Hm.
At last - a taste of the world's third longest river.
There we are - real Yangtze water.
We're entering the gorge - Tiger Leaping Gorge.
The combination of swollen rivers and towering mountains
make the Himalayan gorges the deepest in the world.
Tiger Leaping Gorge took its name from the legend
that a hunted tiger escaped by leaping across it.
The gorge rises nearly 2.5 miles from the river bed to the mountain summits above.
My journey through the eastern Himalaya will take me to Lugu Lake,
Lijiang and the city of Kunming
before crossing into Nagaland and Assam
to link up with another mountain river, the Brahmaputra.
Though it looks remote, our path is well trodden.
It was part of the Tea Horse route,
along which tea from Yunnan in China was traded for horses from Tibet.
My guide, Li Yuan, is from the Naxipeople.
The Naxi, one of many ethnic minorities in Yunnan province, have a long history,
a hieroglyphic language going back 1,000 years and are good at running guest-houses.
(TINKLING BELLS)
While they rest the horses, I head for the restroom.
Going to the lavatory tends to be something you dread in places like this,
but this is rather special - the sign says, "Number one toilet on heaven and earth."
What a claim. Must be investigated. Can it live up to that?
Here it is. Women...
Men.
A fairly normal kind of Chinese toilet.
A little trench down here, beautifully tiled, and you sort of squat down.
That's what makes it special. Look at the view.
The Jade Snow mountains ranged above you.
I'd happily be here for hours.
I might have to be.
(RINGING)
0h-oh. It's the hotel switchboard again. You can't escape progress, even up here.
That's the only place they can get reception.
I think I'll go back to Number 0ne Toilet.
Ah, look at that.
We're only halfway along the gorge. There's another hard day's trekking ahead.
0ur excellent hosts, Mr and Mrs Feng de Fang, bid us a personal farewell.
See you next time.
Whoa! It's amazing.
We're about halfway along Tiger Leaping Gorge and that's the Yangtze River.
The broad Yangtze squeezed into that white water pounding away down there.
It really is extraordinary.
I keep thinking we've seen all the mountain scenery,
but here at the eastern end of the Himalaya, it just gets more spectacular.
A tiger may be able to leap this
but, for us, a trek is the only way to get to our destination - beyond these mountains.
I've reached the easternmost point of my journey.
This is Lugu Lake on the borders of Yunnan and Sichuan.
The people who live around this lake are a matriarchal tribe called the Mosuo.
To find out more about them, I'm going to meet their local hero -
a showbiz superstar in China called Namu.
Namu's sunny smile is in marked contrast with the out-of-season chill in this lakeside resort.
But at last I find someone who's prepared to row me across the lake to Namu's village.
(# WISTFUL PIPE)
- Hey, Michael. - Hello. Namu.
I recognise you, of course, because you're extremely famous.
- Michael, tashi delek. - Tashi delek.
- Welcome. - Thank you.
Buddhist welcomes and showbiz kisses over,
Namu whisks me off to see the house where she was brought up.
Her people, the Mosuo, are renowned for their unusually open attitudes to sex,
typified by what's known as the "walking marriage".
Namu, can you describe what you mean by a walking marriage?
It means that we don't get married. We don't have really a father.
So you don't have a marriage ceremony and you don't have a marriage contract?
- No. And no wedding rings. - No rings?
No rings.
- How does that work? - It works fine.
I think it's healthy. I never see couples fight on the street, in the coffee shops.
Couples never live together.
For example, you and me, you walk to me, I have your baby,
and my brother and my uncle will help me take care of my babies.
Then for your sister, walking with some other man, she has kids
and you help your sister.
Uncles take the father's responsibility.
A woman wants to have you, don't want to have you - it's their wish.
She wants to open the flower chamber door for you or she doesn't.
- The woman takes the initiative. - Yeah.
Mostly we like dancing and singing.
We have circle dancing. We have 71 different circle dances.
When we're dancing, if I was interested in you,
I would dance with you and do this to your hand.
That means I'm very much interested in you.
(# LIVELY PIPE)
(LIVELY SINGING)
Despite my deft footwork, I feel a distinct lack of pressure on the palms.
But Namu hasn't given up on me.
So what happens? This is what you call the flower room?
This is our flower chamber. For girls.
The girl would be 13 upwards?
13 they have flower chamber, but they don't go with men.
The mother have to train her in how to serve men.
How you take care of men, receive men sexually.
Not like the Han Chinese, secretive. We're open.
- Your mother told you about sex? - She told me good sex is good for the skin.
Very good for skin!
Mmm. So I'm being sort of buttered up here...
with my potato and my mandarin orange.
I'm getting a bit overexcited. Have we run out of film?
Oh, dear.
- You're lucky to be in my flower chamber. - I'm privileged.
If you want long relationship with this woman,
you come to the girl's flower chamber when the mama sleep.
That's why there are so many songs about, "Come on, Mother, go to sleep."
(SINGS SWEETLY)
There are so many songs about this... jokings.
- Tell me about your flower chamber. - Myself, I don't have...
You must have had men queuing round the block.
Myself, I never had... This room is still virgin!
Because right after I had my flower chamber, I went to the city.
Namu calls herself a "five-star gypsy".
The reason she deserted Lugu Lake for the wider world lies deep in her childhood.
She tells me about it over cups of butter tea and crispy pork fat cooked by her aunt.
My mother, to me, is in and out like a wind. I only remember her as her skirt.
- I don't remember her. - Why did she send you away?
I was her third daughter and my mother wanted boys,
so she tried to give me away three times,
but because I was a crying baby, everybody returned back.
So she sent me to live with my uncle.
My uncles never speak and yaks doesn't speak,
so I was on the mountain for many years by myself just wandering, thinking.
I can't imagine you without someone to talk to.
Now I talk too much because nobody talk to me before!
Why did you decide to leave?
I wanted to go Beijing, wear high-heeled shoes and pink lipstick.
But she doesn't want to be forgotten.
So what's this going to be, this huge palace?
- Castle! - Castle on the hill, yeah.
Actually, this is a museum. A personal museum.
- Oh, I see. - This is such a wonderful view.
- It's the best place to see Lugu Lake. - (PALIN) It's a beautiful place.
(PALIN) But it's only been discovered in the last ten years, really.
- When you were here there were no tourists? - No.
No tourists, no cars, no mobile phones... No electricity.
But 60,000 tourists came last year.
In the beginning, the idea for them to come over here was just looking for free sex.
- They don't get it. - Do they ask for their money back?
No. There is something else, like the views, good air
and also they sort of come here and wash their heart.
Having washed, or lightly sponged, my heart in the powerful atmosphere of Lugu Lake,
I feel it's time to check the rest of my body.
The foothills provide ideal ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine.
Near the old city of Lijiang lives one of its most famous practitioners, Dr Ho.
Branded a bourgeois and banned from medicine in the days of Mao,
he's built up a worldwide reputation.
I've been recommended to him by a Monty Python friend.
Hello? Dr Ho? My name's Michael Palin. I'm from London.
I'm a friend of Terry Jones who came here some time ago.
- I remember you. - You remember me? Was I here?
- I don't think I was. - Nice to meet you again.
Thank you very much for visiting me again.
Come, please.
- Your chi seems weak. - My chi is weak?
Chi means your energy.
- Say "Aah". - Aah.
- Your digestion seems weak. - Mm.
- What should I eat or not eat? - Simple food.
Simple food. I've been having... In Lijiang the pork is very good.
- Is that good or not good? - Pork not so good.
You mean...
Then he compares me to other foreigners.
Compared to foreigners, you are excellent.
- Right. Thank you. - Yes.
Do you understand me? You are good.
Pulse, no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol,
no liver fat, no kidney stone, no gall bladder stone.
Everything is OK. Only seems weak, your stomach.
A little chi, a little weak. So don't worry, be happy.
Happiness, it seems, is the best medicine.
Second only to the cooking of Dr Ho's wife, sporting full Naxi costume.
- Is this the simple food you talked about? - No, not really simple!
She conjures up a gorgeous meal from hyacinth, water lily, anchovy,
baby pig, Yunnan ham and everything her husband says I shouldn't touch.
I think I'll settle for her prescription.
The old town of Lijiang is a winning combination of cobbled streets and canals.
Its squat buildings show little sign of the 50 major earthquakes
that have shaken it in the space of 130 years.
Today it faces a different kind of seismic threat - three million tourists a year.
Many head for one of the biggest draws in Yunnan, the Naxi Classical Music 0rchestra.
The case for the old music is defiantly made by their leader, Shuan Ker.
They destroy the Chinese traditional music. The music, it is disappearing.
It is disappearing in the shadow of the Himalaya.
(BASS DRUMS)
(CHINESE MUSIC PLAYS)
During the Cultural Revolution, many instruments had to be hidden
as the Red Guards set about destroying the past.
Shuan Ker was seen as a dangerous intellectual
and spent the prime of his life doing 20 years forced labour in a tin mine.
Now he's a local hero.
- How are you? - Fine.
- How are you? - Very well. Very pleased to meet you.
I'm with this famous man. He's a very famous man.
- Have you been here before? - No.
He's not one of your orchestra, is he? He is?
Yeah, but now he retired from the orchestra.
- Coffee? - Here?
- Why not? - I've been a bit starved of coffee.
So a proper espresso... Two cappuccinos?
- Cappuccinos? - Yeah. Two. Lovely.
How do you see the future? Do you think you will tour more, travel more?
No choice. It's China in two ways.
One is according to the Confucianism
and added with Western capitalism... mixing together like in Singapore.
What we are doing here, this orchestra...
No coin from the government.
We make ourselves, selling tickets.
See, lots of audience, full of the concert hall,
so it is said my pocket full.
The old musicians, their pockets full.
That's what capitalism makes.
If all dancing and singing groups in China
depends on the government - they give money... No good.
- The people living a better life. - Yes. A higher standard of living.
But culture lost. Culture lost.
Even lost their language. Now they're speaking in Mandarin.
The local old ladies... That's not our language.
So they're not interested so much in the Naxi languages...
The local government is trying to do something for preserving the culture,
but, I think, too late. Too late.
I've been working hard for preserving the music.
Even that changed from original face.
A little bit I catch, otherwise everything gone.
You feel it slipping away.
The new China appears bright, glossy and unsentimental.
Her cities seem only concerned with the future.
In trying to compete with corporate America, China is growing to look like it.
This is Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.
It's one end of what used to be the Burma Road -
a supply line in World War Two that connected China with India.
The Hump was the name given to the 500-mile wide,
20,000-foot mass of the Himalaya over which, until the Burma Road was completed,
lay the only supply route behind Japanese lines.
Planes were pushed to their limit.
0ver 600 were lost, many plunging into the jungle on the Indo-Burmese border -
an area known to this day as Nagaland.
(CHANTING)
The Naga comprise a dozen different tribes of which these - the Konyak Nagas -
were the last to give up the proud tradition of head-hunting.
My friend, Shingwong, is a local official
who's brought me to the border of India and Myanmar, formerly Burma.
In the Second World War when they...
A lot of the RAF pilots who had fallen behind the lines were rescued.
- Would it have been by people like these? - Yes.
My father had given information to all the villages
to see that no white man is to be harmed.
We still have a pilot's seat in the chief's house.
A pilot's seat? That's great.
So there are some pilots who owe their lives to the head-hunters.
Yeah. Nine of them.
So head-hunters with hearts of gold.
This weekend, there's a cross-border market.
0ne of the events is this re-enactment of a head-hunting raid.
(GUNFIRE)
- It's a war dance. - You're telling me.
(ECHOING GUNFIRE)
0n these necklaces, each brass face means a head taken.
I see quite a lot of heads.
The skulls - is that a trophy from the head-hunting days?
- What's that? - Porcupine.
Porcupine? Has he got a buyer?
- Is it quite a delicacy, porcupine? - Yes.
- It's quite nice. Somewhat like venison. - Venison? Ah, yes.
Quite strong, quite gamey. Yeah.
Is this a very distinguished man? He looks rather important.
He might have been a warrior once.
- Yeah. - You can see by the tattoo on the face.
What's the largest number of heads anyone's taken?
One I know from Mon who had got 66 heads.
- Wow. - He's no more.
Another ex-head-hunter, I think.
One, two, three, four, five heads. Five heads he's taken.
Does he remember the British here? Did they seem strange?
(TRANSLATES)
He was afraid - afraid to go near.
And he thought the white man doesn't have any blood.
(PALIN LAUGHS)
- What's that? A tattoo? - A tattoo of the chest.
What does that mean? Oh, it goes all the way down.
There's a lot of history in there. My stomach's very boring.
- Very boring. - Bloodless.
Bloodless, yes. Not very nice at all.
Oh, yes. There we are.
I think you win on the decorative stakes.
0ther traditional activities go on away from the market.
So opium smoking still goes on?
- Yes. Clandestinely, of course. - Do the authorities turn a blind eye?
No. They're strict. There's a restriction.
- So what happens if they're caught? - They may be imprisoned.
Cultivation is also stopped but they, clandestinely, get it from Myanmar.
So how many times a day do they smoke?
Three to four times daily.
Inside a longhouse, I find a pilot's seat from the Second World War
and an old book offering clues as to why anthropologists liked it here.
Perfect bedtime reading.
Next morning, I'm invited to visit the Ang, the local headman,
in a huge house made entirely of vegetation.
I've come to see the chief. Hello, girls. There he is, watching television again.
"EastEnders"?
I ask Shingwong if the chief could tell me how the village had changed over the years.
They lived in fear... of people coming from enemy villages attacking them.
The moment the church was built, the moment religion came in...
this has all been stopped and they have only one fear - that is fear of God.
How many children does he have?
Five from the actual queen... and two from the concubines, so seven.
- And he has ten concubines. - Ten concubines.
I was going to ask, do the concubines all live here with the king?
They all live together in separate compartments.
Is that still permitted to have ten concubines in this Christian time?
- It's not allowed, but this carries on. - Oh.
What other powers does he have?
Giving out capital punishment or imprisoning.
Everything will depend on him only.
So he could decide on whether someone was executed or not?
Capital punishment was given to a person who has spied against the village.
- Spied against the village? - Yes.
Passed some secret information to enemy villages,
so they were bound up and thrown over a cliff.
Wow.
One of the great problems on this whole Himalayan journey
has been international frontiers - it's always so difficult to get across.
That's why it's lovely to be here in Myanmar
and to know that to get into India, I just do that.
The apex of the chief's hut goes along the border.
So this leg is in Myanmar, this leg is in India - a truly international body.
In India, I can hop into Myanmar, I can do my exercises...
Ho! Chest in India, bottom in Myanmar.
I can do international exercises.
If only all the world's frontiers were like this! Ooh!
(VEHICLE APPROACHES)
We leave just in time.
The rains are coming and they can completely cut off these remote hill villages.
This road, will they eventually make this a hard-top road?
- Yes. There's a plan, a six-year plan. - A six-year plan.
It's pretty rough and ready at the moment.
How strong is Christianity here now?
99% of the population is now Christian.
99% are Christian? Wow. Why have so many become Christian?
- It's because of education. - Oh, right.
They've come into contact with the outside world.
- The Christian religion provides education? - Yes.
At the Baptist Cathedral in Mon, 2,500 Naga voices are raised.
(THEY SING "ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS" IN NATIVE DIALECT)
(TRAIN WHISTLE TOOTS)
Memories of home ambush you in the least likely places.
The church hymns at Mon were one thing,
but something even more poignant is awaiting me in Assam.
Two powerful images from my northern boyhood - a steam engine...
and a coal mine.
Tipong mine has been in existence since the 1920s.
As has this engine. Neither seems altogether real.
It may look like a cross between "Apocalypse Now" and "Thomas the Tank Engine",
but it's one of the mines that makes India the third biggest coal producer in the world.
They even have priests on hand to bless the morning shift.
I think I'm beginning to realise what being given the tika by the priest is all about
because behind me is a temple, built over the entrance to the mine shaft.
It's a temple to the Goddess Kali, who's the great destroyer.
So I assume it's there and the blessings go on
to propitiate the Goddess Kali on behalf of the people who are going under the earth.
They do go down a long way.
I'm told it extends down about 1,000 feet below the temple there, the mine shaft.
Assam is very prone to earthquakes, a strong earthquake area,
so I should think that a destroyer needs a bit of propitiating.
As the miners head underground, I have an appointment with Mr Das,
Tipong's chief engineer.
Security patrols keep an eye on us.
Security, like safety, is one of the buzzwords here.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Mr Das is keen that I hear a safety song.
(SOFT SINGING)
- It's great. Best safety song I've heard. - They have to sing a safety song...
- About safety in the mines. - Safety in the mines.
They are just going to say to everybody, in true music,
one single message - safety first.
- Safety not at the cost of production. - That could be a hit. Could win Eurovision!
(# REPRISE OF SAFETY SONG)
They were singing, "Safety first, safety first.
"In every step of work, heed the rules. It's for us to remain awake.
"There is danger in every move. If you obey the rules, there will be no sorrow.
"Safety first, safety first."
(TRAIN WHISTLE)
What's the economic viability of keeping open a mine like this? Does it make a profit?
Private industry - they are mostly profit oriented.
We have some other duties also regarding coal conservation,
service to the community, to the welfare of the community.
So I do not think the way we are running here
is the same way a private company would run this mine.
Once the profit stops coming, they would have left this place,
leaving the people here in the dark.
There's oil as well as coal up here.
Digboi not only produces oil, it has a museum dedicated to it.
(WOMAN) This is the first oil well in Asia.
This was drilled in 1889 around the same time...
This derrick came up at the same time as the Eiffel Tower.
So this area was one of the first oil fields to be discovered anywhere in the world?
Yes. Coal had been discovered in Margherita just ahead
and they were building the railway.
They used to use elephants,
so one evening one of the elephants came back with oil on its feet
and that's how they discovered oil here.
I see. Yes, it all figures.
And once the drilling started, the Canadian engineers were so excited,
they used to say, "Dig, boy!" because the wells were hand dug
and that's how the name Digboi came into being.
- Is that true or a well-established legend? - A well-established legend!
- I think these are great. - This is a BOC petrol pump.
- BOC? - Yeah. Burma Oil Company.
A hot and heavy morning at Digboi station.
Thanks to the coal and oil, there's been a railway line here for over 100 years.
Morning. A single to Dibrugarh, please.
Thank you. 18 rupees. That's very cheap.
18 rupees. That's about... about 25 pence.
(TRAIN HORN)
Excuse me.
The next big town is Dibrugarh on the fertile river plains
where, in 1823, wild tea plants were discovered by Scotsman Robert Bruce.
Now half of India's tea is produced in the carefully husbanded tea gardens of Assam.
This was the first place in the world where elephant were trained to work.
Now there's much less for them to do.
The elephant minders, called mahouts, face a loss of livelihood
and the elephants an uncertain future.
Manosh Jalan is a plantation owner who loves elephants
and insists they're the best way to see his property.
What's happening now there's less logging and the elephants are not in demand?
Can they get other jobs or are they out of work?
Elephants are doing also a different type of work.
They are pulling bamboo. They are not necessarily doing timber work.
Do elephants like working? Do they adapt to a discipline?
- Yes, they are very obedient. - Obedient, yeah.
Very obedient.
(HE SHOUTS ORDERS TO ELEPHANT)
Sometimes it looks as though they're being disobedient!
Like with all wild animals, there's always an element of uncertainty.
Is there anything you can do? Of the 20 words you use to control an elephant,
are any of them any good when it's bolting?
No, nothing. You just have to say your prayers
and hope you will survive this and the elephant stops on its own.
0nce I get used to it, I almost forget I'm on an elephant.
It feels more like being on board ship in a gentle swell.
(MANOSH) Tea is more than a way of life in Assam now. It's absolutely traditional.
The casual employment comes out of the same family.
It's generally the husband and wife working
and if one retires, the child gets the job and so the tradition carries on.
Do you expect your son or daughter to go into this business?
I think that they cannot escape from it!
Ah. Very nice. OK.
After two hours doing the splits, I'm quite glad to dismount.
(PALIN) There's no graceful way of doing it!
Clearly it's a relief for the elephant too.
We're still terribly close to the Himalayas.
Does that make Assam very different from the rest of India?
If you look at north-east India as a whole,
98% of our borders is with international countries.
- Only 2% we are connected to India. - Yes. You've got a narrow little...
So the entire immediate bordering areas of the north-east region are international.
You have Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Tibet and so on.
You've got two enormous countries separated by the Himalayas - China and India.
Can there be a meeting of minds?
The mountains are not the barriers, it's the mind-set.
It's a mind-set which looks different from here in Assam -
where Hong Kong is closer than Delhi
and China is seen as less of a threat and more of a trading opportunity.
The Brahmaputra, rising a thousand miles away in Tibet,
pours out of the Himalaya, creating a fertile corridor that splits Assam in half.
Makeshift ferries, packed tight, leave from makeshift jetties. Nothing is permanent.
- The Brahmaputra is a mighty river. - Yes.
- This is one little channel. - This is?
- Yes. There are several channels. - A little channel?
- Yes. One little channel. - Must be half a mile wide.
In some places it's four, five kilometres wide.
Where does "Brahmaputra" come from?
Brahmaputra means "son of Brahma". Brahma is the creator.
It's the only male river in India.
It looks very calm and serene now, but in the monsoon it's a different mood.
It's my good fortune to be riding the Brahmaputra with Maan Baruja -
a 20-year-old walking encyclopedia.
Can you tell me about Majuli, the island where we're going?
The island has got a lot of these Vaishnav monasteries - what we call satras.
These are great institutions now for Assam because they're 400 years old
and they create institutions of art, culture, dance.
Celibate monks live there.
Majuli is the world's largest river island.
250 square miles of flat, fertile mud.
The arrival of a 16th-century saint, Sankardeva,
left substantial religious deposits here as well.
This monastery - dedicated to Vishnu - is renowned for its music and dance.
(RHYTHMIC CHANTING AND MUSIC)
Extraordinary fluid movements.
How long does it take to learn that?
- Five years... - At least five years.
From the first time you come here? Yeah.
From the age of five or six, boys begin the painstaking and sometimes painful process
of learning the 64 positions of classical dance.
I have five minutes to master the classical Assamese drum - the khol.
My teacher, Dulala, is 41. He's been here for 35 years.
And this is called "bayan". Bayan means "left side".
There are three sounds at first.
First is khol... down... down.
- There is two different sounds. - I just can't get it.
- This is "ta". T-A. Ta. - I seem to be all right on that one.
And you will slowly give breath here and this will be ta.
- OK? - (TAPS DRUM)
I can't even get mine to resound.
OK... Yeah.
- So you play. - The concert already?
It's getting that resonance.
So you see...
It's just... I haven't got the coordination.
What do they give you when you're six? A small one of these?
- No, this is same one. - Really? The same size?
That's my entire repertoire.
There's no electricity or running water at the satra.
The vegetarian diet is prepared by tried and trusted methods.
Everyday life here is resolutely pre-industrial.
(SOFT CHANTING)
The monks have taken strict vows of purity
and even the simplest tasks are accompanied by thorough ablutions.
You're washing your hands and the floor.
This is very important, is it, the thing about purity?
- Yes. - Because I'm impure and you're washed.
So you can't touch me or touch anything that's impure.
And if you do touch me now, you then have to go and wash again, do you?
Yeah.
- How long have you lived in the monastery? - Nine years I live in this monastery.
- Nine years. And Lilaram? - 16, 17 years.
Right. So he's been your guide. He's kind of helped you.
I'm very happy here. And other monks I meet.
- Other monks... Love, kisses. - Lots of love?
- Yeah. - Kisses?
Do you think that you will stay here for the rest of your life?
- Yeah. I do, yeah. - How old are you now?
- Now 17 years old. - 17? So you think you will stay here?
Yeah. I think I stay here.
- Really? - Really I think.
Can you marry and stay in the monastery?
I'll marry, I go to outside. No marry in a monastery.
No, no. So you have to be celibate.
- No sex, really. No sex we're monks. - No sex here.
There are women on Majuli Island -
some of them engaged in quite bizarre practices.
These ladies are fishing, but not with conventional methods.
Having trapped the fish with their wicker frames,
they slip them down their cleavage.
I've always said you see more on a bicycle.
Next day at the satra, preparations are going on for a rare treat.
The monks are showing us an extract from the "Rasa Lila" -
a story they normally perform only once a year.
The details of make-up and costume must be as precise as the performance.
Most of the monks will be playing milkmaids.
These two are clearly not regular transvestites.
0ne of my hosts at tea yesterday will play the god Krishna.
Krishna is Vishnu incarnated as a bit of a ladies' man.
When he appears in the fields, all the milkmaids fall in love with him.
(SOFT SINGING)
This monastery really is a very special place.
Partly because in this overgrown Oxbridge college atmosphere
they produce work of great skill and beauty.
And the people here are very friendly - as curious about us as we are about them.
And also it's just such an oasis of serenity on a helter-skelter journey.
It really brings the pace of life right down.
I think I'll surrender to that for a minute.
(SOFT CHANTING)
Next day, Maan offers to take me to Kaziranga National Park,
where he grew up and where he still lives with his father.
Majuli certainly had quite an effect.
- It calmed us all down. - It's very tranquil.
Very tranquil, unrushed.
And now we're going to Kaziranga, is that right? Is that very different?
It's formed by the deposits of the Brahmaputra - alluvial deposits.
100 years of conservation has led to a lot of regeneration of grassland
and we now have the world's highest population of one-horned rhino,
wild water buffalo and swamp deer.
So how was it that you came to be brought up in Kaziranga?
My father's always been interested in conservation,
so he set up a small project in Kaziranga.
He's very unconventional, so he thought he'd give me a better education than in a school.
- It worked. - I don't know!
Is there anything you don't know? Probably Petula Clark's middle period.
Got him, you see, straight away. # Downtown... #
0n arrival at Kaziranga, we strike gold on our first safari.
A long-horned rhino, which this park saved from extinction.
First close encounter with a rhino.
Manju, your son has been a fount of learning and knowledge for us on this trip so far.
What sort of education did he have?
If he went to school, he'd waste time.
In school you have about two hours of study, which he can do at home.
But to do that two hours of study, it takes six hours to go to the school and back.
Maan's father, Manju, runs Kaziranga's best hotel,
but in the 1960s he was a radical Marxist.
When you're young you start off thinking, "I'm going to change the world."
Every young man - we'll have a revolution, change the world.
After a while they get married and say, "Let me change my wife."
Then you start thinking, "Let me change my son."
Ultimately, you think, "Let me change myself."
Your wife doesn't listen to you or your son, so you may as well change yourself!
Manju has changed from communist to conservationist -
organising an elephant festival, now in its second year.
The organisers hope to dispel prejudice against elephants,
who many see as a destructive threat to their livelihood.
The message is that people should see elephants not as an enemy,
but as fellow creatures we all have a duty to look after.
Who could hate an animal that plays football?
They're not natural footballers, elephants, really.
More like a rugby scrum.
(ROARING)
Just in case there were any doubts as to who is the stronger,
a long-suffering elephant takes on a team of tourists, trainers, local politicians
and the entire organising committee.
To applause and a roar of irritation from the elephant,
he pulls the lot of us out of the arena.
- He's weakening! - Oh, yes, come on!
At the end of the day, when all the stunts are over,
I have a rare chance to get close to the elephants - on their terms rather than ours.
They have very few sweat glands, so they need to cool off. It's very important.
So how often would they need to get into the water?
- At least once a day. - I'm not sure about this.
Underwater tusks. Fine, fine tusks.
They don't need soap or anything like that?
That's it.
Takes a lot of washing, doesn't it? There you are.
- 55 years old, this one. - How much?
- 55. - 55? Younger than me, then.
Ooh.
It's a rare and wonderful privilege to be able to make an elephant happy.
Who knows? He might be a television presenter in his next life.
It's been nice washing you.
Feel better?
(GRUNTING)
I'll take that as a yes.
Next time on "Himalaya".
I'm in the Kingdom of Bhutan - trekking up hidden valleys,
meeting a high-altitude poet,
sending prayers for safety and watching dancing like I've never seen it before.
Seeing paintings the size of houses, and archery, Bhutanese-style.
I cross the Bangladesh border,
take on the traffic in Dhaka,
meet friends on the ferry and follow the rivers till they reach the sea.
"Himalaya" - the best way to get highl