Tropic bound: an unpredictable journey

"The KGB?" you ask. "There is no such thing anymore!" you say. Well, be calm, let’s rewind. Simon Reeve, as you probably know, has not made his name in travel television by uncovering the mysteries of the clock industry in Switzerland. He’d rather stray off the beaten track and spy on a top-secret military base in a state that doesn’t officially exist, or sample the most bizarre foreign delicacies known to man—grilled squirrel or penis soup. He has visited 65 countries for the BBC over the past five years and has relished every minute of it.

"It’s not a huge production. There are only four of us travelling from the UK to make the programme. We all do different jobs. I am the presenter but I also carry the bags and do a bit of filming. The idea for all the programmes has been to zigzag along the tropics region, which is the most fascinating area in the world. We did the Equator, the Tropic of Capricorn, and for this new programme we travelled along the tropic of Cancer. Of course the number of countries we go to depends on money. We are spending the licence-fee payers’ money and we are very much aware of this. It shapes what we can or cannot do. There is this running joke actually; we nicknamed the production coordinator, whose last name is Frost, 'Frosty the no man' because he keeps saying no to everything that we want to do."

In 2005, while in the breakaway state of Transdniestria for his documentary "Places that don’t exist", Simon Reeve and his crew of two thought that hiding behind bushes and filming a top-secret military base would make for a more exciting programme. However, his masterful camouflage proved inadequate.

"We thought we were being so clever. But within 5 minutes we got arrested by the KGB . In Transdniestria, they are still living under old style communism and still have the KGB. We called the BBC and explained. We were taken to the KGB headquarters and put in cells. Luckily I had been gossiping with one of the guides and happened to mention that my family’s only claim to fame was that we were related to Sir Christopher Wren, the man who designed St Paul’s Cathedral. When the guide found out we had been arrested, she came to the headquarters and started shouting at them 'What are you doing? That man is related to the Queen of England!' We were released and they even gave us KGB souvenirs and caps." Certainly a lucky, albeit farcical, escape for the documentarian turned emissary. 

Ludicrous claims to the royal bloodline aside, Mr Reeve’s programmes are politically charged and endeavour to raise awareness to the gravity of some current global issues. Although his arrest is a funny anecdote to tell in retrospect, what has stuck most in our adventurer’s memory is the frightening number of people worldwide—between 250 and 300 million—who live in unrecognised countries or have no representation. For Tropic of Cancer, which will be broadcast between 7 March and 11 April, Mr Reeve went on a raid with a Mexican SWAT team fighting the drug cartels, entered western Burma on a dangerous covert mission to visit the oppressed Chin people, and travelled to the Bahamas to meet Haitian refugees.

"I have been to some spectacularly dangerous places. I went to Mogadishu in Somalia—probably the most dangerous place in the world—for a previous programme, and one of the BBC producers who came down there actually got killed. There are risks involved with what I do, of course. For Tropic of Cancer, we went to Burma, to a region where there were 50 military bases. Our guide, who is a Chin exile and lives in Thailand, took us to Chin country which is having a terrible time under the military regime. It was extremely stressful because if we had been caught she would have been executed."

Tropic of Cancer, like his previous documentaries, deals with a variety of issues including climate change, an issue about which he seems particularly passionate.

"I have seen a lot of evidence of global warming on a local scale through my travels. For example, a Bedouin nomad told me that his tribe was experiencing the worst case of drought ever recorded in their history. They have never heard of global warming, but they know something is going on. One thing that really struck me, actually, when we were filming, was the situation in Hawaii. It is a typical holiday destination with sandy beaches and many resorts but it has an enormous problem with pollution. Walking on the beach you can actually be ankle deep in plastic crap coming from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and washed on shore. Seeing this really upset me. I just thought: 'If they can’t fix Hawaii then we are all screwed. If the US can’t solve this on their own territory, then there is no hope for third world countries.' We could see how the garbage was breaking down into smaller and smaller particles and becoming part of the beach. 50 percent of the beach has become plastic. It’s just unbelievable."

Part of experiencing different cultures is tasting dishes you would have never imagined to actually exist. Reeve’s journey, as he reminds us in his documentaries, is also a gastronomic one. On this particular trip he has had the privilege to try grilled squirrel, caterpillars, fish eyes and sand-bread. Any thoughts or comments on these delicacies?

"Well, the caterpillars are not bad, although I wouldn’t recommend them for a night snack. Fish eyes were perfectly nice. The squirrel actually might have been rat. We heard them say the word 'rat' at some point although they assured us it wasn’t."

Reeve certainly has no regrets and would not do anything differently if given the chance. Expect, perhaps, one thing: "If I had to do it again I probably wouldn’t have the grilled squirrel," he says laughing. "It was an amazing experience, there is nothing I regret doing. It was by far the biggest journey I have undertaken and it was absolutely incredible."

Any future projects? "I was away travelling for nine months this year, for this programme and a couple of other things. I just want to have a bit of a break: paint the front door, do some DIY in the house." Even explorers have to tend to their own vegetable patches once in a while.