Equator 2: Asia

Equator - Asia
Hosted on Guba

Simon Reeve's journey along the equator across Asia begins off the coast of Sumatra, in the far west of Indonesia. A collection of perhaps 18,000 islands here are home to more than 220 million people. At night the islanders sing of lost loves and the lure of working on the mainland. A boat trip along the equator takes Simon to mainland Sumatra, where he hears fears about bird-flu and meets the Minang people, where men live as guests in their wives' family homes, and it is the women who propose marriage. In Kalimantan, the Indonesian region of the island of Borneo, conservationists warn that hundreds of orangutans in Borneo are killed each year as a result of habitat destruction. The main problems are illegal logging and huge palm oil plantations, a product found in thousands of Western consumer products. Simon finds illegal loggers who explain they need to earn a decent living and then heads to a protected orangutan area inside a beautiful national park. Heading east through Borneo, he arrives in a village where tribespeople offer to adopt him. Not wanting to appear rude, Simon accepts, and the next day he adheres to local custom by giving his new "father" a fine pair of trousers. He is then blessed with chicken blood, presented with a short sword and "adopted". Further along the equator on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, Simon is told of a long history of violence between Muslims and Christians. He visits the site of a recent bomb blast that killed several shoppers at a pig market and speaks to locals about the religious tensions there. On Indonesia's beautiful Togean Islands, Simon stays in a village of "sea gypsies" who live in stilt-houses by the sea. Expert divers, they take Simon fishing for octopus, then let him win an underwater breath-holding contest. Simon and the crew head back to the mainland to get a flight out of Indonesia but are caught in floods that kill at least 220 locals. In a flooded town the crew are helped into a boat with their equipment. Locals pause while retrieving their belongings from flooded houses to wave and shout: "Michael Owen! David Beckham!"