a cost to both the local people and the environment.

2014 • Travel

59:05

The fourth leg of the broadcaster's journey takes him from Oman to the Maldives. He starts in the Strait of Hormuz, where oil from the Gulf is shipped through the narrow channel, then moves on to Mumbai, the ocean's biggest port. In the Maldives, Simon finds arguably the most beautiful collection of tropical coral islands in the world - but the fragile underwater environment is a barometer for the changing nature of the sea, as he witnesses how bleaching has damaged the coral and one entire island has been manufactured as a landfill dump to deal with the problem of rubbish.

4/6 • Indian Ocean • Travel

44:33

Dobrogea is a region rich in history and modern ethnic diversity not least because it incorporates Romania's only stretch of coastline. Here the Danube Delta, Europe's largest wetland fans out into the Black Sea.

3/9 • Flavours of Romania • 2018 • Travel

59:15

The third leg takes him from the illegally annexed peninsula of Crimea to the historic Baltic city of St Petersburg. Crimea is part of neighbouring Ukraine but was annexed by Russia in 2014. President Putin's government is investing heavily in the illegally occupied territory - building a huge bridge linking Crimea to Russia. Simon meets the eccentric and fearless owner of a safari park who likes to get up close and personal with his pride of lions. The owner is struggling to get water to his park after a canal that supplied much of Crimea's water was shut off by the Ukraine. And it is not just the lions that are affected - the diminishing water supplies are now beginning to threaten a humanitarian crisis.

3/3 • Russia with Simon Reeve • 2017 • Travel

22:13

Is peace possible? In a world of conflict, people can live in peace. Kari goes in search of communities across Israel that are living in peace, and discovers that it is the young people, with their curiosity of their common history, their sharing of food and cuisine, and their desire of intersectionality in sports and music, who are striving for peaceful coexistence, despite the ongoing conflict around them

S1E4 • Crash Test World • 2021 • Travel