Long Way Round (2004) s01e10 Episode Script
One Year Later
Got sun on my face
Sleeping rough on the road
I'll tell you all about it
When I get home
Comin' round to meet you
The long way round
There's a bond there now with Charley and I that can-- will never go away.
In fact, with all of us, you know,
there's the sharing of an extraordinary experience.
And in terms of our plan, an adventure, a trip,
it's the most extraordinary thing that's ever happened to me.
You know, there's nothing to compare it to.
In quite a few ways it's changed my life.
I think, in one, it's given me a tremendous amount of confidence
in myself and in self-belief.
And what it's really awoken in me is the possibility.
Charley and I, together, found the right people to help us make it come true.
And we did it. We pulled it off.
There was a small window when I was back in London,
having come back from Alabama where I made Big Fish,
to going off to Australia to shoot the final Star Wars film.
I'd met you, Russ, at a party.
We got talking about bikes.
And it was during that conversation that he said to me,
"I'm thinking about going around the world with a friend of mine."
Charley's end of the deal was that--
I was going away to work. I blocked off this time.
But, in the meantime, Charley was gonna meet producers,
and see if he could get some contacts.
So I panicked and luckily I still kept your card, Russ.
And so that was the first person I rang.
And then Ewan said, "Look, we can only stay for half an hour."
So we were chatting away, and two hours later they were still there.
And then there was no question when we left your office
that you were the person we wanted to work with.
I remember that so well coming down that stairs.
Coming down that stairs. "Well, that's it. That's the guy."
You could suddenly see the scale of the operation.
Not only were they going around the world,
but you could do the book and the TV and the DVD series.
And that's when I thought that America would be quite an important market.
And there was a friend of mine that I'd known for about 15 years.
And his name is David Alexanian. He was based in Los Angeles.
Am I glad I got involved with Long Way Round? Of course I am.
David, myself and Charley, we flew down to Australia to meet Ewan for the first time.
You know, we just immediately felt like this was gonna happen.
I rode off-road for the first time ever on a bike.
I had such a great time. I was like, "My God, it just went over the bumps."
He was like, "Yeah, that's what they do."
Well, I never knew!
It was just so crazy.
There's me and Charley, and there's you and Dave.
Well, that's why Long Way Round happened, you know?
From the moment that I got to London,
I was handed a camera,
and I was just told to start shooting everything and anything,
and every daily activity of Ewan and Charley.
-Good luck, mate, on this. -There you go.
Cheers, man.
Any kind of talk or mention of actually going on the trip,
I just sort of tried to pretend it wasn't happening.
We'd spent so much time working on the nuts and bolts of the trip.
And the one bit that we did that Charley is talking about not having dealt with
is the mental aspect of going on a massive journey.
I don't either of us have really thought how
-I think the enormity of the trip dawned. -You feel-- Yeah.
I'd been dealing with it here at home with my wife and my kids
for the two or three weeks leading up to it.
-It was getting difficult. It was sad. -The countdown was horrible
because I just didn't want Ewan to go.
I don't like my children being on television, and
my wife wanted to stay with them 'cause they're all a bit upset, you know?
But I didn't think it would hit me as powerfully as it did.
I don't think I really thought about anything.
And it was a real fucking slap in the face, that was.
And that kind of tore me apart on that day.
That's why I dropped the bike.
'Cause it was going so slowly,
I thought that he was managing to bring it back up.
Can someone help?
I think everyone was just standing there like lemons watching.
Thank you very much.
Jesus.
-Okay, guys. -Okay.
See you in New York!
Leaving Bulwer Street was the most incredible and bananas moment.
You know, where you're driving out of London to drive around the world.
It's ridiculous.
Get me out fucking London.
I remember we pull-- that we left London, we were driving down towards Folkestone,
and we were on the trip, we're-- I was wearing my thermals.
My BMW suit and helmet.
I was sweating like a lunatic.
Anyway, we're driving down there, and then Charley went,
"We're gonna meet this girl."
"Who?" You know--
"We're gonna meet this girl from somewhere."
And she gave Charley this big envelope,
and Charley took this big envelope and stuffed it in his bike.
Anyway, cut to some-- several days later at the Slovakian border, and
that was the bit of paper we should've had stamped.
Hey!
We didn't get our carnet stamped
-Yeah. -coming into Czech Republic.
That's check-in. That's where you needed to stamp when you
-went to-- in. -Just take all those out
-and we'll just-- -Well, no. You can't, mate.
It's a bound thing, you know what I mean?
-You hold it, it's yours. -Russ, what's the matter?
-No, what I'm saying is-- -What's the matter?
-Calm down, Russ. -All right.
I mean, I've just arrived here and I'm just saying, you know,
we haven't stamped in or out of Czechoslovakia.
Okay? Let's just keep this calm.
We were all going like, "What is this journey?
What does it feel like? Why are we on it? Is this it? Should it feel like this?
Should it not feel like that?"
That was a really tough part of the trip.
And that was sort of just figuring out what it was,
and figuring out how we were going to deal with each other and what we were gonna do.
I mean, it wasn't good.
It was me against you guys,
and I was probably trying to rally Ewan to my side or whatever.
You know, we were trying to jell our four relationships,
and we're all quite headstrong people.
And Ewan just said, "Listen, Charley"--
"You and Russ seem to be-- have some problem, and I want you to sort it out."
-Yeah. -So that it doesn't carry on.
'Cause we were on this trip of a lifetime.
And I realized, in actual fact, it was--
it was all coming from me, and that I have to stop and listen.
I'd felt terribly-- After I realized what I'd been doing, I felt terribly guilty.
It was just part of the journey though.
-I don't think any of it's-- -Yeah.
There's no regrets in any of it really.
Driving into the Ukraine has just kind of taken my breath away.
There's people working in the fields with hoes and rakes,
and there are people using horses for-- with plows, and
it's like we've stepped back in time.
From a television point of view,
we were always very keen to have a very small crew going around the world.
Every project is kind of a new challenge and something new,
and this one, Long Way Round,
was quite amazing because of this biking aspect.
Claudio subsequently had problems with his driving license
which weren't really his fault.
At the end of the day, we're buying into him.
My driving license-- Very embarrassing story.
When I came over to the UK and I had to get a UK license,
they didn't take that license across.
But as I was only driving scooters, I never actually looked at my license.
And then suddenly for Long Way Round,
they asked me for copies of all my paperwork.
And so I started to look at my driving license, and-- Shit!
By that time you've solved so many problems, you go,
"We're just going to solve this."
We're waiting for Claudio to ring on this phone
to see if he's passed his bike test or not.
The pressure he's under is enormous. It's too much pressure.
I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't pass it.
Hello.
Hey, Claudio. How are you?
Right.
-He did it. -Hey!
Fantastic!
I was seriously scared.
And that somehow gives me a kick, you know. I like new challenges.
I really wanted to do it.
First day riding with Claudio.
It's my first day on this.
You're looking very good, Claudio.
I must say, I'm impressed.
It's just slowly sinking in, you know, bit by bit, what we're doing.
Charley said at lunchtime, you know, he keeps thinking that
the trip must be ending soon
because we've been on the road for a few days
and most bike trips last a few days.
And then suddenly remember, you know,
that we're just heading east for a long time.
I can't believe that we're getting pulled over again.
-I was doing almost 90. -Yeah, we were like 80.
Eighty-eight miles an hour.
We got stopped for speeding.
This policeman said that we shouldn't stay in the local hotel,
that we should go and stay with him.
If we hadn't been stopped for speeding, we'd never have met Igor.
So, we follow this guy to this big, big house.
All the other houses in this town we passed
were just small houses.
This guy had a big, grand mansion.
He phoned for a friend of his to come and translate.
-How many children you've got? -I have two.
More men arrived, and suddenly, there was a bit of a party going on.
Cheers and let's start this dinner.
Welcome.
Everybody. Everybody, welcome.
I don't know why there's guns everywhere. I'm not kidding.
Why would somebody have a gun?
I don't know why I'm holding it in my hand.
I've been left with a Kalashnikov.
We'd wake up sometimes, Ewan and I, and we'd look at each other and just go
"I wonder what's gonna happen today."
Oh, look at these roads, man.
I feel like we're transitioning into phase two which is
the middle section. Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia.
The idea of stopping and parking my bike up
in the middle of somewhere,
and putting a tent up and making a fire is just--
It's such bliss.
You know, when we did our first camp in Kazakhstan that first night.
-I do remember. -We rode so far off the road
to be away, in case anyone saw us, you know?
What a spot. What a view.
And then when we opened the tent,
we'd completely forgotten that it was this bright yellow tent.
It was like a Belisha beacon going off.
I was a very reluctant camper.
You were a very reluctant--
You were in such a grumpy mood that night
-I was. -when we finally camped, I remember.
Look, the face of happiness.
Just think there's gonna be some baddies creeping up behind us.
And we'd had been told that it was black widow mating season,
and we'd get eaten to death by snakes and spiders.
But I remember I was so focused on putting the tent up
and getting the stove going and getting this--
And then Claudio said, "Look, there's this little scorpion's gone under my tent."
Freak out thing. And then eventually--
And it was one of those slap in the face moments,
you know, you get them every so often.
-That sunset was lovely. -We watched the sunset.
-It was beautiful. -And suddenly
you realize where you are.
Look, look. The sun is-- It's literally going. Look.
If you look over there, you'll just see the last sliver, and it's gonna go.
And what amazed me how quickly one would go from being really happy
to being really depressed. That up and down and
I'm quite glad we had to come the long way round just to meet these kids.
You know, three or four times a day, you could have a great--
Like in Mongolia, we'd have a great morning and then a terrible afternoon.
Mongolia was the mother of the trip for experiences in many ways.
We got to a stage where the road kept just fading out,
and we'd have to cross back over the same bit of river twice
'cause we'd gone the wrong way on the other side of the bank.
Funny how quickly a great morning can turn into a really crappy afternoon, isn't it?
Ewan got bogged down two or three times,
and we had to push him out.
My stamina was just getting lower and lower and lower and lower.
We got a little bit further on, and then it just suddenly became just this marsh,
when we hit the bottom of the valley, I suppose.
Oh, Claudio.
Whatever happened to just a bit of tarmac, you know?
Whatever happened to third, fourth, and fifth and sixth gear?
Whatever happened to dry clothes?
Whatever happened to
being able to sit on a motorbike without falling off it?
What?
Fucking hell!
I mean, we did have a tough time.
It was a tough time in Mongolia where we were thinking about heading north
to get back into Russia so we could get ahead.
Looking at the map, and I just looked at the border to Russia,
and I suddenly thought, "There's the solution."
Get out of Mongolia and get back into Russia, where there are roads.
-I really don't know. -I don't know.
Ewan, you know, was so low
he was seriously thinking about getting out of Mongolia.
Ewan called up Dave
-on the satellite phone -Hello.
exactly at that time when Dave was just watching the crash.
-Oh, no. -Oh, my God.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
It was awful, that crash.
And then that 15 minutes of not knowing, and
As the cameraman,
I had to really take this moral dilemma of, "Do I keep shooting?"
Are you okay? Are they okay?
It came to the point where in my head, I'm like, "I'm filming."
I'm trying to film. I'm horrified. Tears running down my face.
And when do you actually put that camera down and help?
-Okay? -I mean the fact of the matter is,
even if you're going fast in a car, it doesn't turn over.
So something has to have caught to make it roll over, you know?
And that caught, and it just went
I don't think I was driving particularly recklessly.
Other people might have a view.
-1,000 miles ahead." -Hundreds and thousands.
What we do just now?
-I know. -We have another car.
We have another car.
It's terrible. This may still run.
I just want-- I'm desperate to find out what had happened.
Oh, my God.
And finally, you know,
the phone call came through, and we had that chat and
It was a tough day, that. It was a tough day.
You were 80 miles away.
It represented a day and a half's hard riding on a motorbike.
'Cause the road was that bad.
Both shaken obviously.
Vasiliy's holding his back, but I think he's all right.
And it was David at that time on the phone to Ewan
just to tell him, "Look, just think about it.
If you now bail out, you probably might regret it for the rest of your life,
because you are missing such an important part of the trip."
Straight.
I mean, just the last couple of days has been such a struggle
on the roads here.
Yeah.
But then maybe the point is that it is a struggle,
and that we just struggle on.
I just don't know.
My wife said, she said that, "Don't forget that, when it's really bad,
that you're on this great adventure
and that it's probably the one great adventure
that maybe you'll ever have in your life."
He said he had tears in his helmet, and--
But in one-- on one side,
I was thinking, "Well, hang on, it's not all going to be like this."
She said, "Just get on with it, and don't be stupid."
Which is quite right.
I think they would have been upset, you know, with themselves
if they hadn't sort of toughed it out.
We're gonna get on and stay, and get on with it.
Not be pussies and fuck off the minute it gets hard.
I'm just so glad that you're here.
Thank God we didn't. God, thank God we didn't.
And I do regret sometimes, you know, spending so much time
just thinking about, you know, got to get on,
-got to get on -Yeah.
and, sort of, avoiding what was actually there.
We had our moments like that little temple we stopped at, do you remember?
And where we stopped, and we went in, and it was a really calm moment.
It was beautiful.
It wasn't far from the White Lake, I think.
We had a night with a family next to the salt lake.
One night with them made
-the whole of Mongolia special. -Yeah.
As we were setting up our tent, this guy came over on a horse.
And then he went off, got his wife, brought her back.
And then these two young guys came over, and we shared our food with them.
I don't think he liked the curry.
And then they said, "You've got to come over."
And that night we walked over there.
She was making suu--
-So. -So. "Suu." So.
This milk-- Oh, beautiful tasting thing.
Oh, my God.
-Is it good? -It's really good.
And do you remember when we were drinking the so,
and he goes, "This tastes really nutty"?
-It's really -What's that lovely
-earthy. -What is that lovely taste?
Then we realized, you know, they were using yak poo to burn--
-To make a fire -Dried yak poo.
because there's no wood there.
And that is what was giving it its nutty taste.
Amazing.
We've come this far, and
people's faces have changed,
and people's beliefs may have changed
but ultimately, we all love our kids.
We all need somewhere to sleep.
We all need some food.
And we're not all that different, you know?
This is just complete madness.
I have to say, it wasn't that bad
-I've only got a wee one. -eating animal's testicles.
Go on, Russ. Go on, Russ.
Comb through the hair there.
Go, baby.
It was the crunching into it, the pop, and what that pop represented to me.
What was in that pop.
That's what really made me gag.
In terms of missing my family, the days off are the toughest ones for me.
And when we arrived at the White Lake, I was so tired, firstly.
And I was crushed with missing them all day.
And I was glad to have my own little ger to just hide in.
I think for me it was hard, the first two, three weeks.
It was, like, harder.
It's not nearly as bad as it was early on.
Early on it was really, really painful,
and I wondered if it would ever get any better, and it has done.
And now it's like cruising.
-Really? I'm the opposite. -And then I'm gonna worry about
having him back.
I find it quite hard now, actually, that time has gone on.
Seems to get tougher.
Oh, sweetheart.
It's all right. I know it's weird, isn't it?
-I'm sorry. -No, sorry. No, don't.
-Sorry. -No, don't worry about it.
It seems a really long time now.
I've rarely spent more than a couple of months apart from her.
I think they are on a bit of an emotional roller coaster.
Charley, he's certainly, he's very up and down.
Spending that time apart from my wife
and really realizing how much I depend on her and stuff,
and emotionally what I went through on the trip
It's just getting on top of me at the moment, actually. Really.
It's much more bewildering sometimes than I ever thought it would be,
and it's much harder than I thought it would be.
I really need to share this with Eve,
and the only way I can which is down a telephone.
Most days we can kind of have a really good conversation.
Not always but most days.
The unknown reason for doing the trip, I think, was the time,
the hours a day of just sitting,
eating up miles with your helmet on,
thinking about things that-- you know, from my past, and
I needed-- I think that's why I went.
I think I needed that time.
Ewan didn't do the traveling bit that a lot of people do in their early 20s.
You know, Ewan went off to work.
He traveled for work,
which means that the interaction you have with a country is limited.
It was very important because I've covered a great many--
I covered a lot of stuff in my head. I don't--
Things that maybe needed to be thought through again or-- you know?
They never seemed to be really that low together,
and they're quite good at giving each other space too.
-I think when one of them wants to go off. -Yeah.
I think they've learned how to be together and how to be the best together.
I like my mate, Ewan. He looks after me.
I came out this morning,
and there were my motorbike trousers lying out on the floor.
And he'd taken the lining out-- And look, he's putting them away now.
That's a guy who looks after you, you see?
I think this trip has definitely brought us closer together.
I think, you know, we're joined at the hip forever now, I think.
And they seem to be having a real laugh as well.
-Yeah. -They seem to be really--
They went dancing last night,
-did you get that? -Yeah.
In a night club next to the motorbike shop.
Ewan said, "I'd rather be dancing with you and not with Charley."
I was missing Ewan, and, at the same time, was jealous of Charley,
-which is a strange situation to be in. -Well, it was almost like, "Hang on,
you should be doing all these romantic evenings
with your loved ones, not each other."
My fondest recollections are that of the places of the--
with the most solitude, the places that were the remotest, you know?
When we were truly living off what we had on the bikes, you know?
I think that's what I went out there for.
Chicken stew's good.
That's why we went on the BMWs.
That's why we had those panniers.
It's 'cause they were our life force, you know what I mean?
I was always very happy with the BMWs from when we tested them in Wales.
I thought it was the bike that was built to do this trip,
you know, more than any other.
And so when KTM fell through
I don't understand.
I suppose I didn't believe it at first.
For fuck's sake!
They think that we might fail.
Then we'll do it on the BMW and show 'em
what a great big mistake they
What a-- What a business.
Do you feel a bit of a tit now for doing that?
Yeah.
It's one of the most famous tizzies ever.
-Tizzies of the world. -Yeah.
"Fail." How dare they say that?
I was so glad in the end to--
I think KTM would have, sort of, fallen apart.
You know, the knocks that the BMW took.
Coming off the pebbles.
You just land, and the whole bike just coming down.
Not only did you tumble off quite hard, but the bike took a--
-Yeah. -The thing was practically upside down.
Claudio's bike wouldn't have survived his-- off the ramp.
-No. -It would've been in a million pieces.
Whereas the BMW, you just had to pull it upright,
and it was like, "Is that the best you can do? Come on."
I think working with UNICEF,
it was probably one of the biggest highlights of our trip
and certainly for me.
But I didn't realize how much it would affect me.
You know, going to the one in Ukraine
and seeing the Chernobyl people
and the struggle that they have.
The children here
have a range of problems.
For instance, various forms of cancer like leukemia.
The radiation has an effect on the brain. Have emotional, psychological problems.
Peekaboo! Peekaboo!
She was about the same age as my wee girl, Esther.
And she was such a sweetheart.
Bye-bye.
-Is that Akmaral? Hello. -Hello.
In Kazakhstan,
meeting that family with that girl who climbs the wall,
sitting in their tiny little room and listening to their story--
The parents who had to leave all their children behind
to come into the city to try and find work.
So many times you hear in these places where they do that,
and they can never then end up getting their families back together again.
And the struggle, not just for the children--
You know, the children had to struggle terribly.
But what the parents have sacrificed and given up.
How simple it was, especially in Kazakhstan--
How easy it is to make a difference.
It's just a simple thing,
a plywood board, you know, with handholds in it and stuff.
I think they said it was, like, $3,000, which is not a lot of money.
And yet that completely turned around that whole community.
We're here in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.
These kids live in the heating ducts
that heat up all the apartment blocks all around here.
And they live in those in winter.
-Angelo. -Jinx.
Nergüi.
Sukh.
God, the heat.
-You really feel the heat coming out. -It's amazing, isn't it?
For these boys, either their families have abandoned them at age five
because they don't have the money to feed them,
or the kids have got lost from the parents.
And they sleep down here because it's minus 30 outside,
and they are living in this very hot sewer
I couldn't find anything to say. I didn't want to ask any questions.
I was just gobsmacked and shocked by how young they were.
It made me think about my childhood.
And it just made me so terribly sad that they'd been denied a start.
The UNICEF projects, they affected me terribly.
It would bring up all sorts of other stuff.
In particular, it brought up my sister Telsche,
who had died of ovarian cancer at 36
and left her little six-year-old daughter behind.
When my sister was ill and dying, my first child was born.
And I could feel just the
the agony.
And the
And it was a huge grieving period for me.
And I must say, I did sit there, and I surprisingly thought about her a lot.
And cried. I must say, I did have a few tears.
Road of Bones was the biggest adventure of my life. It was incredible.
Everything was focused on getting to the Road of Bones, wasn't it?
And then not sure if we could make it through.
So the guy from Magadan says this bit's impossible.
And the guy from Yakutsk says this part is impossible.
When you travel on the Road of Bones, you've got to be really respectful,
because it is a graveyard. And it is the memory
of all those thousands and thousands of people who died building that road.
How they check the quality of the road,
the head of the camp would get into his vehicle
and put a glass full of vodka.
And if vodka was spilt, then every tenth prisoner was killed.
It was something like 20 million people died.
Twenty million people.
Building the road and being sent to the camps.
And just terrible things because they were intelligent
or because they were-- they wanted to speak out for themselves
or had different opinions. It's just unbelievable.
I just had the most extraordinary day on the Road of Bones.
Unbelievable. The roads just deteriorated and deteriorated.
We were riding on mud, gravel, and puddles,
and potholes, and rivers and bogs.
It was just everything thrown at us at once.
I kind of conquered my fear of the water today.
I conquered it by doing the thing that I feared the most
which was drawing water into my engine.
To my surprise, I was completely calm.
And I just sorted it out. I took the plugs out,
I pumped the water out of the pistonhead
and then I cranked it. I put them back in,
cranked it up and water came spewing out of the exhaust
'cause I'd forgotten that water goes in the exhaust as well.
Nice bit of work there.
I look at us crossing rivers in Siberia on the bikes,
and I'm going, "Why didn't we get a terrible cold even?"
We didn't-- You know this is icy water that we're riding through,
our trousers and boots were full of water all day.
One, two, three.
Charley's really injured himself.
He's pulled all the muscles behind his shoulder blade.
No, he was getting his bike up off the center-- off the stand,
and it slipped.
And he was trying to save it,
and in doing so he's managed to rip all the muscles out of his shoulder blade.
In towards the spine.
Also, we'd reached rivers that we were trying to cross
and we couldn't cross them anymore, they were too deep.
The currents were too strong.
We got to a point where we couldn't ride any further.
This bit's beat us actually.
It's really interesting in retrospect the only injury was really to your shoulder.
And it happened at the moment where we couldn't go any further.
I don't think people understand quite how tough that journey was.
We were so close to danger all the time.
I think it's irresponsible to go into dangerous territories
without somebody who can offer some medical help.
The consensus is that a doctor should be on board.
Yes, in Russia we had Sergey who was our sort of fixer,
and Vasiliy the doctor.
They were there in case things went terribly wrong.
-So? -Hurts a little bit-- Yeah.
In the camera cars, we had a lot of fun on this trip as well.
I mean, we were going through the same countries,
battling through the same bogs and quagmires.
It was fun but it was tough.
There's nothing quite like looking at a map that shows about 3,000 miles to go
to the place where you're gonna go to, and never getting there.
You know, quit was never an option, you know?
Turn around was never an option.
Come on!
After I'd crashed the Animal,
we even bought a small Russian van called a Furgon.
But we had an absolute blast.
It was never, ever boring and a real Boy's Own trip.
Three and a half hours, we've done 12 miles.
When we got together with Ewan and Charley,
there was a real shared experience.
We're now a part of the support crew's story, you know what I mean?
Instead of part of our own.
There's no way we could've done this bit. It's just impassable for us.
Please don't let anyone get hurt doing this.
I couldn't forgive myself, you know?
This trip's not important enough for somebody
to die trying to cross a river.
This could go horribly wrong.
This could end up with us all having to dive underwater to get them out.
Well, would you?
-Yeah, if he's stuck in the car. -I'd go in.
-Maybe the Warrior won't go through. -Oh, my God!
He's stuck! He's stuck.
We're gonna have to just create our own ramp.
The problem at the moment is not the speed of the current,
and it's not the depth of the water,
it's just getting in and getting out again.
My background was actually doing a degree in construction,
and I wondered if I'd ever use it.
And I realized on the Road of Bones,
when I said, "Right, let's dig out some ramps, man."
I used my civil engineering for once.
It's nuts, and yet, at the time, it was just absolutely everyday stuff. Dig road.
Good system.
Dig a ramp.
Get the truck through.
Hey! Rock and roll!
We made a difference, yes we did.
Everyone and their dog is telling us we can't get through.
And it's not that we don't believe them,
it's just we're so stupidly optimistic that we are gonna solve everything,
that we're gonna just carry on.
And we were laughing and having the time of our lives.
-Just brakes -Okay.
We're sitting there watching Dave
be dragged across that river in the Furgon.
And he was just, like, white knuckles, like, "Bring it on, man, let's go."
He had to get through.
It's incredible. I just, you know, can't believe he's got that car here.
Cause it is the kind of car you see people shopping in, you know?
And then you think, "Oh, God, I've no idea what's going to happen."
The Road of Bones has been more incredible than we could've imagined.
The fact that you come across an obstacle and that you can't--
There's no other option than to get across it.
Because we can't go back.
There's no other way to get to Magadan than the way we're going.
And so, it's either get across it, or this trip ends.
You know what I mean? And that's not an option, so
It's an incredible experience, and its knit us together as a team.
There's something very pure about this.
It's getting our vehicles to Magadan.
And that's it.
Whatever it takes, you know?
-Hold tight. -Good luck, mate!
-Good luck! -Go on, son! Fucking hell!
And we did it, didn't we? It wasn't impossible.
Fucking Magadan!
Just into Magadan, I mean that was--
that was the ultimate part of the trip really, wasn't it?
As it turns out.
But that statue's just beautiful of the weeping child.
Cry it's made me wanna cry.
The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie thick and still
And we're just-- I'm just packing up everything here in Magadan.
And in a couple of hours we
we go to the airport and fly to Anchorage.
I'm confused about my feelings here
now that we've finished driving across the biggest continent in the world.
And sent him homeward
Tae think again
Our wheels came off the channel tunnel
and they haven't stopped rolling till here, you know?
We've been constantly riding across this one piece of land that covers the earth--
half the earth, almost.
It's been a long way, and
and the most exciting and fulfilling thing I've ever done, you know, really.
Just amazing.
Tae think again
This is beautiful.
We have successfully now crossed
the biggest continent in the world,
and are now going to the next one.
-Oh, no. -You don't wanna watch this.
They call this the state of the Big Skies.
It couldn't be more aptly named. The sky is just
There seems to be so much more of it than usual, you know?
There's no point looking for the why and wherefore.
It's just the when.
When do we get to Alaska?
When do we get back on tarmac?
Prairie land.
I'm pretty sure this is the kind of road I was fantasizing about
when I was in Mongolia, Kazakhstan. When I was in Siberia.
We were on a freeway, and it was busy.
And the traffic suddenly slowed in front,
and then I heard this God almighty screech of brakes.
But I remember wrestling the bike like this.
And I was thinking, "God, I've been hit by something."
Well
-I just got hit in the back-- -By this guy.
Look at the state of his car.
And the first thing I did when I got off was go, "Yeah!"
'Cause I was alive.
I didn't go down though.
-Fucking didn't go down. -You didn't go down.
I'm so glad you're still here.
There's no way that that guy could not have seen me
had he been watching where he was going.
-When he opened the door -What was the first thing he said?
there was smoke billowing out his car because he was smoking in the car.
And there was music blaring, and his phone--
I think he'd just been-- on the phone,
lighting cigarettes, and just bang, hit me in the square in the back.
And he was 12 years old!
Fucked! I'm fucked!
What were you doing with your fucking eyes?
Man, I didn't even see you guys and then, fucking some guy just--
Charley was gonna deck him until he got out,
-and he realized-- he was just a kid. -I was running.
You're so lucky I'm not dead
because hitting a motorcycle in the back is like
-That was -Unbelievably lucky.
I was very elated at the time,
but it's-- When we started riding into Calgary,
I got very frightened about what had happened.
'Cause had I fallen off the bike, I would've been under his car.
There's no question that I would have been
-seriously injured or dead. -Definitely hurt.
Daddy!
Hello, darling.
Oh, my God.
Hello, darling.
Oh, my gosh, you guys have-- You've changed.
Hello, cute one. My darling.
-You've grown a beard. -I've grown a beard. Yeah.
You look gorgeous, you two.
I want it off. I want it off to see you.
-I got-- -Oh, my God. It's so bizarre.
I want to see you, and it's, like, not you because you've got this thing.
And it is you.
Hello.
Meeting the Orange County chopper guys
and realizing how respectful they were for us,
and these guys are mega, mega guys that you look up to.
You look good. That's you.
-That's me. -That's you.
And the respect that they had for us was pretty high.
And then they said, "Listen, we'll get a couple of friends
who would love to escort you down to New York."
There was, like, 60-- There were 60 bikers.
-I mean, it was fantastic. -It was great.
The first time you saw the Manhattan skyline,
there was New York in front of us.
We did it, New York!
We fucking did it, mate.
-Fucking did it. Fucking did it. -We just did it.
I remember just hearing Ewan crying in his helmet,
and he was really giving it a good blub, and it was making me cry.
We did it, mate.
-Fucking did it. Fucking did it. -We just did it.
-We wanted to do it -And we did it.
We planned to do it, and we just did it.
We arrived here at 2:00,
which is when we said we'd be here on the 29th of July.
Ten a penny.
It can't not be life-changing when you've done that,
you know what I mean?
When you've ridden a motorbike round the world. It's extraordinary.
It's extraordinary.
I forget that I did it some days, which is really sad,
but other times I go, "Jesus."
Hopefully it's made me, you know, a better person.
It's certainly made my relationship with my wife far stronger.
It's hard not to look back a year later and not feel really emotional about it.
You grow up as a kid during the Cold War, and you just keep hearing about how,
you know, Russians are the enemy or whatever, and
you know, it's hard to believe that.
They're some of the sweetest, kindest, you know, most giving, loving people.
I mean, a lot of people say to me, like, "Has it changed your life?"
And, you know, the answer is for sure, yes.
And I personally think, you know, it hasn't quite sort of sunk into me.
I try harder to not let things simmer away, to--
If there's a problem, to have the courage to just go and deal with it.
I think I do that more than I did before I went on the trip.
I do.
The one nice thing was to realize
the world is actually really small.
You know, you just take a bike, and you drive around,
and that was quite surprising.
Coming back here afterwards has been really difficult.
Just to see how materialistic people are
and know that you can find happiness without all the bullshit.
And, really, Hollywood in particular is so full of bullshit.
Out of both of us, Charley's life has completely changed. It's brilliant.
-Isn't it? -It has, yeah.
Now working towards doing the Paris Dakar, and it's amazing.
When anyone suggested it might be a life-changing experience,
Charley was very quick to go, "Oh, rubbish! It's not life-changing.
It's just a couple of wankers going round the world on bikes,"
I believe you said at one point.
No one, I don't think, had actually stopped to think,
"How well is this gonna be received?"
And of course it all went out, I think, you know,
towards the end of October in 2004.
And that's when the feedback started coming in, the telephone calls.
"Did you know that you've just gone straight into the top ten of the books,
and that the DVD went platinum,
that the ratings on Sky One were excellent,
and that the ratings on Bravo were very good in the States?"
God, it's extraordinary 'cause we just did it because we wanted a record, didn't we,
of what we were doing?
And anything you do, you hope that you do a good job
and that if it's a success, that's the payoff.
Oh, well done, mate.
It's the opportunity of a lifetime,
and I think everyone realized that, you know?
And I think people respected it.
More than anybody saying that I shouldn't do it,
people were kind of
admirative about it.
Admirative?
I think people really admired me for doing it.
What a laugh though, hey? What a laugh that was.
Sleeping rough on the road
I'll tell you all about it
When I get home
Comin' round to meet you
The long way round
There's a bond there now with Charley and I that can-- will never go away.
In fact, with all of us, you know,
there's the sharing of an extraordinary experience.
And in terms of our plan, an adventure, a trip,
it's the most extraordinary thing that's ever happened to me.
You know, there's nothing to compare it to.
In quite a few ways it's changed my life.
I think, in one, it's given me a tremendous amount of confidence
in myself and in self-belief.
And what it's really awoken in me is the possibility.
Charley and I, together, found the right people to help us make it come true.
And we did it. We pulled it off.
There was a small window when I was back in London,
having come back from Alabama where I made Big Fish,
to going off to Australia to shoot the final Star Wars film.
I'd met you, Russ, at a party.
We got talking about bikes.
And it was during that conversation that he said to me,
"I'm thinking about going around the world with a friend of mine."
Charley's end of the deal was that--
I was going away to work. I blocked off this time.
But, in the meantime, Charley was gonna meet producers,
and see if he could get some contacts.
So I panicked and luckily I still kept your card, Russ.
And so that was the first person I rang.
And then Ewan said, "Look, we can only stay for half an hour."
So we were chatting away, and two hours later they were still there.
And then there was no question when we left your office
that you were the person we wanted to work with.
I remember that so well coming down that stairs.
Coming down that stairs. "Well, that's it. That's the guy."
You could suddenly see the scale of the operation.
Not only were they going around the world,
but you could do the book and the TV and the DVD series.
And that's when I thought that America would be quite an important market.
And there was a friend of mine that I'd known for about 15 years.
And his name is David Alexanian. He was based in Los Angeles.
Am I glad I got involved with Long Way Round? Of course I am.
David, myself and Charley, we flew down to Australia to meet Ewan for the first time.
You know, we just immediately felt like this was gonna happen.
I rode off-road for the first time ever on a bike.
I had such a great time. I was like, "My God, it just went over the bumps."
He was like, "Yeah, that's what they do."
Well, I never knew!
It was just so crazy.
There's me and Charley, and there's you and Dave.
Well, that's why Long Way Round happened, you know?
From the moment that I got to London,
I was handed a camera,
and I was just told to start shooting everything and anything,
and every daily activity of Ewan and Charley.
-Good luck, mate, on this. -There you go.
Cheers, man.
Any kind of talk or mention of actually going on the trip,
I just sort of tried to pretend it wasn't happening.
We'd spent so much time working on the nuts and bolts of the trip.
And the one bit that we did that Charley is talking about not having dealt with
is the mental aspect of going on a massive journey.
I don't either of us have really thought how
-I think the enormity of the trip dawned. -You feel-- Yeah.
I'd been dealing with it here at home with my wife and my kids
for the two or three weeks leading up to it.
-It was getting difficult. It was sad. -The countdown was horrible
because I just didn't want Ewan to go.
I don't like my children being on television, and
my wife wanted to stay with them 'cause they're all a bit upset, you know?
But I didn't think it would hit me as powerfully as it did.
I don't think I really thought about anything.
And it was a real fucking slap in the face, that was.
And that kind of tore me apart on that day.
That's why I dropped the bike.
'Cause it was going so slowly,
I thought that he was managing to bring it back up.
Can someone help?
I think everyone was just standing there like lemons watching.
Thank you very much.
Jesus.
-Okay, guys. -Okay.
See you in New York!
Leaving Bulwer Street was the most incredible and bananas moment.
You know, where you're driving out of London to drive around the world.
It's ridiculous.
Get me out fucking London.
I remember we pull-- that we left London, we were driving down towards Folkestone,
and we were on the trip, we're-- I was wearing my thermals.
My BMW suit and helmet.
I was sweating like a lunatic.
Anyway, we're driving down there, and then Charley went,
"We're gonna meet this girl."
"Who?" You know--
"We're gonna meet this girl from somewhere."
And she gave Charley this big envelope,
and Charley took this big envelope and stuffed it in his bike.
Anyway, cut to some-- several days later at the Slovakian border, and
that was the bit of paper we should've had stamped.
Hey!
We didn't get our carnet stamped
-Yeah. -coming into Czech Republic.
That's check-in. That's where you needed to stamp when you
-went to-- in. -Just take all those out
-and we'll just-- -Well, no. You can't, mate.
It's a bound thing, you know what I mean?
-You hold it, it's yours. -Russ, what's the matter?
-No, what I'm saying is-- -What's the matter?
-Calm down, Russ. -All right.
I mean, I've just arrived here and I'm just saying, you know,
we haven't stamped in or out of Czechoslovakia.
Okay? Let's just keep this calm.
We were all going like, "What is this journey?
What does it feel like? Why are we on it? Is this it? Should it feel like this?
Should it not feel like that?"
That was a really tough part of the trip.
And that was sort of just figuring out what it was,
and figuring out how we were going to deal with each other and what we were gonna do.
I mean, it wasn't good.
It was me against you guys,
and I was probably trying to rally Ewan to my side or whatever.
You know, we were trying to jell our four relationships,
and we're all quite headstrong people.
And Ewan just said, "Listen, Charley"--
"You and Russ seem to be-- have some problem, and I want you to sort it out."
-Yeah. -So that it doesn't carry on.
'Cause we were on this trip of a lifetime.
And I realized, in actual fact, it was--
it was all coming from me, and that I have to stop and listen.
I'd felt terribly-- After I realized what I'd been doing, I felt terribly guilty.
It was just part of the journey though.
-I don't think any of it's-- -Yeah.
There's no regrets in any of it really.
Driving into the Ukraine has just kind of taken my breath away.
There's people working in the fields with hoes and rakes,
and there are people using horses for-- with plows, and
it's like we've stepped back in time.
From a television point of view,
we were always very keen to have a very small crew going around the world.
Every project is kind of a new challenge and something new,
and this one, Long Way Round,
was quite amazing because of this biking aspect.
Claudio subsequently had problems with his driving license
which weren't really his fault.
At the end of the day, we're buying into him.
My driving license-- Very embarrassing story.
When I came over to the UK and I had to get a UK license,
they didn't take that license across.
But as I was only driving scooters, I never actually looked at my license.
And then suddenly for Long Way Round,
they asked me for copies of all my paperwork.
And so I started to look at my driving license, and-- Shit!
By that time you've solved so many problems, you go,
"We're just going to solve this."
We're waiting for Claudio to ring on this phone
to see if he's passed his bike test or not.
The pressure he's under is enormous. It's too much pressure.
I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't pass it.
Hello.
Hey, Claudio. How are you?
Right.
-He did it. -Hey!
Fantastic!
I was seriously scared.
And that somehow gives me a kick, you know. I like new challenges.
I really wanted to do it.
First day riding with Claudio.
It's my first day on this.
You're looking very good, Claudio.
I must say, I'm impressed.
It's just slowly sinking in, you know, bit by bit, what we're doing.
Charley said at lunchtime, you know, he keeps thinking that
the trip must be ending soon
because we've been on the road for a few days
and most bike trips last a few days.
And then suddenly remember, you know,
that we're just heading east for a long time.
I can't believe that we're getting pulled over again.
-I was doing almost 90. -Yeah, we were like 80.
Eighty-eight miles an hour.
We got stopped for speeding.
This policeman said that we shouldn't stay in the local hotel,
that we should go and stay with him.
If we hadn't been stopped for speeding, we'd never have met Igor.
So, we follow this guy to this big, big house.
All the other houses in this town we passed
were just small houses.
This guy had a big, grand mansion.
He phoned for a friend of his to come and translate.
-How many children you've got? -I have two.
More men arrived, and suddenly, there was a bit of a party going on.
Cheers and let's start this dinner.
Welcome.
Everybody. Everybody, welcome.
I don't know why there's guns everywhere. I'm not kidding.
Why would somebody have a gun?
I don't know why I'm holding it in my hand.
I've been left with a Kalashnikov.
We'd wake up sometimes, Ewan and I, and we'd look at each other and just go
"I wonder what's gonna happen today."
Oh, look at these roads, man.
I feel like we're transitioning into phase two which is
the middle section. Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia.
The idea of stopping and parking my bike up
in the middle of somewhere,
and putting a tent up and making a fire is just--
It's such bliss.
You know, when we did our first camp in Kazakhstan that first night.
-I do remember. -We rode so far off the road
to be away, in case anyone saw us, you know?
What a spot. What a view.
And then when we opened the tent,
we'd completely forgotten that it was this bright yellow tent.
It was like a Belisha beacon going off.
I was a very reluctant camper.
You were a very reluctant--
You were in such a grumpy mood that night
-I was. -when we finally camped, I remember.
Look, the face of happiness.
Just think there's gonna be some baddies creeping up behind us.
And we'd had been told that it was black widow mating season,
and we'd get eaten to death by snakes and spiders.
But I remember I was so focused on putting the tent up
and getting the stove going and getting this--
And then Claudio said, "Look, there's this little scorpion's gone under my tent."
Freak out thing. And then eventually--
And it was one of those slap in the face moments,
you know, you get them every so often.
-That sunset was lovely. -We watched the sunset.
-It was beautiful. -And suddenly
you realize where you are.
Look, look. The sun is-- It's literally going. Look.
If you look over there, you'll just see the last sliver, and it's gonna go.
And what amazed me how quickly one would go from being really happy
to being really depressed. That up and down and
I'm quite glad we had to come the long way round just to meet these kids.
You know, three or four times a day, you could have a great--
Like in Mongolia, we'd have a great morning and then a terrible afternoon.
Mongolia was the mother of the trip for experiences in many ways.
We got to a stage where the road kept just fading out,
and we'd have to cross back over the same bit of river twice
'cause we'd gone the wrong way on the other side of the bank.
Funny how quickly a great morning can turn into a really crappy afternoon, isn't it?
Ewan got bogged down two or three times,
and we had to push him out.
My stamina was just getting lower and lower and lower and lower.
We got a little bit further on, and then it just suddenly became just this marsh,
when we hit the bottom of the valley, I suppose.
Oh, Claudio.
Whatever happened to just a bit of tarmac, you know?
Whatever happened to third, fourth, and fifth and sixth gear?
Whatever happened to dry clothes?
Whatever happened to
being able to sit on a motorbike without falling off it?
What?
Fucking hell!
I mean, we did have a tough time.
It was a tough time in Mongolia where we were thinking about heading north
to get back into Russia so we could get ahead.
Looking at the map, and I just looked at the border to Russia,
and I suddenly thought, "There's the solution."
Get out of Mongolia and get back into Russia, where there are roads.
-I really don't know. -I don't know.
Ewan, you know, was so low
he was seriously thinking about getting out of Mongolia.
Ewan called up Dave
-on the satellite phone -Hello.
exactly at that time when Dave was just watching the crash.
-Oh, no. -Oh, my God.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
It was awful, that crash.
And then that 15 minutes of not knowing, and
As the cameraman,
I had to really take this moral dilemma of, "Do I keep shooting?"
Are you okay? Are they okay?
It came to the point where in my head, I'm like, "I'm filming."
I'm trying to film. I'm horrified. Tears running down my face.
And when do you actually put that camera down and help?
-Okay? -I mean the fact of the matter is,
even if you're going fast in a car, it doesn't turn over.
So something has to have caught to make it roll over, you know?
And that caught, and it just went
I don't think I was driving particularly recklessly.
Other people might have a view.
-1,000 miles ahead." -Hundreds and thousands.
What we do just now?
-I know. -We have another car.
We have another car.
It's terrible. This may still run.
I just want-- I'm desperate to find out what had happened.
Oh, my God.
And finally, you know,
the phone call came through, and we had that chat and
It was a tough day, that. It was a tough day.
You were 80 miles away.
It represented a day and a half's hard riding on a motorbike.
'Cause the road was that bad.
Both shaken obviously.
Vasiliy's holding his back, but I think he's all right.
And it was David at that time on the phone to Ewan
just to tell him, "Look, just think about it.
If you now bail out, you probably might regret it for the rest of your life,
because you are missing such an important part of the trip."
Straight.
I mean, just the last couple of days has been such a struggle
on the roads here.
Yeah.
But then maybe the point is that it is a struggle,
and that we just struggle on.
I just don't know.
My wife said, she said that, "Don't forget that, when it's really bad,
that you're on this great adventure
and that it's probably the one great adventure
that maybe you'll ever have in your life."
He said he had tears in his helmet, and--
But in one-- on one side,
I was thinking, "Well, hang on, it's not all going to be like this."
She said, "Just get on with it, and don't be stupid."
Which is quite right.
I think they would have been upset, you know, with themselves
if they hadn't sort of toughed it out.
We're gonna get on and stay, and get on with it.
Not be pussies and fuck off the minute it gets hard.
I'm just so glad that you're here.
Thank God we didn't. God, thank God we didn't.
And I do regret sometimes, you know, spending so much time
just thinking about, you know, got to get on,
-got to get on -Yeah.
and, sort of, avoiding what was actually there.
We had our moments like that little temple we stopped at, do you remember?
And where we stopped, and we went in, and it was a really calm moment.
It was beautiful.
It wasn't far from the White Lake, I think.
We had a night with a family next to the salt lake.
One night with them made
-the whole of Mongolia special. -Yeah.
As we were setting up our tent, this guy came over on a horse.
And then he went off, got his wife, brought her back.
And then these two young guys came over, and we shared our food with them.
I don't think he liked the curry.
And then they said, "You've got to come over."
And that night we walked over there.
She was making suu--
-So. -So. "Suu." So.
This milk-- Oh, beautiful tasting thing.
Oh, my God.
-Is it good? -It's really good.
And do you remember when we were drinking the so,
and he goes, "This tastes really nutty"?
-It's really -What's that lovely
-earthy. -What is that lovely taste?
Then we realized, you know, they were using yak poo to burn--
-To make a fire -Dried yak poo.
because there's no wood there.
And that is what was giving it its nutty taste.
Amazing.
We've come this far, and
people's faces have changed,
and people's beliefs may have changed
but ultimately, we all love our kids.
We all need somewhere to sleep.
We all need some food.
And we're not all that different, you know?
This is just complete madness.
I have to say, it wasn't that bad
-I've only got a wee one. -eating animal's testicles.
Go on, Russ. Go on, Russ.
Comb through the hair there.
Go, baby.
It was the crunching into it, the pop, and what that pop represented to me.
What was in that pop.
That's what really made me gag.
In terms of missing my family, the days off are the toughest ones for me.
And when we arrived at the White Lake, I was so tired, firstly.
And I was crushed with missing them all day.
And I was glad to have my own little ger to just hide in.
I think for me it was hard, the first two, three weeks.
It was, like, harder.
It's not nearly as bad as it was early on.
Early on it was really, really painful,
and I wondered if it would ever get any better, and it has done.
And now it's like cruising.
-Really? I'm the opposite. -And then I'm gonna worry about
having him back.
I find it quite hard now, actually, that time has gone on.
Seems to get tougher.
Oh, sweetheart.
It's all right. I know it's weird, isn't it?
-I'm sorry. -No, sorry. No, don't.
-Sorry. -No, don't worry about it.
It seems a really long time now.
I've rarely spent more than a couple of months apart from her.
I think they are on a bit of an emotional roller coaster.
Charley, he's certainly, he's very up and down.
Spending that time apart from my wife
and really realizing how much I depend on her and stuff,
and emotionally what I went through on the trip
It's just getting on top of me at the moment, actually. Really.
It's much more bewildering sometimes than I ever thought it would be,
and it's much harder than I thought it would be.
I really need to share this with Eve,
and the only way I can which is down a telephone.
Most days we can kind of have a really good conversation.
Not always but most days.
The unknown reason for doing the trip, I think, was the time,
the hours a day of just sitting,
eating up miles with your helmet on,
thinking about things that-- you know, from my past, and
I needed-- I think that's why I went.
I think I needed that time.
Ewan didn't do the traveling bit that a lot of people do in their early 20s.
You know, Ewan went off to work.
He traveled for work,
which means that the interaction you have with a country is limited.
It was very important because I've covered a great many--
I covered a lot of stuff in my head. I don't--
Things that maybe needed to be thought through again or-- you know?
They never seemed to be really that low together,
and they're quite good at giving each other space too.
-I think when one of them wants to go off. -Yeah.
I think they've learned how to be together and how to be the best together.
I like my mate, Ewan. He looks after me.
I came out this morning,
and there were my motorbike trousers lying out on the floor.
And he'd taken the lining out-- And look, he's putting them away now.
That's a guy who looks after you, you see?
I think this trip has definitely brought us closer together.
I think, you know, we're joined at the hip forever now, I think.
And they seem to be having a real laugh as well.
-Yeah. -They seem to be really--
They went dancing last night,
-did you get that? -Yeah.
In a night club next to the motorbike shop.
Ewan said, "I'd rather be dancing with you and not with Charley."
I was missing Ewan, and, at the same time, was jealous of Charley,
-which is a strange situation to be in. -Well, it was almost like, "Hang on,
you should be doing all these romantic evenings
with your loved ones, not each other."
My fondest recollections are that of the places of the--
with the most solitude, the places that were the remotest, you know?
When we were truly living off what we had on the bikes, you know?
I think that's what I went out there for.
Chicken stew's good.
That's why we went on the BMWs.
That's why we had those panniers.
It's 'cause they were our life force, you know what I mean?
I was always very happy with the BMWs from when we tested them in Wales.
I thought it was the bike that was built to do this trip,
you know, more than any other.
And so when KTM fell through
I don't understand.
I suppose I didn't believe it at first.
For fuck's sake!
They think that we might fail.
Then we'll do it on the BMW and show 'em
what a great big mistake they
What a-- What a business.
Do you feel a bit of a tit now for doing that?
Yeah.
It's one of the most famous tizzies ever.
-Tizzies of the world. -Yeah.
"Fail." How dare they say that?
I was so glad in the end to--
I think KTM would have, sort of, fallen apart.
You know, the knocks that the BMW took.
Coming off the pebbles.
You just land, and the whole bike just coming down.
Not only did you tumble off quite hard, but the bike took a--
-Yeah. -The thing was practically upside down.
Claudio's bike wouldn't have survived his-- off the ramp.
-No. -It would've been in a million pieces.
Whereas the BMW, you just had to pull it upright,
and it was like, "Is that the best you can do? Come on."
I think working with UNICEF,
it was probably one of the biggest highlights of our trip
and certainly for me.
But I didn't realize how much it would affect me.
You know, going to the one in Ukraine
and seeing the Chernobyl people
and the struggle that they have.
The children here
have a range of problems.
For instance, various forms of cancer like leukemia.
The radiation has an effect on the brain. Have emotional, psychological problems.
Peekaboo! Peekaboo!
She was about the same age as my wee girl, Esther.
And she was such a sweetheart.
Bye-bye.
-Is that Akmaral? Hello. -Hello.
In Kazakhstan,
meeting that family with that girl who climbs the wall,
sitting in their tiny little room and listening to their story--
The parents who had to leave all their children behind
to come into the city to try and find work.
So many times you hear in these places where they do that,
and they can never then end up getting their families back together again.
And the struggle, not just for the children--
You know, the children had to struggle terribly.
But what the parents have sacrificed and given up.
How simple it was, especially in Kazakhstan--
How easy it is to make a difference.
It's just a simple thing,
a plywood board, you know, with handholds in it and stuff.
I think they said it was, like, $3,000, which is not a lot of money.
And yet that completely turned around that whole community.
We're here in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.
These kids live in the heating ducts
that heat up all the apartment blocks all around here.
And they live in those in winter.
-Angelo. -Jinx.
Nergüi.
Sukh.
God, the heat.
-You really feel the heat coming out. -It's amazing, isn't it?
For these boys, either their families have abandoned them at age five
because they don't have the money to feed them,
or the kids have got lost from the parents.
And they sleep down here because it's minus 30 outside,
and they are living in this very hot sewer
I couldn't find anything to say. I didn't want to ask any questions.
I was just gobsmacked and shocked by how young they were.
It made me think about my childhood.
And it just made me so terribly sad that they'd been denied a start.
The UNICEF projects, they affected me terribly.
It would bring up all sorts of other stuff.
In particular, it brought up my sister Telsche,
who had died of ovarian cancer at 36
and left her little six-year-old daughter behind.
When my sister was ill and dying, my first child was born.
And I could feel just the
the agony.
And the
And it was a huge grieving period for me.
And I must say, I did sit there, and I surprisingly thought about her a lot.
And cried. I must say, I did have a few tears.
Road of Bones was the biggest adventure of my life. It was incredible.
Everything was focused on getting to the Road of Bones, wasn't it?
And then not sure if we could make it through.
So the guy from Magadan says this bit's impossible.
And the guy from Yakutsk says this part is impossible.
When you travel on the Road of Bones, you've got to be really respectful,
because it is a graveyard. And it is the memory
of all those thousands and thousands of people who died building that road.
How they check the quality of the road,
the head of the camp would get into his vehicle
and put a glass full of vodka.
And if vodka was spilt, then every tenth prisoner was killed.
It was something like 20 million people died.
Twenty million people.
Building the road and being sent to the camps.
And just terrible things because they were intelligent
or because they were-- they wanted to speak out for themselves
or had different opinions. It's just unbelievable.
I just had the most extraordinary day on the Road of Bones.
Unbelievable. The roads just deteriorated and deteriorated.
We were riding on mud, gravel, and puddles,
and potholes, and rivers and bogs.
It was just everything thrown at us at once.
I kind of conquered my fear of the water today.
I conquered it by doing the thing that I feared the most
which was drawing water into my engine.
To my surprise, I was completely calm.
And I just sorted it out. I took the plugs out,
I pumped the water out of the pistonhead
and then I cranked it. I put them back in,
cranked it up and water came spewing out of the exhaust
'cause I'd forgotten that water goes in the exhaust as well.
Nice bit of work there.
I look at us crossing rivers in Siberia on the bikes,
and I'm going, "Why didn't we get a terrible cold even?"
We didn't-- You know this is icy water that we're riding through,
our trousers and boots were full of water all day.
One, two, three.
Charley's really injured himself.
He's pulled all the muscles behind his shoulder blade.
No, he was getting his bike up off the center-- off the stand,
and it slipped.
And he was trying to save it,
and in doing so he's managed to rip all the muscles out of his shoulder blade.
In towards the spine.
Also, we'd reached rivers that we were trying to cross
and we couldn't cross them anymore, they were too deep.
The currents were too strong.
We got to a point where we couldn't ride any further.
This bit's beat us actually.
It's really interesting in retrospect the only injury was really to your shoulder.
And it happened at the moment where we couldn't go any further.
I don't think people understand quite how tough that journey was.
We were so close to danger all the time.
I think it's irresponsible to go into dangerous territories
without somebody who can offer some medical help.
The consensus is that a doctor should be on board.
Yes, in Russia we had Sergey who was our sort of fixer,
and Vasiliy the doctor.
They were there in case things went terribly wrong.
-So? -Hurts a little bit-- Yeah.
In the camera cars, we had a lot of fun on this trip as well.
I mean, we were going through the same countries,
battling through the same bogs and quagmires.
It was fun but it was tough.
There's nothing quite like looking at a map that shows about 3,000 miles to go
to the place where you're gonna go to, and never getting there.
You know, quit was never an option, you know?
Turn around was never an option.
Come on!
After I'd crashed the Animal,
we even bought a small Russian van called a Furgon.
But we had an absolute blast.
It was never, ever boring and a real Boy's Own trip.
Three and a half hours, we've done 12 miles.
When we got together with Ewan and Charley,
there was a real shared experience.
We're now a part of the support crew's story, you know what I mean?
Instead of part of our own.
There's no way we could've done this bit. It's just impassable for us.
Please don't let anyone get hurt doing this.
I couldn't forgive myself, you know?
This trip's not important enough for somebody
to die trying to cross a river.
This could go horribly wrong.
This could end up with us all having to dive underwater to get them out.
Well, would you?
-Yeah, if he's stuck in the car. -I'd go in.
-Maybe the Warrior won't go through. -Oh, my God!
He's stuck! He's stuck.
We're gonna have to just create our own ramp.
The problem at the moment is not the speed of the current,
and it's not the depth of the water,
it's just getting in and getting out again.
My background was actually doing a degree in construction,
and I wondered if I'd ever use it.
And I realized on the Road of Bones,
when I said, "Right, let's dig out some ramps, man."
I used my civil engineering for once.
It's nuts, and yet, at the time, it was just absolutely everyday stuff. Dig road.
Good system.
Dig a ramp.
Get the truck through.
Hey! Rock and roll!
We made a difference, yes we did.
Everyone and their dog is telling us we can't get through.
And it's not that we don't believe them,
it's just we're so stupidly optimistic that we are gonna solve everything,
that we're gonna just carry on.
And we were laughing and having the time of our lives.
-Just brakes -Okay.
We're sitting there watching Dave
be dragged across that river in the Furgon.
And he was just, like, white knuckles, like, "Bring it on, man, let's go."
He had to get through.
It's incredible. I just, you know, can't believe he's got that car here.
Cause it is the kind of car you see people shopping in, you know?
And then you think, "Oh, God, I've no idea what's going to happen."
The Road of Bones has been more incredible than we could've imagined.
The fact that you come across an obstacle and that you can't--
There's no other option than to get across it.
Because we can't go back.
There's no other way to get to Magadan than the way we're going.
And so, it's either get across it, or this trip ends.
You know what I mean? And that's not an option, so
It's an incredible experience, and its knit us together as a team.
There's something very pure about this.
It's getting our vehicles to Magadan.
And that's it.
Whatever it takes, you know?
-Hold tight. -Good luck, mate!
-Good luck! -Go on, son! Fucking hell!
And we did it, didn't we? It wasn't impossible.
Fucking Magadan!
Just into Magadan, I mean that was--
that was the ultimate part of the trip really, wasn't it?
As it turns out.
But that statue's just beautiful of the weeping child.
Cry it's made me wanna cry.
The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie thick and still
And we're just-- I'm just packing up everything here in Magadan.
And in a couple of hours we
we go to the airport and fly to Anchorage.
I'm confused about my feelings here
now that we've finished driving across the biggest continent in the world.
And sent him homeward
Tae think again
Our wheels came off the channel tunnel
and they haven't stopped rolling till here, you know?
We've been constantly riding across this one piece of land that covers the earth--
half the earth, almost.
It's been a long way, and
and the most exciting and fulfilling thing I've ever done, you know, really.
Just amazing.
Tae think again
This is beautiful.
We have successfully now crossed
the biggest continent in the world,
and are now going to the next one.
-Oh, no. -You don't wanna watch this.
They call this the state of the Big Skies.
It couldn't be more aptly named. The sky is just
There seems to be so much more of it than usual, you know?
There's no point looking for the why and wherefore.
It's just the when.
When do we get to Alaska?
When do we get back on tarmac?
Prairie land.
I'm pretty sure this is the kind of road I was fantasizing about
when I was in Mongolia, Kazakhstan. When I was in Siberia.
We were on a freeway, and it was busy.
And the traffic suddenly slowed in front,
and then I heard this God almighty screech of brakes.
But I remember wrestling the bike like this.
And I was thinking, "God, I've been hit by something."
Well
-I just got hit in the back-- -By this guy.
Look at the state of his car.
And the first thing I did when I got off was go, "Yeah!"
'Cause I was alive.
I didn't go down though.
-Fucking didn't go down. -You didn't go down.
I'm so glad you're still here.
There's no way that that guy could not have seen me
had he been watching where he was going.
-When he opened the door -What was the first thing he said?
there was smoke billowing out his car because he was smoking in the car.
And there was music blaring, and his phone--
I think he'd just been-- on the phone,
lighting cigarettes, and just bang, hit me in the square in the back.
And he was 12 years old!
Fucked! I'm fucked!
What were you doing with your fucking eyes?
Man, I didn't even see you guys and then, fucking some guy just--
Charley was gonna deck him until he got out,
-and he realized-- he was just a kid. -I was running.
You're so lucky I'm not dead
because hitting a motorcycle in the back is like
-That was -Unbelievably lucky.
I was very elated at the time,
but it's-- When we started riding into Calgary,
I got very frightened about what had happened.
'Cause had I fallen off the bike, I would've been under his car.
There's no question that I would have been
-seriously injured or dead. -Definitely hurt.
Daddy!
Hello, darling.
Oh, my God.
Hello, darling.
Oh, my gosh, you guys have-- You've changed.
Hello, cute one. My darling.
-You've grown a beard. -I've grown a beard. Yeah.
You look gorgeous, you two.
I want it off. I want it off to see you.
-I got-- -Oh, my God. It's so bizarre.
I want to see you, and it's, like, not you because you've got this thing.
And it is you.
Hello.
Meeting the Orange County chopper guys
and realizing how respectful they were for us,
and these guys are mega, mega guys that you look up to.
You look good. That's you.
-That's me. -That's you.
And the respect that they had for us was pretty high.
And then they said, "Listen, we'll get a couple of friends
who would love to escort you down to New York."
There was, like, 60-- There were 60 bikers.
-I mean, it was fantastic. -It was great.
The first time you saw the Manhattan skyline,
there was New York in front of us.
We did it, New York!
We fucking did it, mate.
-Fucking did it. Fucking did it. -We just did it.
I remember just hearing Ewan crying in his helmet,
and he was really giving it a good blub, and it was making me cry.
We did it, mate.
-Fucking did it. Fucking did it. -We just did it.
-We wanted to do it -And we did it.
We planned to do it, and we just did it.
We arrived here at 2:00,
which is when we said we'd be here on the 29th of July.
Ten a penny.
It can't not be life-changing when you've done that,
you know what I mean?
When you've ridden a motorbike round the world. It's extraordinary.
It's extraordinary.
I forget that I did it some days, which is really sad,
but other times I go, "Jesus."
Hopefully it's made me, you know, a better person.
It's certainly made my relationship with my wife far stronger.
It's hard not to look back a year later and not feel really emotional about it.
You grow up as a kid during the Cold War, and you just keep hearing about how,
you know, Russians are the enemy or whatever, and
you know, it's hard to believe that.
They're some of the sweetest, kindest, you know, most giving, loving people.
I mean, a lot of people say to me, like, "Has it changed your life?"
And, you know, the answer is for sure, yes.
And I personally think, you know, it hasn't quite sort of sunk into me.
I try harder to not let things simmer away, to--
If there's a problem, to have the courage to just go and deal with it.
I think I do that more than I did before I went on the trip.
I do.
The one nice thing was to realize
the world is actually really small.
You know, you just take a bike, and you drive around,
and that was quite surprising.
Coming back here afterwards has been really difficult.
Just to see how materialistic people are
and know that you can find happiness without all the bullshit.
And, really, Hollywood in particular is so full of bullshit.
Out of both of us, Charley's life has completely changed. It's brilliant.
-Isn't it? -It has, yeah.
Now working towards doing the Paris Dakar, and it's amazing.
When anyone suggested it might be a life-changing experience,
Charley was very quick to go, "Oh, rubbish! It's not life-changing.
It's just a couple of wankers going round the world on bikes,"
I believe you said at one point.
No one, I don't think, had actually stopped to think,
"How well is this gonna be received?"
And of course it all went out, I think, you know,
towards the end of October in 2004.
And that's when the feedback started coming in, the telephone calls.
"Did you know that you've just gone straight into the top ten of the books,
and that the DVD went platinum,
that the ratings on Sky One were excellent,
and that the ratings on Bravo were very good in the States?"
God, it's extraordinary 'cause we just did it because we wanted a record, didn't we,
of what we were doing?
And anything you do, you hope that you do a good job
and that if it's a success, that's the payoff.
Oh, well done, mate.
It's the opportunity of a lifetime,
and I think everyone realized that, you know?
And I think people respected it.
More than anybody saying that I shouldn't do it,
people were kind of
admirative about it.
Admirative?
I think people really admired me for doing it.
What a laugh though, hey? What a laugh that was.