Tech for Good, San Francisco, California • 2021 • episode "S1E1" • Crash Test World

46:35

Joanna begins a 2,000-mile journey across Japan in Hokkaido, where she meets one of the most important animals in Japanese culture, the red-crowned crane. She arrives in Sapporo during the middle of the annual Snow Festival and meets members of the local indigenous community, before travelling into the Fukushima exclusion zone and taking a bullet train from Nagano to Tokyo.

Part 1 • Joanna Lumley's Japan • 2016 • Travel

58:57

On an epic railway journey from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh to Kolkata in West Bengal, Michael Portillo uses his Bradshaw's 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel, published when the British Raj was 55 years old, to chart a course through India's history from the days of The East India Company to the dawn of independence. In Lucknow, Michael tastes the famous local kebabs before seeking the truth about 1857 Siege of Lucknow, a key moment in the rebellion which precipitated the end of the East India Company's grip on India and the start of direct British rule.

S1E4 • Great Indian Railway Journeys • 2018 • 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

46:35

The first programme follows Lev and his guide Boston for their first 1,000 miles, from the river's source in the Rwandan rainforest, through Tanzania's remote and lawless regions and into Uganda. Heading deep into the Ajai Wildlife Reserve, an impenetrable swamp forces them into remote, barren ground cut off from civilisation. But even with rangers to carry their kit and extra water, nothing can prepare the duo for what lies ahead.

S1E1 • Walking the Nile with Levison Wood • 2015 • Travel

44:25

The stories of mountaineers who have reached the summit of the world's tallest mountain, including a look at the dangers of the low oxygen levels at high altitudes. The programme examines the factors that allowed Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's 1953 expedition to succeed where so many had failed, and reveals how the Sherpas, who work as porters and guides for expeditions, have a physiology uniquely adapted to surviving at high altitudes.

2021 • Travel

46:38

Levison Wood returns to the site of his car crash to resume the journey, and is reunited with the people who saved his life. He keeps a promise to Binod by accompanying him on a trek to his family home in Pokhara, before continuing their travels with members of the Gurung tribe, who risk their lives to collect honey from wild bees living on high cliffs. They visit the site of an earthquake in 2014 and visit Kathmandu, before crossing the border into Bhutan.

Walking the Himalayas with Levison Wood • 2016 • Travel