#1410 - Ash Dykes

[0] Do you think of salt lamp's real?

[1] Do you think that thing does anything?

[2] I don't know how much you'd need, hey.

[3] Well, it keeps, it's got a hat on it.

[4] So it's not being taken too seriously.

[5] And that's actually a big one.

[6] You get a lot smaller than that, don't you?

[7] Yeah, I saw that one.

[8] That was the biggest one you could find on Amazon.

[9] So I got that.

[10] Yeah.

[11] Because I'm a glutton.

[12] I like big things, big salt rocks.

[13] Why the hell not?

[14] Yeah, why not?

[15] I'm like, I want a big one.

[16] Do it.

[17] It's very, very flashy.

[18] Do you think that does anything, though?

[19] I don't know.

[20] Good question.

[21] It's it just lets the air off and just breathing and the natural salts on you.

[22] It helps with the sleep as well.

[23] How is it doing that?

[24] It's just by being in the room?

[25] Maybe I should have them everywhere.

[26] Well, isn't it the light underneath as well?

[27] So the light, the heat from the light?

[28] The heat sets off.

[29] The heat sets off the air, I believe so.

[30] Sounds like horseshit, right?

[31] I've studied it.

[32] Could be.

[33] Could be a little bit.

[34] Yeah, it looks good though, right?

[35] So you asked me before if if you were the first Welshman?

[36] Yes.

[37] I think you are.

[38] Is that the case?

[39] Jamie, do you know if that's the case?

[40] Somebody might have snuck in and didn't tell us.

[41] There we go, yeah.

[42] What is this thing that you brought?

[43] So I thought if I'm the first Welsh person, I've got to bring...

[44] Try to keep this like a fifth from the case.

[45] There we go.

[46] I've got to bring a Welsh dragon for you.

[47] A Welsh dragon.

[48] So this is on our flag in Wales.

[49] It goes back a long time ago since we were like protecting ourselves and pride.

[50] Wow, it's cool.

[51] I don't really know the history, but there we go.

[52] So this is a classic Welsh dragon?

[53] Welsh dragon, yeah.

[54] I think it was named, like, one of the coolest flags in the world.

[55] You just got this big, big raging dragon on a flag.

[56] That is pretty cool.

[57] So I thought if I'm the first Welsh player, I got to bring you a, the red dragon.

[58] Look at it right there.

[59] There's some images of it.

[60] There we go.

[61] Yeah.

[62] Have you been to Wales before?

[63] No. No. How badass is it?

[64] Should I go?

[65] Yeah, beautiful.

[66] It is a good place.

[67] Lots of mountains, right on the coast there as well, of course.

[68] Forests, lakes.

[69] Good for training.

[70] That's where I do all my training.

[71] Yeah?

[72] Hardcore element.

[73] Speaking of training, Ash, tell everybody what you've done.

[74] So I've recently only five months ago, now five and a half months, came back from achieving my third world -first record in walking the entire length of the Yangtze River in China.

[75] So it's the third longest river in the world, the longest to run through a single nation.

[76] So it was 4 ,000 miles.

[77] It took 352 days.

[78] And it's from the Tibetan Plateau in the west of China.

[79] So you're talking 5 ,100 meters above sea level.

[80] which is equivalent to Everest Base Camp, and yeah, 4 ,000 miles later, 352 days you end up near Shanghai, where it pours out into the East China Sea.

[81] You know what I thought, when I heard that you did this, I thought two things.

[82] One, I thought, this guy's insane.

[83] Like, what kind of willpower does it take to walk and hike 4 ,000 -plus miles?

[84] But the other thing I thought is this kind of validates a lot of the ideas that people have always had about human beings migrating from Africa and through Siberia, Yeah, and do the bearing straight.

[85] Like, if you can do that, what you did, what you did is not dissimilar, you know.

[86] That's it.

[87] Yeah.

[88] You've got trails all over the world.

[89] And you're just doing it for a world record.

[90] Imagine if you're doing it because you're trying to stay alive.

[91] You're trying to keep your family alive.

[92] Yeah, yeah.

[93] I'll tell you what.

[94] Yeah, we would have had.

[95] Oh, there's so much, so much history in journeys that man can kind of taken on since.

[96] Wow.

[97] I'm reading Sapien at the minute.

[98] Oh, it's great.

[99] I only just started.

[100] But that's just mind -boggling.

[101] with the numbers, you know?

[102] It takes it right back and it's like, whoa, whoa.

[103] But, yeah, so the source of the Yanksi, it was actually only discovered in 2009, the true and scientific source.

[104] Yeah, that gives us, we had to do two, it took over two years of planning.

[105] So it was a case of working heavily in China, finding out whether this had ever been done before.

[106] It talked, we had to get different teams involved globally.

[107] And then we discovered that I was always, I was always preparing to go from the traditional source, source, which is most famous for the source of the Yangtze River would be in there.

[108] But then we only discovered about a year into the planning that actually there's a true and scientific source found by the same guy who mapped the traditional source, yet he partnered up with NASA, used all the satellite technology, was able to correct his wrong.

[109] It's slightly longer than the traditional source.

[110] And that was it.

[111] We're like, right, it's got to be the true and scientific source.

[112] How much longer is it?

[113] It's probably only a distance of 20 to 30 miles, which that's only really.

[114] really a day's trek, but it was more close to Tibet.

[115] It was more southwest of China, so it was closer to the Tibetan border, which means it's a little bit more sensitive.

[116] So it was tougher to go from the true and scientific source, for sure.

[117] But it's the longer one.

[118] If you're going to walk that distance, you've got to do it the proper way.

[119] Yeah, I agree with you.

[120] I'm glad you think that way.

[121] But obviously, a person that's willing to walk 4 ,000 miles would think that way.

[122] You wouldn't skip on 20 miles.

[123] Can you imagine if you skipped on 20 miles and everybody's like, well, you did it pretty good job but actually Mike over here just did the whole thing exactly yeah scientific one he's the real one well that's happened that happened towards the end as well so coming up near Shanghai there's an official point of where the Yangtzee pours into the East China Sea and they're like you know you only have to go to this this point I'm like no I'm walking to where the land ends so that took me an extra only an extra couple of days but can imagine finishing it's like oh you didn't quite make it did you you were close we didn't quite make it so what is the feeling like when you know you only have two days left.

[124] Oh, man. Well, we were hit by storm, stormed akima.

[125] So it was one of the biggest storms they've had in the past 30 years.

[126] And that put me into hiding, you know, I had to shelter up after everything that I faced over 350 days, you know.

[127] And that stopped me only a couple of days before I crossed into the East China Sea before the finish.

[128] But at that point, it's almost I had visualized the completion over and over again in my head I'd played it so many times of what it would be like, what it would feel like, everything to cross the finish line that almost when that day happened and I did cross the finish line, I almost over -vigilized.

[129] I didn't feel anything.

[130] It's just like, well, so it's about damn time, you know?

[131] Wow.

[132] Yeah.

[133] And I believe, you know, the law of attraction, visualization, I've always been a big believer in that.

[134] And same with Mongolia and Madagascar, which were my previous expeditions.

[135] I almost lost my life on both of those trips.

[136] At a time that I'm suffering, I'm just constantly visualizing.

[137] You know, I was focusing on recovering, getting better, visualizing the finish, keep getting up, keep pushing on.

[138] I want to get to that, I want to get to those.

[139] But I want to ask you, when you decide to plan this trip, so how much had you learned from the first two crazy trips that you had?

[140] And how did you calculate, like, how much food you're going to need, where are you going to meet, meet pit stops, where you're going to be able to, like, how did you do it?

[141] So with that, we're always looking for communities along, on a long route, you know, if there's a community, there's food.

[142] And so, and actually that brings me back to the traditional and the true scientific source.

[143] If we went from the traditional, we'd go maybe one week or one and a half weeks without coming across any locals, so we'd have to carry a week and a half worth of ration packs in our backpack.

[144] But there's true and scientific source sent us back.

[145] I think it was two or three weeks we couldn't find any community along the way via satellite and via the people that we were there are my logistics managers so that meant we need to carry craziest way to try to visit people yeah find them through satellite as you're trekking through a forest and then try to get food that's it and we're always maximizing it as well so we're saying okay that's three weeks so let's carry food for three and a half for four weeks because if that community is now empty or abandoned then we're out of food what are you carrying for food I would carry ration packs So, and the ration packs were pretty good.

[146] We had like chicken chicken masala, spaghetti bolognese, carbonara, and each ration pack was around 800 kilo -calories.

[147] And are you using, like, hot, are these dehydrated?

[148] Yeah, that's it.

[149] So you just boil the water.

[150] And you pour it in there?

[151] You wait about 15 minutes.

[152] It's like a mountain house, like that kind of a deal?

[153] Yeah, yeah, similar.

[154] That's it.

[155] Wow, you must be so looking forward to regular food by the time that's over.

[156] Oh, what's the first thing you ate?

[157] Oh, you know, the one that I was protein The one that I was craving was just protein So I was thinking of peanut butter Thinking of cheese on toast Because you had just mostly carbohydrates Yeah, exactly So I was like chicken as well It was a big thing I was just craving all of this big time But I don't know what the first thing I It's funny how your body knows what you need Exactly, yeah, you've got to listen to your body Haven't you got to listen It's hard to listen I mean, it's hard to know I'm not really sure what I hear You know you had an odd craving Sometimes I'm craving I'm supposed to listen listen, just have ice cream?

[158] That seems weird.

[159] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[160] It seems weird just listening to your cravings.

[161] That seems ridiculous.

[162] Yeah, and I think, yeah, no, you're right, it does.

[163] I think almost listening to, you've got to be stripped of all the, all of the protein and what not running for your body currently having you.

[164] I think if you're full, you're craving ice cream, you know, if you feel, you want a dessert.

[165] But I think if you're now at the point of not starvation, but if you're really hungry and you know what's good, what's not good, I think your body gives a good tail sign of what.

[166] You can, at the last month of Mission Yanksi, I was really bad.

[167] I was coming across cities every day.

[168] Because you can imagine, like towards Shanghai, you're coming across cities, you're coming across towns, communities.

[169] And so I was just craving protein.

[170] I was craving fats.

[171] And a lot of the time, for that last month, I was just eating really unhealthy.

[172] Just getting in stodgy foods, stodgy fat, protein.

[173] You know, there was fast food chains along the way, KFC, you know, that sort of month of it.

[174] Yes, I was out of the wilderness was like six months worth.

[175] Once I'd finished the first half, it was gradual for then another two or three months.

[176] But the last three months, you're going through city after city, all really built up high population there.

[177] And I found that my body was crazy.

[178] So I was listening to my body, scraping fat, scraving protein.

[179] And yeah, you're right, it did get ridiculous.

[180] I was going to these, you know, fast food.

[181] And the translation, I could speak Chinese a little bit.

[182] I was just going to ask you that.

[183] I could get by.

[184] You know, when you say Chinese, like which dialect?

[185] Oh, there's over 100 dialects, yeah.

[186] So that's where it got difficult.

[187] Oh, no. So even, yeah, it was nails.

[188] It was nails, really difficult.

[189] Did you speak Mandarin?

[190] What do you speak?

[191] Did you speak?

[192] Where do you speak?

[193] Where are the Mandarin?

[194] It is.

[195] Yeah, yeah, enough to just about get by.

[196] But I skipped all of the basics and went straight into the sentences.

[197] I don't ever want to hear.

[198] And where are the wolves?

[199] Not are there wolves here.

[200] Where are they?

[201] Fucked, man. And you're out there walking.

[202] Yeah.

[203] For a year?

[204] Yeah.

[205] That's it.

[206] And for the first six months, especially.

[207] So the first six months is mostly hiking in the woods?

[208] It's hiking in the wilderness on the Tibetan plateau.

[209] Are you carrying your camp on your back?

[210] Yeah.

[211] So you have a bivisack?

[212] Like, what do you sleep in?

[213] That's a tent.

[214] So we had this really lightweight sort of kai last tent.

[215] Get it up stormproof.

[216] It's amazing how light they can get those down things to now.

[217] It was great.

[218] It was great.

[219] We needed it because I had to carry all of the, we were filming for a documentary, so I had to carry electronics and got too heavy.

[220] Now, do you, when you're in this tent, do you go with a double -layer tent so you provides more insulation and it's a little heavier, or do you have like a really lightweight tent and just try to tough it out in the cold?

[221] We have, I had a double layer, but that's because the double layer was just so small and so light.

[222] Yeah.

[223] And it was a case of, yeah, you know, that's your comfort, that's your shelter.

[224] Right, right, right, right.

[225] And I'm going to be facing some big storms.

[226] Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

[227] I was like you'd sacrifice probably the weight for just something that's going to keep you insulated in there.

[228] That's it, yeah, for sure.

[229] Do you have a pad that protects you from the ground?

[230] Yeah, so I had a little sleep.

[231] And then a mattress pad on top of that?

[232] Yeah, we've got the pad, like the waterproof pad on the ground from the tent.

[233] Right.

[234] And then we've got a sleeping mat, maybe about this, this thick, about it, a half an inch to an inch thickness.

[235] and then I had a minus 25 or minus 30 degree Celsius sleeping bag and what that is in in Fahrenheit.

[236] But that was a, you know, you got toasty inside.

[237] It could be minus 20.

[238] What is the issue with the ground though?

[239] Like, do you have to have an insulated pad to make sure that the ground cold doesn't get to you?

[240] Yeah, for sure.

[241] That's what the sleeping mud is.

[242] So it's sort of you can roll it down.

[243] It's really small, really tight, really lightweight as well.

[244] But once you roll it out, it's got like, foam almost inside something similar and you have to to to to to blow in it pump it up a little bit more i see only takes 10 20 breaths um easy to pack away as well it protects you from the cold of the ground and it protects from there because that's what you need you know yeah the ground just dude i've never been comfortable camping it's always just like it's always like you wake up like popping yeah yeah you're awake you made it but still you feel weird yeah you can do you do get used to it yeah but um and Especially after the trekking, we were covering 50 kilometers some days.

[245] We were covering about 20, 25 miles, especially in the Tibetan Plateau.

[246] So after that day's trek, only two ration packs per day.

[247] So you're taking 1 ,600 calories.

[248] That's not a lot.

[249] It's not a lot.

[250] And we were carrying 30.

[251] How much weight did you lose?

[252] I probably, and I've still lost weight now at about 13, 12 to 13 kilograms, I would say in weight, which over the year was I lost the same amount in Mongolia.

[253] like 32 pounds something it's about 32 is it 32 pounds yeah so um wow that's a lot of weight to lose you're not a big guy yeah that's it fuck man that must have been you must have been really drawn out at the end big time although it kind of worked itself out because towards the end i was coming across more food didn't need my my ration packs of course so i was coming across more um restaurants i can collect food as i as i go it's not solo an unsupported journey um so i was just utilised and i was eating with the locals and i was you know, taking as much calories down as I possibly could whilst I was tracking.

[254] Did you pick, like, the type of meals based on calories?

[255] Did you, like, when I'm talking about, like, the Mountain House type deals or I don't know what company you used, what kind of?

[256] Oh, yeah, Expedition Foods, I think it was that I used.

[257] So they have different ones that are more nutrient rich and more calorie rich.

[258] Yeah, they have the smaller, light ones as well, which you get about 600 calories.

[259] They are smaller.

[260] They are lighter, easier to pack, but I need it as much as I could possibly get, you know, Yeah, they have a bunch of healthy options now because a lot of Crossfitters are out there camping these days.

[261] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

[262] They want to get that healthy paleo food while they're out there in the mountain.

[263] But what's undeniable has got to be for you is that once you've made those steps, the first steps for the first day, you have this monumental thing in front of you.

[264] Yeah.

[265] Like, what was that like knowing when you started?

[266] Like, here, ready?

[267] All right, bye, bye, bye.

[268] See me here.

[269] Oh, my door.

[270] Yeah, it was exactly that.

[271] It was daunting.

[272] It was, so before we got to the source of the Yangtze River, we lost, I think, four members.

[273] When I say lost, they survived, but they got altitude sickness.

[274] They were fearing for their lives because of the bears, because of the wolves.

[275] So before we reached day number one, before we reached the start line, we've already got four members of the film crew of guides, evacuated, taken off the mountains, which brought me off the mountains as well, because I needed to regroup with a different team.

[276] So everyone was scared and people also got altitude sickness.

[277] That's it.

[278] How high are you up there?

[279] We are just over 5 ,000 meters.

[280] Oh my God.

[281] Yeah, so it's equivalent to Everest Base Camp, I'd say.

[282] Oh, my God.

[283] Which you can get altitude sickness from.

[284] That's really fucking high.

[285] That's 15 ,000 feet, right?

[286] It's about that, yeah.

[287] Yeah.

[288] And there's wolves up there?

[289] There's wolves.

[290] Yeah, there's bears.

[291] You can't even run.

[292] You got no air.

[293] Yeah.

[294] What, how help us would you feel at 15 ,000 feet when you see a pack of wool?

[295] Oh, man. Yeah.

[296] And they're looking at you like, hey, you don't look too good, buddy.

[297] It's the bears that scared me the most.

[298] Oh, they should scare you the most.

[299] You can't do anything against a bear, can you?

[300] You can't do anything against a wolf?

[301] Yeah, you can't do anything against a wolf.

[302] Especially at 15 ,000 feet.

[303] Exactly.

[304] And a pack of them as well.

[305] Oh, my God.

[306] Yeah.

[307] Yeah.

[308] And we can't carry any weaponry.

[309] No?

[310] Oh, great.

[311] Yeah.

[312] Oh, sitting duck.

[313] Really?

[314] You can't carry any weaponry?

[315] Yeah.

[316] You can't even have a knife?

[317] I tried.

[318] I took a knife out.

[319] Did I say, yeah, I took a knife out, but it was taken from me in security, flying out to the west.

[320] So I bought another one in Yushu.

[321] Yeah, I did have a knife for the first month or two, yeah.

[322] But again, a pack of wolves.

[323] Yeah, you ain't going to do shit with a little baby -ass knife.

[324] They're going to rip your ankles apart.

[325] That's it.

[326] That's it.

[327] They tear your legs apart.

[328] Yeah.

[329] Wolves are the nastiest hunters.

[330] Big time.

[331] And we had close encounter as well with a pack.

[332] Yeah, there was a Tibetan.

[333] He was trying to warn us.

[334] He was trying to say, well, this is my angle.

[335] We were just talking to him.

[336] He looked a little bit worried.

[337] It looked a little bit of stress.

[338] We were high on the mountains.

[339] He keeps pointing down at a valley talking to his into Tibetan.

[340] We didn't understand.

[341] We just sort of waved.

[342] Oh, thank you, bye.

[343] Big smile.

[344] Off we go.

[345] Say, it was me and my friend also videographer Kyle.

[346] We cracked on, but Kyle filmed all of that conversation.

[347] And four months later, we found out that from a group.

[348] a girl from my editor team in Beijing who could speak Tibetan that he was saying right ahead, right down that valley is a pack of wolves and only yesterday they'd killed a local lady and trying to, you know, they were trying to get us not to go down there saying don't go.

[349] But we didn't know, so we're like, oh yeah, well the best, thanks, see ya.

[350] And we cracked on and for the next two days we were followed, we believe we were followed by, or stalked by a pack of wolves.

[351] Oh my God.

[352] And they cover bigger distance then, then humans cover, you know, two days.

[353] They were just howling the same proximity, same distance away.

[354] Fuck -dy -fuck, fuck, fuck.

[355] How do you go to sleep at night?

[356] What's that life?

[357] Yeah, it was luckily it was windy.

[358] The wind would pick up at night time, so it would rattle your tent so you couldn't hear the howling.

[359] You could only hear it during the day.

[360] But yeah, you still stood there, your knives, there, you're constantly shouting over to your buddy.

[361] Are you worried that you're just going to become a burrito in the middle of the night?

[362] A tent burrito.

[363] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[364] It was scary.

[365] I felt vulnerable, really vulnerable up there.

[366] Fuck, bro.

[367] And the local...

[368] How many days were you doing this with the wolves?

[369] So it was two days that they were following us, but we were in sort of Wolf County, if you like, for the best part of two or three months, I would say.

[370] Oh!

[371] With the bears as well.

[372] And the bears became an issue because I sort of went out there with a healthy mindset.

[373] As long as I leave the bears alone, the bears are going to leave me alone, right?

[374] But the locals were telling me otherwise, and they would start showing me photos, start showing me videos and sending me clips saying this happened only one, two kilometers away from where you are now.

[375] People were killed by bears.

[376] People were killed, just running into, Huts, killing families, and they were trying to say that they're coming off the mountains because it's too cold.

[377] They're looking for calories before they go into hibernation.

[378] So we were there in the wrong season.

[379] And it's that, that terrified us the most.

[380] It was the stories of the locals.

[381] And, you know, if the locals panic, then you should definitely be panicking, as what I always say.

[382] There's a lot of parts of the world where you have to be really worried about wild animals all the time.

[383] Yeah.

[384] We here in America, for whatever reason we've forgotten that, I think everybody that lives in a big city is basically kind of forgotten that.

[385] Yeah, yeah.

[386] But when you make that trek, you realize, like, oh, there's no rules out here.

[387] They'll eat you.

[388] That's it.

[389] They'll eat every.

[390] They'll eat a caribou.

[391] They'll eat a moose.

[392] Why wouldn't they eat you?

[393] What do they think you're special?

[394] They don't even know what the fuck you are.

[395] That's it.

[396] It's probably the only thing that keeps you alive is they haven't eaten a person lately.

[397] Yeah.

[398] And you said caribou, they can take the bears big enough to just, caribou, like moose.

[399] Yeah.

[400] Moose are huge as well.

[401] My friend watched a moose kill or excuse me watched a bear kill a moose on a spotting scope he was looking through a spotting scope and he saw a bear swat down the back of a moose just break its back it's back terrifying he said the grizzly hit the moose so hard it snapped its back and I'm like what the power they're sheer a moose and a bear and they are big on the moose a huge yeah this bear swatted that thing and broke its back and he said he watched it go down he watched this chase there's like this altercation between this bear and the moose and he stayed on it and the bear gets a hold of the moose and just fucking swats it the moose is like i gotta get the fuck out of here and the bear's like bitch you're going nowhere yeah yeah those animals are up there in china too yeah they're a very similar type of bear right it's a type of brown bear isn't it type of brown bear yeah you've got the big ones here haven't you the probably grisleys in alaska not here they killed them all in california everything that they had yeah that was here in california it's on our flag it's our state flag If you look at the California State flag, there's a giant grizzly bear in the middle of the California State flag.

[402] No way.

[403] Yeah, because it used to be an issue here.

[404] Got you.

[405] They killed so many people that we just killed all the bears.

[406] Not wait.

[407] I wasn't here.

[408] Got you.

[409] Wow.

[410] I didn't know that, yeah.

[411] So the further north now are they?

[412] That's it right there.

[413] Yeah.

[414] They're nowhere near here.

[415] You've got to go up into like Vancouver.

[416] British Columbia has them.

[417] British Columbia has a lot of bears.

[418] They have Montana has them.

[419] Montana has grizzlies.

[420] Wyoming has grizzlies.

[421] Colorado may or may not.

[422] My friend Adam saw them there, but they're not in California anymore.

[423] It's just because they killed them.

[424] There's actually a town named after the last guy who died.

[425] Lavec, California.

[426] The last guy who got killed by a grizzly bear.

[427] Just out hunting, was it all?

[428] Just probably being a dude that was alive back then.

[429] Yeah, man, terrifying.

[430] So you experienced this in China.

[431] Yeah.

[432] What are your precautions?

[433] Are you allowed to bring bear spray?

[434] So we had an air horn.

[435] We had a whistle.

[436] Oh, Jesus.

[437] A whistle.

[438] A whistle, yeah.

[439] So they say that the biggest attacks happen from where a Tibetan's out farming, doing their business in the mountains, they're in the forest and they surprise.

[440] They come up the top of the hill.

[441] There's a bear there.

[442] And obviously the bear's shocked, it's scared, and it just attacks.

[443] Yeah, that does happen with bears in America as well.

[444] That's it, yeah.

[445] So they would say pretty much take a whistle, take an hour, make yourself aware, well, make the bear aware that you're present, you're approaching.

[446] And normally they would be, they would, you know, scare off, they'd run away.

[447] but there was a local that told me that so they have these big Tibetamastives.

[448] Have you seen those Tibetamastos?

[449] Yes.

[450] The dogs that guard the lives are terrifying.

[451] More of a problem than the wolves they were for me because they can scare away the wolves.

[452] They scare away snow leopids, the bears.

[453] But this one local was telling me that he wasn't living in his gur which is like a white felt tent like a yurt.

[454] He was living in a concrete hut.

[455] And he had a courtyard with a fence.

[456] The fence was open, but just outside the fence It's the Tabetta mast have chained up.

[457] And he said that this bear wasn't phased about the Tabetta Mast if it walked straight past it into the courtyard and was scratching at a steel door whilst he was hiding in one of his empty cupboards.

[458] And it lasted about 30, 40 minutes and he was telling me this story.

[459] And I'm like, I'm in a tent.

[460] Oh, my God.

[461] It's scratching against a steel door and I'm just in a tent in the wilderness.

[462] Fuck, man. They're monsters.

[463] If they weren't a real thing, if grizzly bears or brown bears weren't real, and then they were in a movie, you'd be like, what?

[464] Imagine that poor guy.

[465] And imagine you, like, someone would ask someone like you, like, why in the world, if you know they're there, would you're going to want to walk for that long in bear country?

[466] Yeah, well, that's it.

[467] How many people are with you?

[468] Towards the start, so it was myself.

[469] It was two guides that I had, Tibetan guides.

[470] So we can even communicate.

[471] Oh.

[472] But safety in numbers.

[473] And we took a horse for the film crew, but the film crew got altitude signals.

[474] and left us with the horse, which I named Casta Choy.

[475] Have you ever seen the movie face off?

[476] Yes.

[477] The badass Castor Choi.

[478] Oh, that's hilarious.

[479] I've got this thing where I name, like, my bicycles, or like carried a chicken.

[480] We'll get to that.

[481] Carried a chicken in Madagascar.

[482] I've been giving them old, crazy, ridiculous granny names.

[483] And I was like, this horse is the last one standing whilst my crew, my guides, has suffering with altitude sickness and being taken off the mountains.

[484] You've got this horse, still suffering with altitude sickness.

[485] Never knew that.

[486] But apparently horses can animals.

[487] can suffer with altitude sickness but he's there like a bad ass still going so it's just me and him and I'm like can't give you a granny's name like elder or dot or gertrude and giving you castor joy from face off that's hilarious yeah yeah we've made fun of that movie multiple times like the preposterous nature of switching faces you look exactly like nicholas cage now man so the people come with you in the beginning and then do they stay with you the entire trip yeah we we hoped so uh no sorry so it'd be so the first two guides that i had got altitude sickness as well as the film crew i came off the mountains uh i found two new guides who were willing to to join me about 50 % now the uk team and the china team was saying you know abandoned the expedition start against start again so yeah try again next year because it was getting too close into winter season how many days did you already walked we hadn't reached the start point yet oh so we had we I think it was four days it took for us to get to the start point.

[488] But just before we reached the start point, that's when the film crew got altitude sickness, we sent them home.

[489] And then the next day, my guide, he was vomiting, he had nose bleed.

[490] We had to get him off the mountains too.

[491] So we left the horse with some local nomads, got him off the mountains, regrouped with a different team, and tried again.

[492] So our first attempt towards the source was a fail.

[493] We regrouped.

[494] It was myself.

[495] It was two guides.

[496] It was the horse.

[497] And we eventually finally made it to the source.

[498] It was just it was on that gap in a nearby city of regrouping with a new team with new guides that my team in the UK and China were like saying I think it's best if you if you hold back and we try against next year because you'll be in the in the Tibetan plateau during the depths of winter which drops to about minus 30 minus 40 degrees Celsius which was a worry but I believe that we could get off the mountains it was the altitude that was the problem down into low.

[499] lower altitude before the deaths of water.

[500] And for people who don't know the conversion, I think that's where it meets in the middle, at negative 40, is where Celsius and Fahrenheit is the same.

[501] Right.

[502] Okay.

[503] So people in this country use Fahrenheit.

[504] A lot of us, you say Celsius, we're like, uh, Yeah, minus 40 degrees Celsius.

[505] I think minus 40 and minus 40 Fahrenheit are the same.

[506] Oh, yeah, really?

[507] I think that's where it hits the button.

[508] Got you.

[509] What's it say there, Jamie?

[510] So minus...

[511] Minus Celsius is minus 22 Fahrenheit?

[512] You're right, go to minus 40.

[513] I think minus 40 is right where it is.

[514] no no minus 40 yeah yeah see got you that's where it's exactly the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit there we are it's a weird thing yeah yeah yeah how the fuck does that happen yeah how is it the same thing like you're never the same thing yeah like how you become the same thing like who's got the wonky system is that minus one four or minus 40 it becomes the same there we go very weird minus 40 Fahrenheit yeah right because it showed like 40 Celsius it's very hot right right it's like 100 plus degrees yeah yeah yeah yeah 40 plus 45 you're melting that's a straw but minus 40 is the same yeah what the fuck is going on here with who's got the wacky what's 40 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit then um 40 degrees Celsius is probably 100 because we will come to that what is it 104 yeah 104 yeah 104 yeah it's hot yeah weird melting now what kind of are you guys taking with you in terms of like are you taking a jet boil are you taking just matches are you hoping to find wood are you trying to stay light do you have a lightweight stove like what do you so we took a lightweight stove along with us we took flint with us as well uh matches and a lighter no no uh jet boil or anything like that because you wouldn't be able to refill i'm probably yeah what we had actually we had a uh um a bottle that connects to the stove and with that bottle you can either fill it up with gasoline but you can also use vodka whiskey and you can run off the vapors you get pumping up uh pump the bottle the vapors leak out sparks a flame and you're good to go really yeah so that's what i talk especially in mongolia um just get how you're russian russian vodka oh that's wild so you're drinking vodka just to like people think you're a drunk you're really just trying to stay alive out there in the wilderness yeah you're not drinking it you use it to fuel How much does it, like, is it efficient?

[515] Like, the use of vodka?

[516] Like, how much vodka does it take to cook your meal?

[517] Luckily, I didn't need to try it.

[518] That was just a precaution that we took.

[519] I always carried enough gasoline with me. Because by using the vodka or the whiskey, it does ruin the stove.

[520] Oh, I see, I see.

[521] It, like, blocks the small hole that sparks the flame.

[522] And you don't want that when you're in the middle of the wilderness.

[523] Isn't that funny?

[524] You would think that, like, if anything, Gasoline would be more fucked up.

[525] Yeah, you would.

[526] That's it.

[527] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[528] Yeah.

[529] It's probably because it's not all alcohol, right?

[530] Yeah.

[531] There's a bunch of other shit in there.

[532] It's got to be.

[533] It's got to be.

[534] But if you had rubbing alcohol, like pure rubbing alcohol, it'll probably burn even better, right?

[535] Yeah, potentially.

[536] Hey, you would have thought so.

[537] Yeah.

[538] This whole idea that you had to do this, how much encouragement did you get from people that you told the story to?

[539] And how many people are like, you can't do this.

[540] You're going to die up there.

[541] I'd say a health.

[542] mix.

[543] For those who had seen the previous adventures that I had done, they had hope, they held hope.

[544] They had faith in you.

[545] Yeah, they had faith.

[546] Come on.

[547] Surely he's got this.

[548] They knew you'd already accomplished two amazing things.

[549] That's it.

[550] And it was never done recklessly.

[551] First, it was never really done for the record.

[552] There was always environmental angle, sustainability, awareness, etc. But it's also the planning.

[553] So I used to do really reckless stuff.

[554] We'll get to that.

[555] But now it's meticulous plan.

[556] It's the details.

[557] Looking at what can go wrong, but also learning how you can possibly overcome it to make it back home.

[558] A good cliffhanger.

[559] I'm glad we're going to get to that.

[560] Yeah.

[561] Let that sit for a second.

[562] Yeah.

[563] But when you're walking, what kind of equipment are you using?

[564] Are using a GPS?

[565] And if so, do you have solar panels that you're using to gather electricity?

[566] Yeah.

[567] Like, what are you doing?

[568] So, yeah, we would take solar panels.

[569] So we had solar panels.

[570] We had a couple of power banks.

[571] So we'd use the solar panels to charge the power bank.

[572] And then that will charge like the, the GPS, the cameras.

[573] Can I ask you how you do that?

[574] Are you putting it on the back of your backpack as you walk?

[575] That's it.

[576] Yeah, we would strap it to the top of the rucksack.

[577] Okay.

[578] And, you know, Mongolia especially is known as the Eternal Land of Blue Sky.

[579] And where I was, wasn't too far.

[580] So we did have a lot of Blue Sky, decent sun rays, as able to charge the power bank.

[581] And that power bank could last up to about a week and a half of charging, depending on how I use it and more charging.

[582] So it was really, really useful.

[583] that's incredible so when you're walking like how much does it take what is the milleramp hour in the so what is it um i think i think i studied it by how many charges i can get from the iphone so i think it was seven or eight or eight charges from zero percent on the iphone to a hundred percent seven to eight straight charges and that sometimes requires quite a bit sometimes i was just charging the gopro or the little satellite um satellite phone and you're able to get that full charge just from that solar panel and how long just from the power bank yeah the solar panel would take a good while to charge up the the power bank so what i did is a good while a couple days i'd say a couple a couple of uh a couple of days to get to 100 percent yeah for sure for sure 25 to 30 percent per day i think it was that's interesting so it seems like you could almost get everything you need just in while you're walking every day that's it yeah like you're right there if the days are good you know if we've got access to blue sky but I talk um does it work at all when it's cloudy it does but painfully slow pay like maybe after an hour you've bumped up a percent how crazy is the idea though they're stealing energy out of the sky amazing yeah the sun the energy of the sun is powering your phone that's it that's it I want to do it that way just to do it that way it just sounds so badass yeah and that's the yeah exactly exactly that's the way the world's moving Yeah, the energy of the sun powering your phone.

[584] I mean, the world just needs more efficient ways to use solar, and they're going to get better at it for sure.

[585] Yeah, big time.

[586] It's far better than it used to be.

[587] I was shocked to see it all over China as well, actually.

[588] So you're, I would imagine, right?

[589] There's a lot of rural places in particular that don't really have too much access to the grid.

[590] Yeah.

[591] Yeah.

[592] So when you're traveling around, you've got, are you using the phone as your GPS or do you have a standalone GPS unit?

[593] So with China, I'm.

[594] was using like the GPS and that would keep me like a garment or something yeah got an in -reach denoumy it was yeah that's the one you can communicate with people right with that one you can send text only right yeah but i did i took a navarino um satellite phone sat phone and that would allow for calls and that got me out of a lot of a lot of difficult situations many times were you ever in a situation you're like i think these people are going to rob us um i was wrong robbed in Mongolia, but in China, no. You got robbed in Mongolia?

[595] What happened?

[596] They stole my solar panel.

[597] Really?

[598] They did it so politely, so nicely.

[599] They just came over.

[600] They were visiting with them, eating my ration pack.

[601] They brought some food and some tea over.

[602] We were all sat out in the sun.

[603] And at one point, they would have slid my solar panel under my tent, and I didn't see it.

[604] So when it came for me to pack everything back into my tent, which I did, put my head down, fell asleep.

[605] And then I all of a sudden felt like nudging on the tent.

[606] and something was yanked from underneath it.

[607] And I just started, hello.

[608] And then someone was just running away.

[609] And I thought, oh, maybe he came to say hi, and I've just scared him off, not realizing, but then the next morning, I realized the solar panel's missing.

[610] And then whilst I was trekking, I clicked and thought, okay, very clever.

[611] It had another 10.

[612] Came back a few hours later at dark, took it from underneath and ran.

[613] So now what do you do?

[614] Without a fucking solar panel?

[615] Yeah, I had a spare.

[616] Because at that point, I took a trailer, and the trailer weighed about 120 kilograms of everything that I had in it, which is about £260.

[617] And so, yeah, with that journey, I made sure I had backups.

[618] How are you moving the trailer?

[619] So, yeah, so with Mongolia, it's just strapped with me. It's like a four -point harness.

[620] What?

[621] On wheels.

[622] So you're not just walking 4 ,000 miles.

[623] You're walking 4 ,000 miles or 260 pounds behind you?

[624] This is a whole different expedition.

[625] Oh.

[626] Yeah, so this takes out.

[627] When it came to Robin, there was nothing in China.

[628] Okay, this is the, that's right.

[629] okay so that's that but in china no i had difficult situations with the authorities with the police they were trying to get bribes no they were just i was in a sensitive area you know to get to the source the planning it took over two years so i needed government support i needed national park access i needed um um and a green development foundation which is like an organization to make me ambassador had to make me doctor for a year to be able to get all of this access that when I went through the motions of getting these different organizations on board that would give me access to the authorities and allow me to get to the source it was it was my it was blows my mind now it was really really difficult to get off the off the ground but we did that but still we were so close to Tibet that the Tibetan police would would come over and threaten to you know get rid of us and deporters and whatnot so that came as a worry.

[630] But again, I carried 13 different documents or stamped or official or signed.

[631] So I had to show them that.

[632] I had to use the satellite phone calling to the Beijing team, users, translation.

[633] I think that one time they made me delete all of the information, all of the tracked information that I needed for Guinness World Record.

[634] They made me delete that, but luckily it was backed up because they didn't want to have me seen walk in this region.

[635] It was quite sensitive there.

[636] It was like, but I was definitely in China and definitely in in Qinghai province.

[637] Sensitive, how so?

[638] Just because you've got Tibet and you've got China and they're very close to each other.

[639] So I needed to make sure that I was always in, in China.

[640] Sometimes you'd get the police come over to.

[641] Did they think that you were a spy or something?

[642] What did they think?

[643] Yeah, no idea what they thought.

[644] But it came as a shock to them.

[645] They were also very worried for my safety.

[646] So there was that angle as well that they were saying once they found out it was official.

[647] It was legit.

[648] They'd apologize.

[649] They'd actually follow me on the Chinese social media.

[650] you know follow the journey so that was great but after that they did say we are just you know bringing you in for your protection there's bears there's wolves we're not you know westerner out here and i don't know how long so that got tricky and there was one stage where they they said you need to be on the other side of the river so they drove us 40 miles back on our south to a bridge dropped us off on the other side and we had to do those 40 miles all over again that was day six into the journey and we were desperately trying to get off the mountains and now we just dropped back 40.

[651] We had to walk those 40 miles again.

[652] No way around it.

[653] Nightmare.

[654] Fuck, dude.

[655] Fuck.

[656] So, yeah, it was really tricky.

[657] The source around that area, really sensitive.

[658] And then we found that the locals would call the police as well.

[659] They would radio to the next gir, to the next girl, to the next girl, until eventually there was phone signal, and they would call the police.

[660] And the police would often rock up at 2, 3 o 'clock in the morning, just at our tent.

[661] They had the location bang on.

[662] They rocked up, like, what are you doing here?

[663] so we found out that the locals were amazing, very hospitable, but they were worried and they didn't know if they've seen a Westerner.

[664] Do they report it?

[665] Were they in trouble if they don't report it?

[666] So they did.

[667] So it came, it pretty much went from Mission Yanxi to almost Mission Escape and Evade.

[668] We had to escape the sensitive region that we were in, but we had to evade the locals because we realized that it was them calling the police.

[669] That went off for about three weeks.

[670] I would maybe think that you were an escape fugitive, right?

[671] Yeah, yeah.

[672] Because do you think of a fugitive from America or the UK is trying to get away.

[673] Like, what better way to just jump into the middle of nowhere in China and walk?

[674] Yeah, that's it.

[675] Yeah, potentially.

[676] Or just, again, the threat from...

[677] You look like, it could be a fugitive.

[678] Maybe some sort of bank robber type character.

[679] I'd say.

[680] I'd say it.

[681] Guy Ritchie movie.

[682] There we go.

[683] So you are avoiding this sensitive area.

[684] So the sensitive area that's close to the Tibet and the Chinese border.

[685] Did you anticipate any of these things beforehand?

[686] Like, did you guys sit down?

[687] with the team like when you were and do you say okay this could go wrong that's it how many things did you figure could go wrong that didn't so many things that could have gone wrong that luckily didn't this was really sketchy just the yanksi is just known it cuts through a lot of diversity it's a beautiful stunning part one of the beautiful places that I've been but there are all sensitivities there's the elevation there is the the wildlife there's the temperatures as well did you ever see that video of I don't know if the girl's from China or from Japan.

[688] It turned out to be fake, but she's snowboarding and behind her, you see a bear running.

[689] Yeah, I did see that video.

[690] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[691] Is that possible?

[692] It's not, the video's fake.

[693] Where is that in Japan?

[694] It's good question.

[695] I'm not sure.

[696] I think it's Japan, isn't it?

[697] It might be China.

[698] I did see that.

[699] They exist in Japan as well, right?

[700] They do, I believe so.

[701] Can you, Jamie, I'm sorry, I'm double Google asking you.

[702] Yeah, bring that up if you can.

[703] Yeah, it's a fun video to watch.

[704] After that, I want to see a picture.

[705] of that Yangsy river.

[706] So she was oblivious.

[707] I don't think it's real.

[708] I don't think it's real.

[709] I think someone just did some cool shit with CGI, but it looks pretty good.

[710] It looks like if it was in a movie, you'd be like, oh fuck, oh fuck.

[711] Because the girls got headphones on.

[712] She's just fucking rocking out.

[713] Do you see that tiger as well recently?

[714] It was India just sprints across the road and how fast it was going.

[715] See, here it is.

[716] So it's really well made, whoever did it.

[717] It's like she's got a GoPro.

[718] Yeah.

[719] It's on the ground.

[720] And then as she's going down the hill and her snowboard at a certain point in time you look and see a fucking bear and she has no idea and she's laughing and everything's cool and then watch it turns to the side again yeah I think you see the bear one once terrifying and magic yeah that's the second one is where I'm skeptical because it seems like this oh fuck it looks pretty goddamn realistic it looks pretty damn good doesn't it that would be hard to do yeah like the bear just gave up at that point Yeah.

[721] Damn, that chick is flying.

[722] I have never snowboarded.

[723] From what I've heard from my friends, when you snowboard, it's easier to break your head.

[724] Like, you see your feet go up in the air and your head goes down.

[725] Yeah.

[726] It's easier to break your head.

[727] It's difficult, actually, the snowboarder.

[728] It's supposed to be Japan.

[729] It's supposed to be Japan.

[730] Yeah.

[731] I've got that Tiger one.

[732] Tiger one.

[733] There's the one recent.

[734] Did you ever see the one where the dudes, I think he's in India and they're on a bike, like a motorbike?

[735] That's the one that I'm talking about.

[736] Tiger's chasing behind them?

[737] Yeah, yeah.

[738] Have you seen that?

[739] Oh, my God.

[740] It almost gets them.

[741] It almost gets them.

[742] Yeah, it does.

[743] That's definitely not edited.

[744] It's chasing them too.

[745] Dude, that's...

[746] Petrifying that.

[747] That is fucking horrific.

[748] Here we go.

[749] Here it is.

[750] So these guys are on...

[751] Look at this tiger.

[752] Just going for it.

[753] Almost got them.

[754] Almost got them.

[755] No way.

[756] Oh, man. Right about then, that dude...

[757] Imagine the adrenaline right there.

[758] Is wishing he had the cash for a bigger engine.

[759] Br...

[760] Just right there.

[761] Right there is when you...

[762] Oh, my God.

[763] God, what a killing machine.

[764] And so beautiful.

[765] What a fucked -up way to die from, like, the most beautiful thing nature's ever created.

[766] Yeah.

[767] If a tiger wasn't a murderous, horrific predator that definitely eats people, you would look at it and go, it was in a movie, like Avatar or something like that?

[768] A tiger doesn't even look like a real creature.

[769] That's it.

[770] It's so beautiful.

[771] Oh, stunning.

[772] They're all beautiful creatures, aren't they?

[773] Beautiful and spectacular and murderous.

[774] I'm terrifying at the same time.

[775] Chasing you on a moped.

[776] Oh, the speed as well.

[777] Same with the bay, you think they're going to be slow, but they can run way faster than people.

[778] They run fast than Usain Bolt.

[779] He can't even get away from a bear.

[780] And if it touches you, all they need is one little ankle pick.

[781] Yeah.

[782] One little, just kit that ankle.

[783] Woo!

[784] You go flying through the air.

[785] That's it.

[786] Head first, they tear you apart.

[787] We came across bear footprints, and we believed that the bear footprints were fairly fresh.

[788] Maybe past our exact track that we were on in West China.

[789] Show me with your hand, how big it was.

[790] Maybe about this big.

[791] Oh, fuck that.

[792] I can got a picture, actually.

[793] Instagram.

[794] That's big, dude.

[795] You've got a video actually.

[796] It's a better mastiff's as well.

[797] You've got a Tabetamastin running up to me trying to attack me. Really?

[798] Yeah, the guy just steps in throws the stone.

[799] You don't see that bit, but the Taber Massa, yeah, there you go.

[800] That's a pretty good size.

[801] That's not, that's not as big as I was thinking, but that's pretty big.

[802] So that's its front paw, isn't it?

[803] Yeah, I think.

[804] Yeah.

[805] I'm not a bear tracker.

[806] And then it's like the back paw is almost like a human footprint, isn't it?

[807] Well, the big brown bear is.

[808] they have there's a photograph a famous photograph of a woman who is a uh she's a wildlife biologist and they had tagged this grizzly right to like to put a collar on it or find its location or something like that or maybe do a test on it and she's holding its foot up and it is literally like a huge dinner plate the foot so see if you can find that picture of a you know what biologist holds up yeah well i saw that one actually it holds up grizzlies part yeah it is fucking huge and the claws on it yeah it's like it's wide as my chest That's what the bear's foot looks like And she's hope Look at that, look at that fucking size of that You don't stand a chance to you That's so crazy It's so crazy that nature created that Just a clean -up system for the fucking woods Anything with a limp Anything that's fucking around Places it shouldn't be You're having too many babies Oh I smell them coming to get them Done Fuck So here you are And you're out there with these things And you just have a little tent And no weapon No weapons.

[809] Yeah, and no weapons.

[810] And there's three of you.

[811] Three of you or four of you?

[812] There was three for the first three weeks, and then there was two of us for four days.

[813] Then from then on it was pretty much solo most of the way for the first sort of half of the expedition.

[814] And then the second half was super interactive.

[815] Opened it up.

[816] People were joining.

[817] Oh, so people knew about it.

[818] Yeah, it went pretty big in China.

[819] We'd have journalists.

[820] We'd have Chinese celebrities.

[821] And they'd walk with you?

[822] And they would trek with us, yeah.

[823] We'd sometimes organize events where it'd be rock climbing.

[824] and we'd be teaching them out to belay off the cliff.

[825] We're like, do they have Instagram in China?

[826] No, so I had to get all of the different social media platforms.

[827] There you go, that's pig's liver.

[828] Whoa.

[829] So they marinate it in vodka and chili.

[830] And you're drinking it?

[831] No, you're blowing it up?

[832] Blowing it up.

[833] That's Pascha worm.

[834] So that's like a rare delicacy.

[835] You can eat it raw straight from the Yanksy River.

[836] How sick did you get?

[837] Yeah.

[838] You had to have some serious stomach bugs going around eating that stuff.

[839] Over the past decade, I've eaten all sorts.

[840] The lot.

[841] So there's like towards the east, so it was super interactive as well.

[842] It was...

[843] So these kids all knew that you were doing this?

[844] Yeah, yeah, there's a news channel there as well.

[845] And we were creating a documentary.

[846] Oh, that's pretty cool.

[847] At one point, it got pretty...

[848] Good hospitality?

[849] Yeah, amazing hospitality.

[850] They were so friendly.

[851] At one point, Adidas got wind of it, and they invited me out to launch.

[852] Do you know Jet Li?

[853] Yes.

[854] He had a co -branded range between himself and Adidas.

[855] It was like a photo shoot, GQ, Adidas, and Jackie Huang, who was like a big movie store.

[856] and I just jumped at the chance it was one day off, one day in, in Shanghai, straight back into the wilderness.

[857] And that was crazy contrast.

[858] One minute in the wilderness, next minute, flying out to Shanghai, got all of these stylists, makeup artists, like, whoa, photo shoot, boof, straight back.

[859] Yeah.

[860] And that was, they wanted, like, a face of the east to represent the brand, but also a face from the west.

[861] So it came from nowhere.

[862] So it was great, you know, lots of people started getting wind on it.

[863] Again, I had to start, I think, eight to nine different social media channels in China.

[864] because they have their own platforms they don't have google instagrams band youtube etc so yeah i had a great team management films and beijing who really helped support set all of this up and we were translating was there a certain point in time knowing these people are going with you they're like hey bro i'm done you're on your own and was that kind of weird like when the crowds yeah yeah now you're back to being yourself again yeah yourself again that's it the second half of the expedition it was okay so it's coming across many people but the first half oh man the first half it got quite difficult yeah it was lonely at times it was boring like though hiking i don't really it sounds funny i don't really particularly enjoy the hiking the dressing the walking but that's what you chose to do for i know i know right i can get pretty boring well if you eat porridge every day you're like i don't really like porridge that's it it's actually it's the survival it's the challenges and it's the people you meet along the way you know so did you ever have a point where you had large groups of people but then not yeah quite often yeah i think the largest we had was about 35 or 40 people and then afterwards they went away afterwards they went away i was like back Back on the grind.

[865] That must be the weird part.

[866] A bunch of people join in with you.

[867] Yeah.

[868] And then they're gone.

[869] That's it.

[870] And then you're still trudging.

[871] Yeah.

[872] And you've got to, you know, keep going.

[873] Get some Joe Rogan podcast on the earphones.

[874] There's only 290 days to go.

[875] Look on the bright side.

[876] That's it.

[877] And the first part was more so because the second half, there was lots of people.

[878] It was very interactive.

[879] The first half, like I had a UK photographer fly out, Martin Lyons, and he joined me. He was supposed to join me for two weeks.

[880] But there was a, a, a two.

[881] terrifying landslide pretty much was, it just blocked the way and there was only two options to cross and again, you know, this isn't his profession that's not what he does, he's a photographer so he's coming to my world and he's seeing these two options.

[882] Either one could go terribly wrong, you're dropping a hell of a distance and you're straight into the Yangtze River so he was supposed to join me for two weeks but he ended up going back on day number one after six hours just because the danger of trying to cross it and so that for my mindset, having company for two weeks, of a good friend of mine as well from the UK I could speak, I can converse and communicate with, to then having no one back to my own.

[883] It's still in the wild side of China, still bears, still wolves, and I'm solo.

[884] So that hit me hard.

[885] I was like, damn.

[886] Are you keeping a journal in your tent at night?

[887] Yeah, I would actually stick to, I did on the previous expeditions.

[888] With this one, I stuck to voice memos because it would capture my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions.

[889] And so I was, especially for the book, I was capturing as much as we possibly could.

[890] And you're doing this with your phone?

[891] Doing this with the phone, yeah.

[892] You're worried about dropping your phone?

[893] and losing everything.

[894] I was.

[895] I was.

[896] I would try, each city I came across, I just tried to back everything up.

[897] With Wi -Fi?

[898] Yeah, and yeah, Wi -Fi.

[899] What are you allowed to use over there?

[900] Do you have to use an Android phone on their system, a Chinese system?

[901] No, no, we were okay.

[902] I just took my iPhone.

[903] I was connected to all of their social media, of course.

[904] I had my bank account, transactions, all of that with China.

[905] So I was very much on the system.

[906] Right, you can't use Twitter or Instagram over there.

[907] You've got to get a VPN.

[908] What is that?

[909] Oh, virtual private network.

[910] That's it, yeah.

[911] But I thought it was, like, one of their apps.

[912] So what are their apps that you're allowed to use?

[913] What's their social media apps?

[914] So they have, like, Wable, which is kind of like an Instagram.

[915] Okay.

[916] They have a WeChat, which is kind of, we chat's clever.

[917] It's kind of like a WhatsApp merged into Facebook.

[918] So are you having to translate all of their comments, like when they write things?

[919] Oh, when they write.

[920] Yeah, I can, but sometimes there's too many you can't.

[921] You've got to open it up, go on the VPN, open up the Google, translate it.

[922] I'll just send it to the team.

[923] The team would actually do most of the posting for me. I send it to the UK team to post on the international social media website.

[924] Oh, so they, you can send them that post, and then they could put it on Instagram or Twitter.

[925] That's it, yeah.

[926] I would send them like a voice memo or a message of text, what to say.

[927] Was there ever an issue with the Chinese government that you were doing that through a third party, that you were somehow another getting the information out into the real internet?

[928] Not so much, no, because even the satellite that we had to carry, I carried like a Navarino satellite, Began system, if you like.

[929] And that we had to register with the government, and he had to sign off.

[930] So they knew what I had with me. And it was with that satellite that was able to send to the Beijing team.

[931] They would forward on to the UK team.

[932] And from there, we were able to make it one of the world's most interactive firsts.

[933] Did they have any concern at all about you using the regular internet?

[934] Like, instead of just using the Chinese -approved social media sites, that you were also using the other ones that were international?

[935] That's it using international and the in China, in -house ones.

[936] Did they have an issue with that at all?

[937] The Chinese people?

[938] No, not that I'm aware of, no. A lot of the Chinese are also on Instagram as well.

[939] Really?

[940] Yeah.

[941] How do they do that?

[942] VPN.

[943] Of course.

[944] Yeah, so a lot of them still have tolerates that?

[945] Yeah, I think there's only a certain amount of lockdown that they can have.

[946] That's interesting.

[947] There's a lot of Chinese travelers as well.

[948] So they go to these foreign countries.

[949] Yeah.

[950] You know, get the Instagram, the Twitter, the Facebook.

[951] They get woke.

[952] They get woke.

[953] Yeah.

[954] So that's got to be weird using their government -approved social media.

[955] Did it feel weird while you were using it?

[956] Yeah, I got so used to.

[957] I think there was 10 or 11 different social networks that I was on.

[958] It was mainly my team.

[959] There was just too much.

[960] Do they have more over there than we do over here?

[961] Yeah, I'd say so.

[962] Oh, and they're well connected.

[963] Their phone is just like an extension.

[964] Is it different?

[965] Everything's in what way you mean?

[966] In terms of, like, do they have different apps that they use more often or different things in their phones?

[967] They have their own apps, so they have everything that we have, but converted.

[968] just different yeah no like we go on like we have an issue in this country with um with Huawei and a lot of these Chinese companies they you can't even buy a Huawei phone anymore over in America but the ones that they sell over in China are super sophisticated yeah that's it they're like the top of the food chain phones right now big time big time and the cameras as well yeah because that's what all of the Chinese love as well to be able to take good photos good videos um and that is just an instant sell with the camera that's come with that phone.

[969] Yeah, they've blocked them from Google, though.

[970] This is where it gets really interesting with me. That's why I'm asking.

[971] Google no longer lets them use Google apps, so you can't use the Google Play Store.

[972] So you have to either side load apps.

[973] You could side load some apps, or you have to get the Huawei version of these apps.

[974] So I'm like, I wonder if what happened, like, from the United States trying to stop them from taking over, and they're worried that it's a branch of the government, and they're going to get their hands in all these different enterprises and businesses and they'll be able to spy on everything and extract information because they can do that with their Huawei devices.

[975] I think that's how it, yeah.

[976] But it's interesting that I wonder if leaving them out of the system will make them create a system that's better and they don't even need our system anymore.

[977] It's almost better to like...

[978] Yeah, you know what?

[979] I think that's the way it's going.

[980] You know, they don't have Google, but they have Bidu's just like Google.

[981] But they won't have Wikipedia.

[982] They'll have whatever their version is of Wikipedia.

[983] But it's all government control information now.

[984] They got so many good at it.

[985] I think they've got an app as well, like a delivery app where if the guy is like one minute late you can throw a complaint in and then it's free delivery.

[986] It costs pennies as it is.

[987] One minute?

[988] Yeah, so sometimes you'll call on a minute late.

[989] Is it okay?

[990] Can you not phone in?

[991] Because he won't get paid then.

[992] Oh, wow.

[993] It's deadline.

[994] Yeah.

[995] And like even the bullet trains that's so advanced.

[996] The bullet trains leaving on the second, alone the minute.

[997] A couple of seconds before them and if anything they're just so sufficient and you see that everything's in -house they got things cogging over there it's made in China it's almost like they don't need the rest of the world that's the scary thing you know it's really but it's again a pleasant place to be I had my friend Martin Barrington who's here as well to say that because he joined me on Mission Yanksy and he had this idea that maybe it might be a little bit more suppressed and when he joined me was like everyone's happy everyone's doing their Tai Chi, dancing everyone's active it's a strong sense of community.

[998] What part of China was this?

[999] All over.

[1000] All over.

[1001] So do you think that we in America have a misconception of what it's like to be Chinese?

[1002] Yeah, yeah.

[1003] Not just in the U .S., UK as well.

[1004] I think I think most countries, yeah.

[1005] Do you think it's because we don't communicate or because their language is so different, it seems so different because they're all the way over there?

[1006] Like what is it?

[1007] Yeah, I think it's just because it's so locked off, isn't it?

[1008] They're locked off the grid.

[1009] They don't really shout about what they're doing.

[1010] Like right now, that we were saying before, the amount of solar panels, wind farms, they sent like, I think 19 ,000 soldiers out to plant trees, but all of that, they're not shouting to get attention, they're just doing it.

[1011] And so I sometimes see that, oh, China aren't doing enough, but on the inside, when I'm over in China, I see it all.

[1012] You know, like, whoa, we didn't know about this.

[1013] So I, you know, I'm to blame as well.

[1014] Before I went to China, I thought maybe it's going to be the same.

[1015] But that's why I go to these places, you know, get out there, explore its interior, meet the people at the country.

[1016] And, yeah, a pleasant place to be for sure that's pretty badass man they get a totally different view of a country than what most people do and to do it for a full year do you think that's going to be a place you go back and visit now yeah 100 % I think it took off so well I had such immense support there that it'd be a shame not to to continue it so I will be going back you know me and the teams out there already looking at next ideas and I'm sure you are so that is that how it works like how much time do you take when you're done walking for a year?

[1017] How much time do you take before you go?

[1018] Okay, now what?

[1019] You barely know.

[1020] So as soon as I got back from Mission Yanksy, I had an Asia tour, so I was straight back out there, Korea, Singapore, Myanmar.

[1021] I'm back out to China doing lectures.

[1022] I've been out there four times already.

[1023] It's going to be aired on CCTV, the documentary, and yeah, I'm just TEDx talks as well.

[1024] So I've been back four or five times already since I've finished only four or five months ago.

[1025] So every month I'm pretty much back out there.

[1026] When did you do the first one?

[1027] The first one, was the first one, Mongolia?

[1028] So the first, yeah, it was Mongolia.

[1029] That was 2013.

[1030] And how long did that take?

[1031] That took 78 days.

[1032] So it all pretty much started, you know, living in Wales there.

[1033] You know, I went from high school.

[1034] I went on to college to do an outdoor education course.

[1035] I was working various different.

[1036] So my first job, what was it, 14, 15, fish and chip shop, $4 an hour, you're grinding away.

[1037] And then I went into waiting on.

[1038] Then I went into lifeguarding because I heard that the lifeguard and money for a young teenager 16, 17 is pretty well paid and then it was from there that I started to save up as much money as I can got rid of my little jalopy of a car brought myself a little bicycle, cycle to and from work just saving the pennies and eventually left at age 19 and the first place I went was China Great War I was only there for two weeks I left China when I looked back on the map I thought China's a big place I barely even touched the surface you know I need to get myself back there But after that, it was just various, reckless, extremely low -budget adventures held around South East Asia.

[1039] When I say low -budget, it's like buying a bicycle for $10, finding string on the side of the road that we would use to strap the rucksack onto the back with no pump, no puncture repair kit.

[1040] We're about to cycle over Cambodia, Vietnam, over 1 ,100 miles.

[1041] Why wouldn't you get a puncture repair kit?

[1042] Just saving the pennies.

[1043] We actually got a tent that was about, I know, man. We got a tent that was $5, found out the hard way it wasn't waterproof.

[1044] Just really, just silly things.

[1045] You made it on the bike, though?

[1046] Made it, the bikes broke 17 times until I was with my friend, Matt Norma, you know, both, I named mine, little elder, a ridiculous.

[1047] And I think the bikes may be on my Instagram, ridiculous little bicycle, basket on the front, a little pink bell.

[1048] Off we went, both of us, bikes broke 17 times in total.

[1049] How'd you get them fixed?

[1050] We would rock up at local, at the locals and just rock up.

[1051] see if they can help and they would fix it really hospitable does somebody have to translate to you that where did you have a translator with you no no so we are just out there we just you know rock up with a smile i think smiling is the biggest um communication sign isn't it sure don't see you as a threat the barriers are down i'd point at the problem and then they would help me help you fix it like a dick with a flat tire yeah that's not good yeah that's it exactly yeah yeah so we just rock up he sawed out which was by dogs hit by mopeds, dodged by lorries so that was the first away from home adventure I'd say that that was the catalyst You said dodged by lorries?

[1052] Yeah, what does that mean?

[1053] That the roads were extremely sketchy.

[1054] Oh, okay.

[1055] Enough only to...

[1056] I had to translate that.

[1057] And they would be like coming straight down the mountain pass almost like the brakes were working properly and we're squeezing and it's going past us we're like, we need to get off this road man we're panicking, trying to get cycle faster and But, you know, after that, we just found my niche, found my passion, thought, wow, this is great, it's cheap, it's reckless.

[1058] But after that, we were in Thailand, we hooked up with a local guy that said we can cross the border into Myanmar to a community.

[1059] It's like a Burmese hill tribe, and we can learn jungle survival.

[1060] So we did, we went there, and this group living out there in the mountainous jungle region of the border of Tibet and Myanmar.

[1061] They were teaching us berries, that act as a mosquito report.

[1062] propelling, like you can pop them, rope them in your skin.

[1063] It will repel the mosquitoes.

[1064] Teaching us how to hunt, how to gather, what berries or what leaves were edible, what plants weren't edible, how to build rafts and shelters using natural resources.

[1065] You know, normally bamboo, banana leaves as a bed or as a slanted shelter for the rainwater to run off.

[1066] It's amazing.

[1067] We just continued these sort of adventures around Southeast Asia, hopped over to Australia, found some work as an Australia -powering gas.

[1068] I think it was knocking on people's doors.

[1069] I thought, this isn't me, this is not what I'm travelling for.

[1070] I'm in a suit now and, you know, I remember I was shadowing my boss.

[1071] We walked up to this drive and there was this guy at the end of the drive doing all of these pull -ups.

[1072] At that point, I'd become quite unhealthy, put a bit more weight on.

[1073] It wasn't sticking to the train and wasn't stick to a good diet.

[1074] And he jumped down.

[1075] He wasn't interested in the Australian pound on gas.

[1076] But he mentioned something like, yeah, I respect you guys out here, 40 plus degrees Celsius, 100 and 8 Fahrenheit.

[1077] knocking on people's doors in their suits, trying to sell them a good deal.

[1078] And my boss replied something cringeworthy.

[1079] Said something like, yeah, but we get paid a lot of this.

[1080] You know, I drive a skyline so unnecessary.

[1081] And the guy replied, the guy who was doing the pull -ups.

[1082] It's not all about the money, it's the lifestyle too.

[1083] And all of a sudden, that was a slap in the face for me. That's why I started to travel.

[1084] So the next day I quit the job, got myself a little bike with my friend again, and we just carried on, cycle to Southern Australia.

[1085] So you think by your boss saying something dushy that sort of leaned you in the right, direction yeah i was i was thinking for a while this isn't this isn't me you know this isn't you know it's foolish yeah yeah i was doing something that it wasn't wasn't right right but his behavior is foolish yeah oh i know his behavior that was the sort of so i was looking at this guy and i was like i'm not stood on his side i'm stood with the this is the way that i'm going this is my boss right and he would eat like fast food every single morning you know kFC and i was just like this isn't how i man sometimes you just need someone to say something like that right yeah little Nudges and I've had a lot of those little nudges along the way that if it wasn't for that Nudge, I don't know, maybe I would have just continued and no idea.

[1086] Yeah, I think we all had encountered those.

[1087] Yeah, for sure.

[1088] So you said you got robbed that one time where they stole your solar panel.

[1089] That's it?

[1090] So, yeah, what's...

[1091] It seems like you would get robbed a lot.

[1092] Madagascar.

[1093] Madagascar was more sketchy, I would say.

[1094] What was that like?

[1095] We'll come to Madagascar.

[1096] But, yeah, so just before, after that, Australia's...

[1097] cycle and before Mongolia it's like this links us into the Mongolia.

[1098] It's actually then working in Thailand because the money was so low.

[1099] I had to find work as a master scuba diving instructor but I was also doing the Muay out in Thailand which was awesome to see their discipline you know their inkble beating their shins had you ever done it before?

[1100] No I come from a boxing background so I was doing boxing in Wales.

[1101] Did you know how to kick at all?

[1102] Nope so I went and I learned the hard way I learned such the hardware actually that I had the boxing stance left foot in front and the moitai stance was more square on it's different and they just jacked my leg up instantly jacked it up just kicked they didn't need to get into no fists with me it was just jacked my leg at the next day I had to cancel work I couldn't climb out of the ladder with all of my scuba diving kick because I couldn't bend my leg and from there I just corrected I was training five six times a day killing my nerve endings on the she and I just loved it had a stadium fight did you?

[1103] which stadium?

[1104] It was in Coatow a little island in Coatown So a guy sailed from mainland over to Cotile.

[1105] And the winner, the loser, you can make money, of course, you know.

[1106] So that's kind of my way of paying the rent.

[1107] If I won, you leave with money.

[1108] If you lose, you leave with nothing.

[1109] Really?

[1110] Yeah, and you've got the locals around the ringside, sort of banging down on the canvas, holding money up there.

[1111] We've are pointing at you or they're pointing at your opponent.

[1112] How do you know when you take a fight like this, that it's well matched?

[1113] Yeah, well, you don't really.

[1114] So that was my first stadium fight.

[1115] And apparently this guy, in my opponent, and that was his sixth but we looked similar height he looked to be maybe more experienced because of the fighting but hadn't been fighting since a young age like a lot of the tyres have you know they start from such young age as you know and so yeah it was a little bit my heart I was just like right done my training it was about what how many five six months in so that's pretty fast you know to straight to the and you said you had boxed before that I'd boxed before that had you competed no not competed so it was just amateur fighting look at you Yeah, that was in, yeah, that's Madagascar.

[1116] That's actually just playing around with my guide.

[1117] But, oh, I love it, yeah.

[1118] So you, how many fights did you have over there?

[1119] It was probably about eight club fights, but only one stadium fight.

[1120] The one stadium fight was the big one, you know.

[1121] You won that, paid for about two, three months worth of accommodation.

[1122] I was good, I needed it.

[1123] You don't earn much money as a scuba diver in Thailand.

[1124] So you won your stadium fight?

[1125] Won the stadium fight, yeah.

[1126] That's awesome.

[1127] Yeah.

[1128] What made you start?

[1129] Mongolia.

[1130] So I loved this lifestyle.

[1131] I was doing it for like two years, like living in Thailand for two years.

[1132] But I was like, I missed trek in the Himalayas.

[1133] I missed my time with the community, the Hill Tribe and Minemore, cycling Vietnam.

[1134] So I was like, I need to do something, you know, big, something that will take me to a country that I'm very unfamiliar with.

[1135] And that brings in Mongolia.

[1136] So that was the first world, first record.

[1137] Not the first to attempt, though.

[1138] A guy from Britain had attempted.

[1139] on three occasions.

[1140] Unfortunately, evacuated just before the halfway point.

[1141] Tell people what the record is.

[1142] So it was the first to walk solo and unsupported across Mongolia's length.

[1143] So it's from west to east.

[1144] And when you say unsupported, does that mean there's no one monitoring you at all?

[1145] That's right.

[1146] So you're on your own.

[1147] You're trek and by it.

[1148] Apart from the people that you see along the way, the communities, unsupported meaning everything that I needed to make the journey from start to endpoint was in the trailer that I was pulling.

[1149] And it was a bog standard trailer built in a family friend's back garden.

[1150] So you said this trailer weighed 200 and what pounds?

[1151] Yeah, 120 kilograms, which I think is 260 pounds.

[1152] So here you are pulling this thing with a four -partan harness.

[1153] First of all, that's hard.

[1154] That's hard to do.

[1155] Yeah.

[1156] Is it a flat road like that?

[1157] So this is entering the Gobi Desert.

[1158] So it's three weeks over the Al -Tai Mountains, five weeks across the Gobi Desert, and a further three weeks up through the Mongolian step.

[1159] So the Al -Tai Mountains were excruciating, you know.

[1160] It's no suspension, of course, on the trailer.

[1161] Even one little pebble, little stone gets in the way.

[1162] And, you know, you're struggling to...

[1163] There's a sandstorm that I came across.

[1164] There's actually one of the smaller ones.

[1165] What?

[1166] That's the small one.

[1167] Yeah, it's so painful as well.

[1168] Oh, I'm sure.

[1169] Have you ever been in a sandstorm?

[1170] No, but I can only imagine.

[1171] It picks up the stones and grits, a whipping effect.

[1172] Well, I could imagine it could be deadly.

[1173] You can't see anything, right?

[1174] I've seen some of them that roll into Iraq There's soldiers that have taken videos of them And put them up on social media It's crazy It looks like something out of a biblical music A movie rather You see this scary There's giant clouds of dirt hitting away Have you ever seen those Jamie?

[1175] Sandstorm pull up sandstorm in Iraq Some of them are so insane Yeah you see it coming You're like what the fuck man And everybody's just got to hunker down Yeah that's it just got to ride it out Like yeah like I was able to Look at that go That video is fucking bananas Alasad Air Force And as soon as it hits the wind The disorienting is darkness inside And you can't hear anything And you're going to get your tent And you're going to have to breathe through that Yeah there wasn't one big enough I would say That I had to hide It was still big but I carried on walking Because sometimes it'd just come out of nowhere So I didn't It was more like this Without the wall that you can see And the distance coming towards you like that video Go back on that Jamie This is how you see the storm overtakes them And it literally kills the day and turns it into night Yeah Because it blocks out the sun This is where it's really crazy Because you see this guy standing there And the storm starts to overtake him And everything starts to get dim And then after it's to look at it Look at this difference in the color So fuss changing as well is it Yes And now they're in the middle of it And now it literally blocks out the sun They're in the center of that fucking horrific storm But that guy's just walking around breathing.

[1176] Yeah, so that looks more like a dust, dust storm where it's, so kind of similar, but the sand, it depends on the speed of the wind.

[1177] But with a sandstorm, you've literally got to cover up.

[1178] So you saw me with a mask, I had to wear gloves, I had to wear a fleece, it's just pounding your skin, almost like sandpaper, you know.

[1179] So it is, uh...

[1180] How long did that last?

[1181] They would last about 15, 20 minutes.

[1182] Do you keep walking or do you stand still?

[1183] I carried on walking, yeah, I did carry on walking.

[1184] You can see where you're going?

[1185] Yeah, as long as you've got the heading on the compass, just keep going, keep going east.

[1186] Yeah, but you're also following a track.

[1187] So this was the B. So I almost actually lost my life in the Gobi Desic.

[1188] I was trying to follow a track.

[1189] And the track is like your lifeline.

[1190] If you're not following, if you're off the track, it could be hundreds of miles.

[1191] The track is where there's a water source.

[1192] There's a well always alongside.

[1193] But the Gobi took me five weeks to get across.

[1194] So week after week, I was suffering slowly dehydration, heat exhaustion.

[1195] slipping into heat stroke which is usually fatal at this big 20 litre water container sort of remember just rationing my last remaining dribbles of water if you like um i was hallucinating got such to a bad state one of the water wells was dry and now had to push onto the next one the hope that it had water it was a mix of hard sand or gravel and soft sand so now you can imagine pulling the wheels through soft sand they were just digging it was like pulling a concrete block through hell oh my god yeah and i was just i got really skinny i got really wee the weeks went by I was disorientated I was hallucinating I was sort of could feel my organs drying up if you like was at the point I just continued to rest under my shells it was 40 45 degrees Celsius no breeze no natural shelter the only shelter I could find here was was underneath the trailer I remember just lying there on my back for about 45 minutes to an hour thinking what I've done you know I didn't have the evacuation as the previous guy had no helicopters going to come and rescue me you know the only backup that I had was my logistics manager, my fixer in the capital city, needed to allow at least three to four days for him to get to me and at least another day or two for him to get me out to safety.

[1196] Or I knew that there was a community which 100 % had water.

[1197] It was about three or four days trek away.

[1198] And I continued, and I pretty much passed the option of pickup at that stage.

[1199] The only way to make it was pushing on those extra few days to the community.

[1200] But again, four days, it was just too much for me. I was in agony, man, absolute agony.

[1201] All of the thoughts, all of the feelings.

[1202] But that's when, you know, I've always been a big believer in breaking my goals down.

[1203] I couldn't visualize the three or four days, of course.

[1204] But what I could visualize is 100 meters.

[1205] I could see 100 meters.

[1206] So I was just, if I can rest for five minutes, not an hour, and walk for 100 meters and then rest, because that's all I could manage before I was just in a mess, hide under my trailer again for another five minutes.

[1207] If I can continue to do this, maybe by breaking my goals, down.

[1208] After four days of 100 meters, I can make it to the community.

[1209] And I did just about off the radars.

[1210] My urine was almost black.

[1211] You know, I was in a bad way.

[1212] Your what was black?

[1213] My urine.

[1214] Urine.

[1215] Yeah.

[1216] Yeah.

[1217] Oh my God.

[1218] So you probably had like severe dehydration.

[1219] Yeah, I was in an awful way.

[1220] I was lucky to make it.

[1221] If that community wasn't there, if it had been abandoned if the locals weren't there, I definitely wouldn't have made it.

[1222] Now, when you walk into a community like this, how many people were talking?

[1223] Like, how big is the community?

[1224] Talking probably five, six Huts, maybe 20, 30 people.

[1225] Wow.

[1226] Just in the desert, yeah.

[1227] And you just show up some weird white dude.

[1228] Yeah, yeah.

[1229] Pulling a sled.

[1230] Pulling a big, yeah, trailer behind.

[1231] And then you're like, yeah, I've been doing this.

[1232] There you go.

[1233] So that's it.

[1234] Oh, my God, dude.

[1235] So with this, this is before I started feeling bad.

[1236] So with that, I had to run ahead of myself, set up my camera on a tripod, put it on a video or either a timer.

[1237] And with this one, it was a video because I was trying to show how difficult it was to pull the trailer through the sand.

[1238] So it was leaning forward.

[1239] It was 90 degrees And each step was...

[1240] That's insane.

[1241] Agonizing.

[1242] How many miles in the soft sand did you do?

[1243] So it was five weeks in the Gobi Desert, but not five weeks worth of soft sand.

[1244] I'd say maybe a week, solid, but scattered over the five weeks.

[1245] Folks, if you want to...

[1246] We're looking at a photo on the Instagram of Ash, pulling this sled, leaning into it like, dude, you must kick ass at tug of war.

[1247] All you have to do is just go backwards.

[1248] Just think about how much time you spent dragging a fucking sled your legs must be made out of steel it was painful it was painful you probably never got a chance to recover right because you're basically lifting a little bit of weights every day and you feel each step it's just a run of lactic acids you know you're in yeah horrible so this is why I was just resting awful did you worry about rhabdomylosis no no I was look you see I was still training in the Gobi days I was trying to keep my mindset you know what are you doing that show me that oh you're doing set up I would try to stay regimented.

[1249] You know, I have no military background, of course, but, you know, the mindset, I was trying to stay focused.

[1250] I would do my push -ups, my sit -ups, always been keen into the fitness.

[1251] It's funny, actually, even when I came back from Thailand to attempt this, I moved back in with my parents.

[1252] I had no money, of course.

[1253] They allowed me back in with them, which was great, and I didn't even have money for a gym membership.

[1254] So I had my uncle drop me off a tric de tyre.

[1255] I wore a local sledgehammer.

[1256] We worked on like a bar, a bit of calisthenics, and that's what I was doing out in the rain, hardcore conditions of whales, flipping the tractor tire, beating it with a sledgehammer, trying to prepare myself, not physically, but mentally.

[1257] You know, when you're in, as you know, you quilt cover five o 'clock in the morning, you can hear it's howling with wind, rain outside.

[1258] The last thing you want to do is go out and train, but I wouldn't have that option in Mongolia.

[1259] So again, you know, that's saying, by putting yourself in more uncomfortable scenarios, the more comfortable you become.

[1260] I was just trying to do that.

[1261] So did you develop some sort of a workout program like you have to stick to a specific routine what was your routine my routine was just full on calisthenics so it would be with that with the mongolia i was training for two three hours a day uh five days a week so it was outside i think actually on the instagram the highlights there's a section fitness with a few different clips um and it's yeah pushups sit ups um pull up uh flipping the track the tire sledgehammer work i was working on ticking off all components like flexibility agility balanced speed reaction time coordination and I knew that my inner core was going to be crucial because pulling the trailer if you come over a stone you're literally your hips are being pulled left and right so you need to be agile enough to be able to you know push on through that that's interesting about the core I didn't think of that that way yeah the core was like all of these sort of pull -ups really helped as well for the um now did you have someone coordinating this with you did you get some advice from like a physiologist or a personal trainer?

[1262] I didn't know.

[1263] I'm sort of just self -taught watch some clips on YouTube.

[1264] A lot of it through trial and error.

[1265] I was training since 13, 14, you know.

[1266] Based a lot around, yeah, calisthenics and the martial arts help as well.

[1267] I took a lot from the Muay and still implemented that into the training regime.

[1268] I'm just I love it.

[1269] Body movement.

[1270] It fascinates me. I love the trainer.

[1271] I get super ratty as well if I don't train, you know.

[1272] Even training today in L .A. went over to the pier.

[1273] Got some rings there.

[1274] I was straight there.

[1275] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1276] Lost a lot of weight, so I'm trying to put some weight back on me as well.

[1277] I love it.

[1278] And the fitness is a crucial part.

[1279] Without the fitness, there's no way I would have made these expeditions.

[1280] I can only imagine.

[1281] I mean, just seeing you pull that sled, I'm like, God, that looks like hell.

[1282] And the fact you're doing 100 yards, rest for five minutes, 100 yards.

[1283] I mean, just amazing that your body didn't break down just from overexertion.

[1284] Amazing what the human body's capable of in general.

[1285] isn't it?

[1286] Yeah.

[1287] And I had huge fears and massive doubts before this expedition.

[1288] And that's sort of my message out to everyone is, you know, you're far more capable than you think.

[1289] You always see little doubts into your mind, don't you?

[1290] And that's what I was doing.

[1291] Until Mongolia, I was like, you know, don't have your fear.

[1292] I think fear's healthy.

[1293] But doubt can be toxic, can it.

[1294] Did you get tested for Rabdo?

[1295] If you're, if you're piss as that color, you're that dehydrated.

[1296] I think I did.

[1297] When I got back, I was slightly worried, just my.

[1298] organ the what I was feeling with my organs almost like they were drying up just needed to check that everything was still functioning fine and everything was good the body recovers fast and I was I was only 24 I guess then 23 what what what how much weight did you lose by the end of that so that was 78 days and I lost 13 kilograms in 78 days so that's what we're talking about earlier that's it so yeah so I lost 13 kilograms as well with mission Yankski but that's spread over a year right so that was like very concentrated lost a lot I was having a ration packet five 30 in the morning, I would, this was two weeks of the Gobi Desert or a week and a half where I'd wake up at 5 .30, and I'd go a whole 14 hours before I had my, my next ration pack at about 7 .30, no food.

[1299] And burning, insane amount of calories.

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] How many calories do you need a day just, isn't it?

[1302] It depends upon your body weight.

[1303] Calories if you're doing like nothing if you're just in it, you know?

[1304] Yeah, probably close to 2 ,000.

[1305] Isn't it?

[1306] It depends, though, on your body weight.

[1307] And if you're just sitting around, Obviously, it'd be less than some of those moving around, but everybody varies.

[1308] That's a crazy thing to do, to slowly starve yourself while you're pulling a sled through stiff sand.

[1309] Cheese on toast was in my mind the whole time.

[1310] I'm sure.

[1311] Anything, just food, get it in there, man. Yeah, but, you know, the guys, when I rocked up to that community, super friendly, really looked after me. Yeah.

[1312] And you didn't speak their language.

[1313] Didn't speak their language.

[1314] You know, one funny story, actually, in the Altai Mountains, it was a Kazakh.

[1315] family so i'd always tried to eat and rest up with them where i could so Kazakh family in their sort of hut in the middle of the altai rocked up 45 minutes inside sipping on their chai their tea eating whatever they they gave me and towards the end i was like right it's been 40 45 minutes i need to make a move now and just as i was about to say that i looked at the guy the man of the hut it was a man and his wife a girl he's looking at me very weird you know i slightly squinted slightly closed like he's thinking of something you know he looks over to his wife for his girlfriend and he looks back to me back at his wife and then all of a sudden right there and then in hand gestures offered me offered me his wife right there like that that's a sort of ancient does he do this?

[1316] No he just pointed to the bed and then pointed at us and I didn't know what to do you know I was like whoa you know I was not really no I was trying to get rid of her that's it she's yours now bro we just it was awkward silence from About 10, 15 seconds, we were all exchanging looks.

[1317] She was looking at me. I was looking, oh, I just put on a fake laugh.

[1318] A couple of seconds later, he laughed with me. And I made a swift exit.

[1319] She continued breastfeeding a child.

[1320] So she was breastfeeding while he wanted you to take a piece.

[1321] Yeah.

[1322] Woo.

[1323] And I was like, is it one of those things that this actually happened?

[1324] Or will I leave?

[1325] And they're having a big joke right now.

[1326] And they're laughing away the fact that, you know, you just never know, do you?

[1327] I'm going to guess if they live in tents in the middle of nowhere and there's five -tenths and it takes forever to get there those people are probably freaks they're probably doing some weird freak shit they probably have no attachment whatsoever to sexuality or maybe it's like you're here don't you like to be really hospitable like that's super hospitable you know but you do hear old school exploration i've heard it before but i didn't think in this generation this day and age that's still be going on well they're probably live in like old school Mongolians did yeah you know they're just a little wild sexually right yeah in the far west they're that was a Kazakh family so they would have come over the border which is like mountain you've got the outside mountains almost separate so this was it was in Kazakhstan this was West Mongolia West Mongolia but there's a heavy population of Kazakhstan they're the ones that actually hunt you know the eagles they're riding their horse they've got the eagle perched on their hand they so foxes wolves how different did they look there they look like the Kazakh is more of an area that's closer to what so Kazakh is right on the on the border so you've got Mongolia sandwich between Russia up north, China, down south.

[1328] Because just the name Kazakh sounds Russian.

[1329] And then directly on the west, you've got Kazakhstan.

[1330] Ah, okay.

[1331] But, yeah, another way, I think that's the second largest land.

[1332] First largest landlord country in the world.

[1333] Mongolia is the second largest landlocked country in the world.

[1334] Dude, and you're walking through this.

[1335] Yeah, so jankster.

[1336] And that was my first trip there as well.

[1337] So I didn't have the money to do a recchi like I did with China and Madagascar.

[1338] I'd never been to the country I rock up with the trailer When you show up at someone's tent Do you offer them something for food Like how do you work that out I had a piece of paper translated It described who I was What I was doing, why I'm here And you're hoping they can read In the middle of note Yeah that's it hoping And some you're right Some couldn't But again You know you see a guy looking at a mess You know big beard down Looking in pain Looking hungry looking skinny You pretty much know straight away You need shelter food, water.

[1339] So they did every time and they were so friendly.

[1340] So you were counting on people being nice to you.

[1341] That's amazing.

[1342] Yeah, and that's all I've ever done, you know.

[1343] It's a human rate.

[1344] I love it.

[1345] I love people.

[1346] They're just so, so friendly, so hospitable.

[1347] Even the UK.

[1348] Cycling in the UK is when I was 20.

[1349] I was raising funds for the NSPCC.

[1350] It was illegal sometimes to camp in a city.

[1351] So I'd go on knocking someone's door.

[1352] Knock, knock, knock.

[1353] Do you mind if I set up my tent in your front garden or by garden, please?

[1354] Wow.

[1355] Only had the door slammed on me once.

[1356] He was an old guy probably for a friend.

[1357] He just looked at me, slam.

[1358] She went back inside.

[1359] I was like, Archie Bunker of that area.

[1360] For some families, yeah, they were fine.

[1361] That's amazing that you, but did you have any funds?

[1362] Like, could you give them money for food?

[1363] If they weren't willing to give it to you for free?

[1364] Yeah, what did I take?

[1365] So I took paper and pens for education purposes.

[1366] They love, if you can give their child, like paper pens, the kids would just be playing with that.

[1367] you know so you had like a barter thing going on yeah almost but sometimes they just wouldn't accept it they just plainly simply like no i had that a lot in in in china as well so but you didn't have any money uh did i have yeah i had cash with me but you never offered anybody any money for food oh no did i no yeah no maybe i did maybe i did yeah but they were just again they wouldn't accept it wow especially if i was sleeping the night i would a hundred percent i'd take it and they'd be like no no they'd stuff it down my trailer they you know really Yeah, and then I learned that was it, then I learned that it was offensive to offer them money because you're in their environment and they know for themselves.

[1368] If they see, I had a guy once run, run me down on a horseback from the distance coming at me at speed and it was all just to give me a bottle to take away with tea inside.

[1369] I was like, try again, try not offer us like, you came a distance, I'll be watching you for 10 minutes coming from a distance, from a distance, little girl just to give me hot water tea.

[1370] so yes I learned that it was offensive to give the money it's almost saying that I'm better than you I have money you don't but they're rich in life they've got all of the lives stuck the products they want to be given and you're in their harsh environment so I was like wow that's cool so that's why I stuck to the paper and pens wow but what a life -changing experience that must have been yeah that's it walking through a place where you don't know any language at all meeting these people and having them take you in and feed you yeah yeah it was incredible Did it renew your faith in people at all?

[1371] What's that?

[1372] Did it renew your faith in people?

[1373] It did.

[1374] You know, I've never not.

[1375] Yeah, enhanced, I would say.

[1376] It enhanced, yeah, everywhere I, all of the different countries and the travels that I've done.

[1377] The people have just been absolutely amazing.

[1378] And I'm always trying to give back in return.

[1379] Sometimes they'll take it, which makes me happy.

[1380] Sometimes they're just not interested.

[1381] And they're like, no, I don't want any money.

[1382] In China, there was one that they gave me loads of food.

[1383] They gave me accommodation.

[1384] they then gave me breakfast they gave me three days worth of food to take away with me along the Yancey and they just wouldn't accept my money wouldn't accept anything then I'm like no man you know all the best incredible Madagascar was a little bit different Madagascar was a beautiful country but down south it's very poverished people suffering with malnutrition malaria's big out there because I caught malaria almost died from it you caught malaria I caught malaria yeah so you weren't on malaria medication either yeah yeah I was on malaria medication.

[1385] I came across a community that had the suffering with bubonic plague, such an ancient disease.

[1386] And they pretty much said, I had two guides with me at this time, so they were able to translate.

[1387] They pretty much said, stay in your tent.

[1388] You know, we've had relatives die.

[1389] We've got the suffering with the plague here.

[1390] That instantly made me feel unnerving on edge, you know.

[1391] They've rats and dogs running around it.

[1392] Go away.

[1393] Go away.

[1394] Zipped in.

[1395] So they would do the cooking, and they brought me this eel.

[1396] Smelt a little bit funky, but we were hungry.

[1397] me and my two guys we eat the eel for the next few days we were suffering with diarrhea and I believe that the anti -malarial pills they only cover you up to 80 % anyway it was going in one way out of the other and I didn't have the full 80 % protecting me from the strain of malaria and I caught malaria and it threw me back to the Gobi Desert to the symptoms and signs I was suffering with I felt like I was just suffering with dehydration and I was getting weaker and weekend I was losing a lot of weight, I was vomiting, and it got to a point where days went by that I was like, this isn't dehydration, this is a disease, I'm suffering with something bad.

[1398] I pushed on, made it to a community that I knew had, overland transport.

[1399] How far did you walk with malaria?

[1400] I think I probably walked four days or so with malaria.

[1401] Holy shit.

[1402] Yeah, it was brutal.

[1403] But at that time, I had no idea, right?

[1404] So I'm like, I'm dehydrated.

[1405] So I was just drinking, drinking, thinking I'm going to get better.

[1406] made it to the community arrived at one of the nearest hospitals and she said you potentially made it in time potentially a few hours before you slipped into a coma and that's when I realized and then it was the deadliest strain of malaria it's falseuporum so you've got four different strains of malaria got the deadliest and it usually kills you within 24 hours but I believe I lasted five days because I was taking the anti -malarials and then that one you can eradicate fully out of your system now when you're on the anti -malaria medication and you're shitting yourself so it doesn't stay in your system are you taking more of it when you think you have it uh no i wasn't i was scared to as well overdose because you can't you know you can't you don't know how much is you don't know how much is still in your system so you can't just be taking are you allowed to take of it uh one one pill a day it was so have you breakfast that's what justin ren was saying that he experienced toxicity because he was taking five pills a day remember when justin was talking about that the anti -malarial toxins he's yeah we we actually researched that there's been problems with some troops that get on that anti -malaria medication and they get really sick from it.

[1407] And actually, doesn't it do something to your brain, Jim, do you remember?

[1408] I think that's the malarone that you're talking about.

[1409] Yeah, that's like a strong dose, isn't it?

[1410] What stuff are you on?

[1411] What anti -maladeo?

[1412] I was on doxycycline.

[1413] It's 80%.

[1414] I think the maralone.

[1415] How do I say it?

[1416] Marlon.

[1417] Malarone.

[1418] Covers you about 100%.

[1419] I think.

[1420] My dad was on that way.

[1421] Is that I say it?

[1422] Methlequin.

[1423] Methlequin.

[1424] Oh, so that's it.

[1425] different one there so what's this or a stronger strain no but he was on it and he he's gotten it uh justin he runs a charity called fight for the forgotten they build uh wells for the pygmies he's got he's gotten it three times whoa yeah and what strain is that's that maybe it wasn't the one yeah that was it yeah that was it yeah that was it yeah i remember him talking about it because the three lower strains you can actually remain dormant in your system that's what they said with him he he got it again after he had it malaria drug causes brain damage that mimics PTSD.

[1426] Fucking A. Malaria drug.

[1427] The drug.

[1428] The drug.

[1429] That's insane.

[1430] Not even just the malaria, which will fucking kill you.

[1431] Yeah, I've heard of that before.

[1432] Yeah, I have heard of that before.

[1433] So I became, I pointed up with Malaria no more UK after that.

[1434] Because once I contracted it, I was the lucky one to survive.

[1435] And then as I pushed on, still had four months to go.

[1436] I got it in month one of a five -month journey to walk.

[1437] To walk south to north.

[1438] of Madagascar, somewhere to the eight highest mountains along the way.

[1439] So it took 155 days this journey and it was 1 ,600 miles, slightly bigger than the Mongolia journey.

[1440] And a lot of it was just machete in hand hacking through the jungle.

[1441] Leachers dropping down, spider bites, hunting, gathering.

[1442] You were hunting and gathering out there too?

[1443] Yeah, in the jungle, yeah.

[1444] How do you know what you can gather?

[1445] The local.

[1446] So I have no military background at all doing this, which is usually strange.

[1447] It's normally a military background to come and to do the survival, but everything that I've learned, I've tried to get as much knowledge as I possibly can from the locals.

[1448] So like the Myanmar Hill community, Mongolia, how they survive, Madagascar, what's edible, what isn't edible, how to build raft, etc. So I always try to take a small percent, and that's what you can ever take, because they're so knowledgeable.

[1449] When it comes to what they can eat, what they can gather, what they can't, you know, it's a lifetime, isn't it?

[1450] So I just had to try to pick up as much as I could in a short space of time.

[1451] but again I was learning as we went we were yeah doing some hunting doing some gathering but we were losing weight there was three or four weeks of jungle territory further up north of the island and we had a photographer join us for that one and it got to a point where they just hated it I did too it was the cyclone season we were covering we were walking about 14 hours a day and we would cover maybe three miles if we were working just hacking through its sheer dense jungle up and down mountains one day we had to turn around and do a U -turn and walk three days back on ourselves to find a different way up the mountain Horrible puts into perspective now when you do a U -turn in a car I'm like right, it's just a U -turn yeah three days now when you say gathering you mean like stuff to eat stuff to eat so how do you know what you can eat and what's not going to what's going to kill you we had the local guides there so I had a local guide max who was nails proper bushman we were collecting chilies that's such a great english statement nails proper yeah he was nails proper bushman you said that in america you said that in american what the fuck did you just say man nails proper bushman what the fuck does that even mean proper proper bushman yeah so like what kind of stuff did you guys gather what did you eat a lot of fruit a lot of plant based um coconuts mangoes oh we got excited oh so you see wild mango trees Yeah, we just scramble on up there, throw them down.

[1452] Ten wreck, the little rodents, kind of like hedgehogs without the spikes.

[1453] They burrow underneath trees.

[1454] I see it, took a shelter with us.

[1455] You, look at that.

[1456] And there's Max there.

[1457] That's wild, man. It's making this little campfire.

[1458] Yeah.

[1459] Cooking under the shelter.

[1460] So that was the shelter that you use most of the time?

[1461] That was it, yeah.

[1462] We did have a tent as well, but, yeah, depending on the weather, we just get this one out.

[1463] You're sleeping with a lot of creepy coolies and whatnot, but nothing really venomous in Madagascar.

[1464] Are you sure?

[1465] Got the boa constricted a snake But again You have a machete Right?

[1466] Did you keep that bitch gripped in your hand?

[1467] Got a machete Everywhere that I went Yeah, we got lost a lot of the time There's a foe of me And Max trying to find our way And the team just got You know, demotivated They just didn't have it in them And I was the same That's me all broken there With blood, got the leech bite But again like with anything You know, I think no matter what you do You can't always be motivated But it can be disciplined And that was the difference We stayed disciplined and we focused on the little steps, 50 meters, rest, 50 meters and rest.

[1468] I bet nobody appreciates a comfortable bed like you.

[1469] Oh, man, they are.

[1470] And everything's so convenient.

[1471] I get back home, I switch the kettle on, I can take a shower, I can do whatever.

[1472] It's going to toast, push it down, it's going to pop up when it's done.

[1473] When you're out there, you've got to stay alert, you've got to stay focused.

[1474] Attention to the smaller details, but back at home, everything's just so, and you do appreciate it more you get back, and it's like, wow, We don't know how comfortable we actually have it.

[1475] Well, your gratitude for that stuff must be off the charts.

[1476] Yeah.

[1477] Just from those experiences.

[1478] Yeah, but so, yeah, no, I do suffer as well sometimes.

[1479] I take it for granted after a few months of being back.

[1480] Is you used to it?

[1481] Yeah, I have to throw myself back to the Malagasy jungle and be like, look, look.

[1482] Yeah, you get soft.

[1483] Could be worse.

[1484] That's fine.

[1485] How many, so how many all told of these crazy journeys have you been on?

[1486] Whoa, over the past decade now.

[1487] So the three big ones, of course, the Mongolia.

[1488] Madagascar, and the biggest one, the most ambitious, was Mission Yanksi.

[1489] I wanted to see a photo of the Yangtze River.

[1490] You were talking about how beautiful.

[1491] Yeah, I think on the Insta highlights, you've got 2019, it starts with.

[1492] But you can see it goes right from west, goes down south, curls back up, and ends in it Shanghai, and the East China.

[1493] There's these three big giant ones, but then there's some other ones?

[1494] Yeah, so there's the Vietnam, Cambodia, Cambodia cycle.

[1495] There's trek and the Himalayas, which was a scary one.

[1496] because we want us to check the Himalayas.

[1497] They said that we needed to buy a permit, but we didn't believe that we did.

[1498] He was like a way to get money out of it.

[1499] We were shoestring budget travellers.

[1500] And we were like, no, we can do this, let's go.

[1501] It got worse.

[1502] You got to a point where it was like, you know, you can't go.

[1503] The Pakistan army roamed the border of Indian Himalayas and Pakistan Himalayas.

[1504] He said, you'd go on your knees if you come across the Pakistan army, put your thumbs behind your ears and say Allah harigbee repeatedly.

[1505] And that, like, sort of means Allah have mercy on me. So it was at that point.

[1506] we were like should we trek the Himalayas so we almost failed with that one yeah yeah it was so they taught you how to beg for mercy if we came across the the military it's that much of an issue i thought that was his way of trying to scare us to get us to pay for a permit that we didn't need how much was a permit i have no idea i should know this it should be if it was reasonable i would say probably yeah we were such budget it was crazy that's so crazy you got like little hammock hammock shops in Vietnam as we were cycling sometimes we sleep in the hammock shop it would cost you about 20 cents for the night in a hammock shop so let you test the hammocks yeah that's a good deal great that hey yeah good sleep uh it's not hotel you don't have your toilets you don't have any of that but so hammocks if you're in a real woody area that seems like not a bad option right yeah yeah did you get one uh no we were only stuck to the hammock shops because we're on a bicycle so we were on rolls so that wasn't necessarily how much is a hammock way oh you can get super light ones now you probably get one for a kilogram maybe even yeah around a kilogram i'd say maybe even lighter yeah that would be a great way if as long as there's enough trees what a great way yeah you're screwed in the goby desert on you but uh you're taking away off the ground with all the creepy crawlies yeah yeah for sure did you get stung by any creepy crawlies i did spiders spiders so when you're hacking through the jungle you've got the jungle canopy and the leeches believe Oh, there's a spider bite.

[1507] Fuck, man. How do you know that that's okay?

[1508] Like when it's happening, are you worried?

[1509] I didn't feel it, you know, when it happened, because as you're hacking through the jungle, you've got loads of bamboo shorts, and they all razor shop, and they're stabbing you.

[1510] You've got leeches at the nighttime.

[1511] You take your top off, and you've got to apply six, seven leeches off your body, flick them up to ten.

[1512] You've got this bite, which infected.

[1513] There's a lot of aloeira plants around that area, though, so you can just rip off the aloeira.

[1514] Yeah, that looks really.

[1515] infected it looks like you got lit up if you click on that photo with me standing on the rock with the dragon you notice anything weird about that image um you got a bird on your back gertrude who's gertrude so in order to summit the highest mountain in madagascar you got to bring a chicken you it's tradition you must take yourself a white cockerel protect it keep it alive and it protects you from the bad spirits and witches of the rainforests the the locals say so I'm all about respect in the local culture of course so you have to bring a chicken how long i took a chicken how long are you carrying this chicken around how many days and a half weeks two and a half weeks oh my god that's so crazy so you have to feed the chicken you have to let it shit yeah shats all in my bag shat all over my tent it would sleep on top of my tent it wouldn't leave me became domesticated like a little dog and became your buddy yeah just followed me around it everywhere oh my god two and a half week chirping in my ear I'd pray for a little bit of rain because when it started raining he would tuck himself inside the bag you wouldn't make noises but can you imagine 14 hours you've got this chirping chicken on your shoulder now is he just perched on your shoulder or do you have him strapped down?

[1516] He's in the top compartment on the bag so you have him strapped in so he can't get away so he can't get away now he's got like what in the fuck is going on yeah going through the jungle so that's why we let him out a lot of the time and he'd just be running trailing behind us it's great and you've got to leave him on top of that mountain so that was his freedom day that is so ridiculous he's just hanging around with you.

[1517] Yeah, that was a couple of days in.

[1518] Do you have video of this chicken hanging around with you?

[1519] Do I?

[1520] I don't, I like I do, but I don't know if it's on my Instagram.

[1521] That is hilarious.

[1522] But yeah, got lots of footage.

[1523] You and your boy are just chilling with a chicken.

[1524] There we go.

[1525] By the way, that guy has like women's dress shoes from the 1950s on.

[1526] Yeah.

[1527] What are those shoes?

[1528] Man, sometimes he'd walk barefoot, and it was only one I said you've literally missed a scorpion by a fort.

[1529] Those sandals are like a, like a five -year -old girl would wear.

[1530] Yeah, they are.

[1531] Right?

[1532] Yeah.

[1533] It's hilarious.

[1534] And that was the Nails Bushman.

[1535] Oh, look, he didn't give a fuck with those things.

[1536] He doesn't care.

[1537] Yeah.

[1538] He's just there to hike.

[1539] That is a crazy fucking chicken, man. That whole thing, that's so strange.

[1540] At the end of it, did you eat it?

[1541] No, so we have to set him free on top of it.

[1542] We can't even take him back down.

[1543] So I was hoping he'd follow us down, you know, built a bit of a bond with a flaming chicken, you know.

[1544] But we didn't, we couldn't eat him either because they say that the bad spirits then go inside.

[1545] Yeah, it seems like a bad idea if you eat him.

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] He's your pet.

[1548] No barbecue sauce either, you know.

[1549] He's your pet.

[1550] Yeah.

[1551] Unless you were starving, right?

[1552] What would you do if you were stuck and you were starving?

[1553] We would have no choice, would we?

[1554] Yeah, we'd have no choice.

[1555] Survival first.

[1556] But then you would be worried about the spirits.

[1557] Exactly, yeah.

[1558] And if we took him down to a community, that community would apparently flip on us, you know?

[1559] Oh, really?

[1560] We'd be introducing the witches and the bad spirits.

[1561] Witches?

[1562] Yeah, they believe in witches.

[1563] Chickens carry witches with them?

[1564] Chicken, no witches are scared of white chickens.

[1565] Oh.

[1566] So that's why we needed gertude.

[1567] That is hilarious.

[1568] They believe in witches.

[1569] Which isn't, yeah, yeah.

[1570] And they've got some mad stories as well.

[1571] So Max, my guide, he said, so my take on it is we were in the middle of this community, deep in the jungle, high up in the mountains, in the middle of Madagascar, you know, the fourth largest island in the world.

[1572] And we came across a community, and they allowed us to stay in their little wooden shack sort of hut.

[1573] And I woke up about two o 'clock in the morning, let's say, I don't know what time, two o 'clock in the morning, and it's Max coming in.

[1574] He should have been sleeping right next to us.

[1575] It was Max, my photographer, me and Lever, and the chicken next to Max, Gertrude.

[1576] And he came in with this machete.

[1577] I was like, you're right?

[1578] He's like, yeah, yeah, good.

[1579] Anyway, his story is that me, Leva and Suzanne, were all convulsing in our sleep, all shaking.

[1580] And then he looks up to the door, and the silhouette of this lady was stood on the outside from the moon, strutting the outside of the door, peering in.

[1581] And he has shouted like, oh, you know, get away in Malagasy.

[1582] Anyway, he was freaked out.

[1583] We were all three still.

[1584] I have no, I don't remember any of this and I was thinking now come on you've got to be lying takes the machete and then he chases this witch -like figure into the jungle, runs about 100 metres when she enters the jungle, boom, she disappears and then when he walks back to the hut he said you'd stop convulsing, you woke up Ash and asked if I was all right and I was like no and I was like the only one that I felt I was the only sane one there saying come on that's got to be a load of rubbish or like when you sleepwalking suffered with a night terror And he said, no, and the only reason that I wasn't convulsing is Gertrude was sleeping next to me. So I was like, whoa, Susanna, I was a photographer from Belgium, which is absolutely bricking herself then, you know.

[1585] She's like, what was going on?

[1586] Where are we?

[1587] It's like, so we've got the Blair Witch Project.

[1588] Yeah, so you're stuck in this tent now with people that are crazy.

[1589] You think the witches are like peering into the, like, you got to be weirded out.

[1590] And they're all telling me their individual stories of their witch experiences as well.

[1591] Great.

[1592] Right.

[1593] But they were very, you know, there was a time with my two guys.

[1594] We had many crocodile rivers to cross.

[1595] Oh, fuck, dude.

[1596] Yeah, Madagascar's full of crocodiles.

[1597] And sometimes they would ask the local community, you know, whether it's safe to cross.

[1598] And I would say, how do they know safe to cross?

[1599] And he replied once, well, they've made a deal with the crocodile.

[1600] So what do you mean?

[1601] They've made a deal with the crocodile.

[1602] It's like, yeah, you know, they've rock.

[1603] The crocodiles have promised that they won't eat the locals if the locals let them be.

[1604] and leave them alone.

[1605] So you're all going to cross that crocodile -infested river on the hope that some contract has been signed or some handshake, give me photo proof, you know?

[1606] They're like, yeah, I'm doing it.

[1607] I'm not doing it.

[1608] I'm building a raft, but I'm finding a different way, you know.

[1609] Even a raft.

[1610] Yeah, even a raft.

[1611] Yeah, it took us four hours to construct the raft.

[1612] Yeah, just to get to the other side.

[1613] I never knew what was in.

[1614] You must have been shit in your pants, just looking down at that water.

[1615] Crocodiles, they target people.

[1616] They do.

[1617] This is always three ways to cross a river, cross where the local suggest.

[1618] If there's no local, cross where there's white water rapids if there's not that either then yeah a raft is the final option there's a terrifying story about these explorers that were I think they were on the Congo and they were in kayaks and the guy in front of them got attacked by a crocodile and the guy watched the crocodile come up grab the guy flip the kayak under and then pull and then pop the kayak pops up without the in it, boom.

[1619] And then the guy's gone.

[1620] Scary, scary story.

[1621] So he reached up, snatched him out of the kayak, and then he kicked him, ripped him off the rope.

[1622] Popped him out of the kayak.

[1623] And the kayak pops up and the guy's like, what in the fuck?

[1624] He's right behind him why this thing happened.

[1625] Oh, you get out of that, wouldn't you?

[1626] His boy just got eaten by a dinosaur, you know, in a crazy muddy river right in the bottom of him.

[1627] I was like, fuck!

[1628] What do you do?

[1629] get to shore, get that heck out of there Oh man No, we were again Super vigilant We crossed at the right places Where there was white water And where you know rafts yeah Maybe they could have been below But luckily we didn't see them there at all Didn't see no No crocodiles at all No No And it's all murky water So you can't You can never tell What you're into there for hours You know But they can be Yeah they can What is that?

[1630] 1961 David Attenborough And Madagascar With the crocodiles for their worshipping this guy's gonna feed it yeah what's he bringing over to feed them they like so they were just cutting it up here so this is the people that think they have a deal with the crocodiles yeah this is long history oh yeah madagascar so they've been feeding these crocodiles for a long time that's probably the move feed the crocodile so the crocodiles don't get into hunting I mean they want to preserve energy if they think they could just show up to the shore and every day you toss them some food yeah look how and the crooks know normally when the people cross and they'll just try to stay away from human activity normally but there are stories of people being taken of course you know of course look how evil that god damn thing looks that doesn't give a fuck about you not at all yeah you're not making a deal with a crock oh come and they were laughing at me saying yeah like course we've made a deal i'm like don't be silly and they're laughing thinking i'm weird it's like but they also believe in witches too but it's interesting like without the real outside world right we take away the internet take away access to education take away all the things that we think of in the western world and then in their world like even if witches aren't real if they operate that witches are real they're going to set these like very specific patterns things they're allowed to do and things they're not they're not allowed to do and that at least gives them this idea that carrying that chicken around is protecting them yeah you know that a chicken's going to protect you from the bad witches like and they just keep living that like you can't take a chance yeah you're going to take a chance and abandon the chicken what if you get killed by a witch yeah you're going to feel like an asshole.

[1631] So they get stuck in these patterns because life is so sketchy there as it is.

[1632] You're surrounded by dinosaurs.

[1633] You're hacking your way through fucking terrible forests.

[1634] It's almost to protect them as well, isn't it?

[1635] By creating these stories.

[1636] There was another one that if a leaf falls, if you're resting in the shade, it's hot in Madagascar underneath the tree.

[1637] If a leaf drops, it means there's a snake in the tree warning you to get out from underneath.

[1638] If the second leaf drops, it's warning it's about to spiral down and spear through your skull.

[1639] And again, I'm like, that's impossible.

[1640] I'm like, no, no. So I'd just wind them up.

[1641] You know, oh, second leaf dropped, and they would scatter, and I'd still be there, a likes, and another tree.

[1642] But I do love that.

[1643] You know, that's why I travel to amazing stories, isn't it?

[1644] People living in so many different ways.

[1645] Big, beautiful world, lots to see, lots to do.

[1646] And that's why, you know, so with Madagascar, I pointed out with the Lima Network Conservation, they've got 60 organisations on the ground, helping to protect and preserve the unique biodiversity.

[1647] So with these expeditions, it's almost the record is like the enticement.

[1648] their motivation, but if I can do something worthwhile and highlight certain issues, so with Mongolia, I was actually raising awareness about climate change and the effects that has on the nomadic way of life.

[1649] It gets so cold out there now that the livestock struggle to survive, which means that the nomads are out of work, so they move to the capital city, Ulambata, to find work, but there's now like a Goer district or a Uyerts district, you know, their white felt tents surrounding the capital city, It's one of the coldest capital cities in the wood.

[1650] It gets cold.

[1651] They burn what they can.

[1652] A lot of it is dirty cold because the clean cold gets sent to China and plastics.

[1653] So there's now a smog that covers the capital city.

[1654] It's a difficult place to live in the winter only.

[1655] And babies are lasting three, four days after birth before they're suffocating.

[1656] Oh, my God.

[1657] Just from the burning plastic?

[1658] Yeah, just difficult to breathe.

[1659] And the doctor just says, evacuate the city, get yourself out.

[1660] So I was just trying my best to raise funds for the Red Cross.

[1661] raise awareness of actually Mongolia you don't hear go to that picture again make that picture larger Jamie look how crazy that way of life is there's all these tents everywhere in the background you see it looks like some wall tents but maybe some hard structures looks like there's a few hard roofs there yeah yeah there'll be different huts they'll just be most of them are just tents yeah there's one building back there a multi -story building scroll back go that go back to this is there see that one yeah so this is in the capital Ulaumbata So you have a lot, even in the center, you know, it's pretty nicely developed in the...

[1662] But it's crazy, right?

[1663] All dirt roads and what do they do with sanitation and sewage?

[1664] Yeah, again.

[1665] I don't like hearing that noise.

[1666] Yeah, the...

[1667] Though they lack access to drinking water, proper sewage or internal heating, many are reluctant to leave behind the unique millennia old way of living.

[1668] Yeah, just shit a hole in the ground.

[1669] Whatever, whatever, forever.

[1670] Yeah, so it's...

[1671] Imagine not wanting to leave that.

[1672] Imagine being like, this is the way to go.

[1673] Yeah, these were all out in the wilderness, and the Mongolian wilderness is absolutely stunning, but they've been forced pretty much to move here.

[1674] So in the camp, stop that, please.

[1675] Go back up and make that larger again?

[1676] What is that background city?

[1677] What is that?

[1678] Yeah, that's the capital city of Mongolia, Ulambata.

[1679] Wow.

[1680] And so all that stuff on the outside is how most of the people live.

[1681] It's like a good district, yeah, yeah.

[1682] So you can, it drops to like minus, minus 40.

[1683] Farnight.

[1684] Fucking, amen.

[1685] And so they just need to stay alive, so they burn whatever they can find to stay warm.

[1686] Jesus.

[1687] So there's always, you know, always environmental at my heart, first and foremost, especially seeing the world.

[1688] You see it in its rarity.

[1689] You know, you're out Madagascar trek and its wilderness.

[1690] And 80 % of all plant life and wildlife found in Madagascar alone is found nowhere else in the world.

[1691] Really?

[1692] Literally walking past stuff on a daily basis, thinking you're not found anywhere else, only native to Madagascar.

[1693] giant comet moths this big bright yellow to lemurs over a hundred different species so i'd do my best to try to meet up with as many organizations as i possibly could who were helping to protect and expand national parks who were helping to educate the locals supply different means of work uh protect the species living within and highlight like the press we're interested in the journey but i would direct and highlight you know the real unsung heroes i call them the people volunteering doing this day in day out and often there's just a lot of you switch on the TV and it's just all negative isn't it but I believe positivity spreads more positivity so um highlight these issues all of the amazing work is doing their utmost to protect the environment um and yeah that makes you want to do more as well isn't it you know yeah well it seems like it's got to change your just your frame of reference shifts you've seen so many things that most people haven't seen just haven't been to that place and knowing that there's massive groups of people that are living like that are burning plastic in the wintertime to try to stay alive.

[1694] Yeah.

[1695] It just shifts how you view thing.

[1696] That's it for sure.

[1697] Yeah.

[1698] And you know what you've seen it.

[1699] You can't unsee it.

[1700] It's one of those where you just want to try to keep helping where you can.

[1701] That's how many people are living like that?

[1702] Oh, great.

[1703] So there's four million people in Mongolia, but probably about three million are in the capital city probably half of that are good districts nomads almost half maybe so more than a million people in tents potentially it's getting that way anyway yeah and the air quality just again so poor can you imagine that just giving birth the doctors get get out the city wow otherwise there's a high chance that you're you're gonna lose your child and and the people that do stay the older people that must be taking years off their life.

[1704] Yeah, most likely.

[1705] And then in the summer, so I didn't experience it in the winter, but in the summer, you still got the Goerdistrict, but it's warm, so you can see the sky.

[1706] What do these people do for living?

[1707] A lot of the, is livestock, so they raise there, they yak, dairy, you know, meats, that they'll transport over to the capital city.

[1708] But they're just out there living the purest way of life.

[1709] I remember walking through a pod of Mongone, actually.

[1710] I went over eight days without seeing a single person for eight days I was like wow if you want to know what the world was like I don't know million two million years ago Mongolia is the place that you'll get to experience a bit of that you know just wilderness just out there did you encounter any wolves or anything there wolves they were the bigger wolves as well they were grey wolves I didn't luckily saw footprints but you couldn't see whether that was wild dogs or wolves I had a wild dog approached my tent like two, three in the morning, just hit heavy breathing and footsteps outside my tent.

[1711] I'm in the middle of the Gobi Desert alone, hadn't seen a human in days, and I'm there in the middle of my tent and knife in one hand a torch and the other, shaking, adrenning, thinking this is a person outside.

[1712] Oh, my God.

[1713] I'm shouting, and they're not replying.

[1714] I unzipped it.

[1715] It was like a wild dog.

[1716] But it was fine, wasn't aggressive.

[1717] It wasn't aggressive.

[1718] But yeah, it was just so...

[1719] I remember my logistics manager, my Ulun -Battal -based, my Mongolia -based logistics manager.

[1720] I said to him, can you imagine I'm quiet.

[1721] how silent it's going to be in the Gobi Desert and he replied he just said there's no such thing as silence what do you mean there's no such thing as silence they have like silence rooms you know torture panic room silence room with the headphones and whatnot and he was like I'm not going to tell you you know you'll get out there and if you've hit the right spot of the Gobi Desert you'll know what I mean and I did I remember I was just again in the middle of the Gobi Desert hadn't seen anyone in days and there was no breeze there was no flies there was no people there was just no noise pollution whatsoever And I was just looking around.

[1722] I could just hear this faint noise, almost like a high -pitched humming noise.

[1723] Very faint, though.

[1724] And I thought it could be like air leaking from my water container.

[1725] It could be my trailer.

[1726] So I walked a few hundred meters away from my trailer, and I could still hear it.

[1727] It took me five to ten minutes to figure it out that it was like, I'm at such the point of silence now.

[1728] It's so quiet, I can hear my own body functioning.

[1729] And that's what he meant that there's no such thing as silence because when you're at the point of silence, you can finally hear your own body ticking over, never heard it before never heard it since oh well like what are you hearing just the faintest humming noise almost like it's almost like coming from the inside but you can't not not hear it as long as you're living as long as you're breathing you're hearing that noise i went everywhere and i was just like yeah nothing about it's it's it's my body it's ticking over so how long you walk into the goby desert here in your body oh no when you're walking you can't really hit it's when you stop yeah and it's got to be no wind a lot of the time It was very breezy.

[1730] Sometimes there was storms, you know.

[1731] So you're essentially walking through a dead area, right?

[1732] It's lifeless.

[1733] Yeah.

[1734] How much water you have on you when you're doing this?

[1735] With that, so my container was 20 litres, 20 kilograms, but it was never always full.

[1736] That's a lot of weight.

[1737] That's a lot of weight, yeah.

[1738] Hell of a lot of weight.

[1739] Plus you have all the other stuff.

[1740] Yeah, that's why you're mounted, really.

[1741] I think the trailer on its own, 40 kilograms, I don't know what that is, £60, 70 pounds, maybe, on an empty load because it was mild steel.

[1742] She was built in my family friends, by guarding, you know.

[1743] Really?

[1744] Yeah, just punctureproof tires, full rubber.

[1745] So it was heavy, but it was robust.

[1746] And then the water container, you're 20 litres, 20 kilograms.

[1747] I needed at a maximum load.

[1748] Yeah.

[1749] So when I was, you know, effectively, I went through the water when I was really suffering with the dehydration.

[1750] So at that point, the trailer was a lot lighter.

[1751] It was under 100 kilograms at that point, but I'm low on water, you know?

[1752] Right.

[1753] sort of rationing the last remain and dribbles up to where I make it to the community.

[1754] So on maximum load, yeah, 120 kilograms, water was the biggest issue.

[1755] And always was the biggest issue.

[1756] That's where the previous guy was evacuated on three occasions, which terrified me as well.

[1757] He was a Navy soldier, Desert Explorer.

[1758] I was just a scuba dive at Moitai living on a beach in Thailand, you know.

[1759] So I did have my worries.

[1760] I did stop planning Mongolia as well because of that.

[1761] I started to doubt myself.

[1762] At the same time I realized, you know, just because no one's found a way to do it.

[1763] something it doesn't mean it can't be done what made you feel like mongolia was the wildest place uh probably because it was really close like i'm living in tyler my initial my initial idea is get a cheap bike ten dollars cycle up to mongolia cycle across mongolia and walk back the other way or cycle to the start point in the east and then walk to the west and i thought if i did that would have died i wouldn't have made it that was lack of preparation um so that's why i went back home back to the uk for the right preparation the right training and again as I say now it's not like Vietnam the cycle when it was all very reckless it was all meticulous planning detailed planning and Mongolia for me just struck me it's that I was on the travel route for two years at this point and I'd come across people they say they plan to go here next they plan to go there next what they've come from Cambodia Vietnam but no one had ever said Mongolia really so I was just fascinated home to the Altai Mountains the Gobi desert you go your reindeer tribal community up north you've got the eagle hunters in the west your camels down south of the gobi I was just like this country is fascinating and from that point on I was just like I wonder maybe 100 miles let's walk maybe 200 I'm like heck why not go for the length I'm going to start to look for people who had done it before it wasn't for any record it was just for the fascination that's when I realised I couldn't find any evidence to suggest that anyone had completed the solo on a support walk but I did find the guy who previously attempted and he was a nice guy who responded I asked him what the dangers are It's a big list, the grey wolves, the drunken and nomadic drifters, there's stagnant waters.

[1764] Drunk, nomadic drifters.

[1765] They can sometimes be a problem, yeah.

[1766] They're drunk, they'll go on their hoarse, they'll roam, and they're big.

[1767] They're big, the Mongolians, wrestling's their sport, so they're stocky.

[1768] It's in their history as well, isn't it, with Chingis, Chingis Khan, or Genghis Khan, as we know him.

[1769] Yeah.

[1770] You know, but yeah, they could be big an issue.

[1771] And he just sent this huge list, and I was like, yeah, maybe I look for a, different country.

[1772] Maybe I'll walk across a European country or something.

[1773] It's a while.

[1774] I didn't know much about it until I listened to Dan Carlin's hardcore history piece on Genghis Khan.

[1775] Right.

[1776] Yeah.

[1777] I think it's five episodes.

[1778] And it's insane.

[1779] You just realize, like, how do I not know all this?

[1780] Like, how many people they killed?

[1781] The Mongols killed everybody.

[1782] They conquered half the world almost.

[1783] Half the world.

[1784] And they would rock up in the dead of winter, sort of rock up at Russia's border.

[1785] And they wouldn't they just slit the juggler of their horse?

[1786] Yeah, and drank some of the blood and mix it with milk.

[1787] Yeah, they would use that to stay alive.

[1788] They apparently killed so many people that they altered the carbon footprint of human beings on Earth during King's Kahn's lifetime.

[1789] They think that during his lifetime, they killed 10 % of the population of the planet.

[1790] Jeez.

[1791] That's ridiculous, isn't it?

[1792] As many as, they don't know the real number.

[1793] They think as the low number, I think they were saying like 50 million, the high number was over 100 million people were killed by.

[1794] Gingas Khan during his lifetime by his Mongols.

[1795] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1796] And he fucked so much.

[1797] Yeah.

[1798] He fucked so much.

[1799] He left so much DNA out there.

[1800] One in five.

[1801] Some crazy percentage of people have Gingas Khan's DNA to this day.

[1802] That's insane, isn't it?

[1803] Nuts, man. Nuts.

[1804] It's nuts, too, that it went away.

[1805] It's like you had this military genius that came along at the right time, you know, with they had just massive skill with archery and bows and arrows and catapults and just strategy they were just really good at figuring out how to take over cities they invented the the bulletproof vest as well didn't they did they invent that yeah they realized that the the biggest concern to his soldiers to losing the soldiers it was from the arrow the arrow kept taking his men out so he want he came up with an idea how can we possibly chain mail or something yeah and it was yeah chain mail straight over a vest I thought they had that before maybe I don't know And it's the, I was shocked to see the, I went to like a museum and there was the, you know, the Schwartz sticker, the Nazi symbol.

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] Okinawa had that as well.

[1808] So did India.

[1809] Yeah.

[1810] It was a different thing.

[1811] It goes way back, you know, a few years ago.

[1812] I thought it was it.

[1813] Hitler just ruined a cool design.

[1814] That's what happened.

[1815] Hitler ruined a cool design.

[1816] I mean, you can never bring that back.

[1817] Oh, hey man, I'm just really into Okinawa and karate.

[1818] Because I went to a martial arts supply store in the 90s.

[1819] Yeah.

[1820] And they had swast.

[1821] And I was like, what in the fuck is this?

[1822] Yeah.

[1823] And then apparently it was just a part of Okinawa and Okinawa karate.

[1824] That symbol was a very common symbol.

[1825] Oh, yeah.

[1826] Pre -World War II.

[1827] Whoa.

[1828] Nobody knew what it was.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] I mean, obviously back then it was a different thing.

[1831] And the 1 ,200s it was, wasn't it?

[1832] The Chingus, the Ming Dynasty.

[1833] There's a place, I think it's in West Hills.

[1834] There's an Indian temple.

[1835] And this Indian temple is covered with swastikas.

[1836] And they had to explain that the construction.

[1837] of the temple and the designs on it predate the Nazi adoption of this symbol.

[1838] It was, I mean, imagine.

[1839] Look, look what Hitler did to that fucking mustache.

[1840] You know, that's, no one can have that mustache.

[1841] No. All the people in the world, it's crazy.

[1842] He ruined a mustache.

[1843] Like, not to say that anybody should have it, but there's, I don't remember ever a time where someone was such a piece of shit that they ruined a hairstyle.

[1844] Like you can never So many years on Isn't it?

[1845] I mean think of I mean There's no other Mustache that's not No other hair style No other Just his Facial thing He just He ruined the whole thing But this See if you find that Indian temple I think it's in West Hills I think that's pretty sure What's the day?

[1846] When does that date How long?

[1847] There's a big one in Chino Hills Where's Chino Hills?

[1848] Does it look like this?

[1849] No No no beautiful fuck i don't know this one doesn't look that cool um maybe let me see maybe that's a hindoo temple nope that's different too i don't i think it's an indian temple i don't necessarily think it's hindoo i think it's an indian and it's just got the signs all over that's why i searched initially in this is god that's so pretty that's anyway it is anyway the use of the swastika for whatever reason the nazis just decided to look cool and fucked everything up That's it.

[1850] Yeah.

[1851] Did he take inspiration as well from, like, Chingis Khan.

[1852] That's why he used it.

[1853] Because he conquered almost half the word, and he wanted to go in that direction, didn't he?

[1854] I think that's what someone told me. I didn't know that.

[1855] It would make sense as well, wouldn't it really?

[1856] He was trying to do exactly what Engest Khan did.

[1857] But it's interesting that there are these people in history that sort of shift, you know, of the civilization in a certain way, where they just become incredibly dominant and conquer everything.

[1858] There's a few of these people that throughout history, they pop up and then, everything changes because of them.

[1859] That's it.

[1860] And he's a big one.

[1861] So you're in this area knowing the kind of history that's involved in this place.

[1862] Like, what did it feel like, knowing, like, how many battles took place on that land?

[1863] Yeah, you can.

[1864] And fairly recently, right?

[1865] I mean, relatively speaking, it's the 1 ,200s.

[1866] That's it.

[1867] Yeah.

[1868] And you can see how the fields are massive.

[1869] And actually, going back to that guy who ran after, you know, on his horseback who came to deliver me the bottle of tea.

[1870] imagine that in the thousands the noise it would make like I could see him he was a dot in the distance talking about 10 maybe 15 minutes to get to me imagine a whole line of them soldiers warriors chingas empire running toward the noise oh you'd be terrified wouldn't you this mass land as well the step just goes on just rolling fields of grassland forever right yeah I'd see a girl in the distance it would be like a little dot in the distance I'd wake up in the morning and I'd know it's going to take me full day to get there.

[1871] That's, that's camp for tonight, effectively, you know.

[1872] It's me a whole difficult day just to get there.

[1873] It's that, it's that vast.

[1874] Dude, you're a, ballsy man to take that on.

[1875] That is a, that is a courageous journey and one of many that you've done.

[1876] It's got to be a weird feeling to be walking around regular people that have never experienced all the crazy shit that you, like, if you're around privileged people that are, like, really kind of soft and civilized, And do you almost want to take them with you?

[1877] Like, hey, this will help you.

[1878] Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure.

[1879] And I think for the younger generation, it's great, isn't it?

[1880] I'd love to, you know, and it's also the mental health side, the mindset.

[1881] You know, take someone out there to Mongolia or the jungles of Madagascar.

[1882] Or towards the source of the Yanksy.

[1883] And I know you just appreciate it.

[1884] You have more faith in humanity.

[1885] You think what a beautiful world we live in.

[1886] They do things like that with troubled kids.

[1887] Yeah.

[1888] My friend Dan Doty used to do it.

[1889] He would, they would take kids that were all fucked up and all sorts of problems in school.

[1890] Yeah.

[1891] And he would take them camping.

[1892] Just reconnect them to nature.

[1893] A hundred percent.

[1894] Take them up there for like a long period of time, months at a time.

[1895] They'd live off the land.

[1896] They would fish and they would live in tents.

[1897] And, you know, you'd come back with a reset mindset, wouldn't you, you know?

[1898] Yeah.

[1899] You start appreciating the little things.

[1900] Like the kettle of the toast I told you about, you know?

[1901] You know that old expression.

[1902] You can't really appreciate the sun unless you've experienced the rain.

[1903] Yeah, that's it.

[1904] So.

[1905] expression but it really it seems to be true you know who had that i think dylan danis had that on his fucking instagram post today oh yeah really when he was uh sparring with connor mcgregor obviously meaning connor's raining on him crack yeah um but that's beefed up hasn't he mcgrady yeah well connor's fighting this weekend who do you reckon's got it i had to ask you that yeah he can't appreciate the sun if you never stood in the rain so true so true yeah ancient saying that is a hundred percent accurate yeah he's fighting saroni isn't he oh yeah yeah yeah yeah a couple days so yeah today's Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday's here yeah who do you think I do not know my friend no I never predict fights because I think it might feel disrespectful if we were alone I would tell you my thoughts no but not in this one in this in this one I feel like this is a legitimate 50 50 proposition yeah yeah same I don't know he's a warrior both warriors could go either way well also skill wise yeah I look at I look at a bunch of different things.

[1906] I look at damage, age, skill, motivation, and then like past results, like all these things.

[1907] So when you look at all those things, you give Connor a slight advantage with stand -up, like with his speed.

[1908] He's very explosive and he tends to knock guys out like...

[1909] That left hand, isn't it?

[1910] Left hand is a piss.

[1911] He's so explosive.

[1912] He tends to catch guys with a lot of explosive punches.

[1913] He's very fast whereas cowboy is more of a steady pace wears on you but can also finish head kicks has the most finishes in UFC history most submissions I believe he has the most submissions holds a lot of records doesn't he a lot of records a lot of records against you know he's fought nothing but tough guys like for a long fucking time it's been head kicking and strangling tough guys how old is he now as well cowboy I think is 36 36 yeah and Connor I think is 31 is 31 is that right does it say I think 31 makes sense Connor has less miles on him for sure But Cowboys never look better than he's had Over the last few years And you give him a fight where he can really get up And this is a fight where it's like a really I mean this is the red panties night You know?

[1914] Connor always talks about red panties night This is it Yeah everybody's going to tune into that fight Majorly big time It's a giant fight It's a giant and it's also an interesting fight Because even though both guys are not title holders Yeah It's still a five round fight That has the same super fight feel that any other world title fight would have.

[1915] You want to see that fight.

[1916] The world title, I've been arguing this forever, is very important.

[1917] It's always good to know.

[1918] Camaro Usman is the best 170 -pound fighter in the world, and it's proven because he has the world title, and he beat Woodley, and then he beat Kobe.

[1919] That was a fact.

[1920] I agree that that's important, but I also agree that that's not required for a great fight.

[1921] What's required is a great match -up, and this is a great matchup.

[1922] This to me is a pay -per -view batch up like I mean I am that could genuinely go either way as well yeah and I'm working the event but if I wasn't working the event I'd be like what is happening here yeah how's that go down yeah how's that go down you know I don't know how it goes down it might be Connor tries to catch him real quick with a straight left it might be cowboy takes him down it might be cowboy tries to kick his legs in the outside it might you know it might be you know Connor takes a slower approach because he thinks that Cowboy's strategy is for him to wear himself out in the first round.

[1923] So maybe Connor fights light and easy in the first round.

[1924] Maybe he looks to prove a point.

[1925] To go the long run just in case.

[1926] Well, not just that.

[1927] Because he has gone heavier, hasn't he bolted up more.

[1928] So at third, fourth, fifth round, it's going to be struggling endurance -wise.

[1929] It could be, he could also, I don't think so.

[1930] I don't think he's bulked up as much as he's not cutting weight.

[1931] Right.

[1932] I mean, starving himself to wake 145.

[1933] 155 is more comfortable for him.

[1934] 175 is no weight cutting.

[1935] So, I think he's probably going to be walking around just a little bit over that.

[1936] I know Donald is.

[1937] Donald, I think Donald in a video said he was walking around somewhere around 177 -178.

[1938] So that's nothing.

[1939] That's nothing.

[1940] That's a day in the sauna and Don's on weight.

[1941] Yeah.

[1942] And then Cowboy just rehydrates and he's good to go.

[1943] And he's done it a hundred times.

[1944] Oh, yeah.

[1945] He's well -experous.

[1946] I think he's better physically like without the drain.

[1947] You know, I think size -wise, he's better as a 55er because those big giant guys like Darren Till at 170 or just a little bit too much, a little bit too powerful.

[1948] But I think that at 170 with Connor at 170, they're both guys who are 55 poundsers are just not cutting weight.

[1949] Go yeah.

[1950] So there's no, I don't think there's an advantage for either one of them.

[1951] I think it's great, and I think I would love to see that trend where guys just fight at their natural weight.

[1952] Go, yeah.

[1953] Because I think it's terrible for your kidneys.

[1954] It's terrible for your system.

[1955] You know as much as anybody.

[1956] You did it involuntarily.

[1957] Yeah.

[1958] I mean, that's what, basically, when you were dying like that, and you're, you're, you're, dehydrated, that's how those guys are the day of the way in.

[1959] And then they have to have a goddamn cage fight 24 hours later.

[1960] It's crazy.

[1961] That's it.

[1962] It's crazy.

[1963] All the way back on everything's forgotten about there, isn't it?

[1964] Maybe 30, 40, maybe 35 hours later at the most, right?

[1965] Because they're weighing in the morning and then there's probably another 12 or so.

[1966] I mean, shit.

[1967] It's not that much.

[1968] And they just go straight back to like hydrating as much as they've got to be broken into that gently.

[1969] Yeah, you've got to bring it to gently.

[1970] You've got to do it carefully.

[1971] Depending on much you lost of course but some guys there's some guys that were enormous and they would they would go through radical weight cuts right and then for them it was very important that they didn't shock their system and some guys did shock their system and then they had to pull out of fights their body was like fucking what do you do there's an overfeeding thing that can happen to you when you just eat too much and your body doesn't know what the fuck to do it goes into a state of shock yeah when you've been starving yourself for so long it's hard you know and i think start storing the fat after I found like after the expeditions if I went really skinny and started eating a lot I put on loads of weight super fast your body's probably like this asshole it's like it's stored it's storing the fat yeah because it thinks you're gonna do it again body's amazing you're crazy you but that's the thing they think about knockouts too like when fighters get knocked out it's easier for them to get knocked out afterwards yeah really yeah it's not just about damage it's about the body recognizing what's going on and trying to prevent further damage by shutting itself off yeah yeah because it thinks you're going to just take the punishment and it's it's easy it thinks it's easy if it just shuts off it'll be better you get yeah your body just goes fuck this check please shut itself down old fighters you know they lose their ability to take a shot oh yeah so i would imagine that was the same with all the methods of the body like if you dehydrate yourself it's probably easier for your body to go into kidney shock later yeah your body's like hey asshole you got to stop doing this you put me through yeah yeah for sure it's probably harder for you like um when you think about these things.

[1972] Do you worry that you've done these gigantic ones in Mongolia and Madagascar and now in China?

[1973] Do you worry that you're going to have to outdo the China one?

[1974] Because the China one was a whole fucking year, man. Yeah, a whole year.

[1975] Ridiculous really, isn't it?

[1976] Do you worry that, okay, now I'm going to walk across the whole world.

[1977] Like if I said that to you?

[1978] No. No. No. I'm, you know, the business is taken off bit.

[1979] There's a lot, you've got the expeditions, but then you've got the books, the promotions, the brand endorsements, everything.

[1980] As you're, you know, I'm going to, you know, you know the tours that go on on the outside of that so you don't feel obligated to try to kill yourself no i want to get them i want to get them shorter definitely shorter shorter trips is ridiculous but people are not going to want that man you already fucked up yeah it's like if you meet a girl and she's your favorite girl ever and you're like oh my god she's the one and you show up at her house with a dozen roses and then you don't have a dozen roses the next day she's like this motherfucker doesn't even appreciate me yeah yeah right that's it that's it i think if we can make it just as extreme just as ambitious even more so interactive I loved the interactivity man and do it with a good old so I partnered it with WWF in in China so I want to work with them again okay that's not wrestling you're not talking about wrestling no no I say it was over here yeah how the fuck did they use WWF when WWF was wrestling for so wrong yeah they did sue them didn't they I think WWW World Wildlife Fund had to they won so who World Wildlife Fund won oh that's why it became WWE?

[1981] That's it.

[1982] Oh, I didn't know that.

[1983] I thought it was...

[1984] I heard that only recently.

[1985] I was like, whoa.

[1986] I thought that it was because they had to admit that they were scripted.

[1987] So they'd call it entertainment rather than Federation, World Wrestling, Entertainment.

[1988] I think there was conflict with the World Wildlife Fund, isn't it?

[1989] That's interesting.

[1990] No, makes sense.

[1991] So they were first.

[1992] They were before pro wrestling.

[1993] Yeah, maybe even if they were...

[1994] Even if they were after, I think that just the power.

[1995] It's global, isn't it, World Wildlife Fund?

[1996] Is it?

[1997] Yeah.

[1998] Yeah, all over, all over.

[1999] So, potentially just because of the sheer size of them, you know.

[2000] What excites you when you start thinking about your options for potential future trips?

[2001] Do you have anything that seems like really bonkers that excites you?

[2002] What about walking all the way across Africa?

[2003] Yeah, you know, something that has always fascinated.

[2004] I'm not ruling it out.

[2005] It's always potentially an option, but I've always been drawn to the Congo.

[2006] Always been drawn to the Congo.

[2007] Talk to my friend Justin.

[2008] Talk to my friend Justin, please first.

[2009] Yeah, hook us up.

[2010] Yeah, no, for sure.

[2011] Because he's currently got a new parasite That they don't they don't they don't yeah He's had it for more than seven I think more than eight months Yeah And they don't know what it is They are yeah They think he might even be The first person that they've ever diagnosed with it Because he caught it so deep in the Congo And a lot of these people that are catching parasites And you know And could be an evolving parasite too Yeah yeah yeah The Congo's of Oh there's all sorts there's all sorts Vibrant crazy ecosystem of all kinds of different things So what's he's suffering with what's the same symptoms?

[2012] He's got all kinds of problems.

[2013] Oh, really?

[2014] He's on all sorts of anti -parasitic medication, but he's, he was saying that after he worked out, he had to get into the shower because he was shivering, he had to turn on the hot water, like his, yeah, he looked pale and he was shivering.

[2015] They think it might be in his brain.

[2016] They don't know what's going on.

[2017] That's even worse, isn't it?

[2018] The fact that they don't know what's going on, they don't know how to help him.

[2019] And he's got brilliant doctors that have been working with him for months.

[2020] They're trying to run, they're running these batteries that, tests, they're trying to figure.

[2021] He detailed it on the show, and he's such a nice guy.

[2022] He's like one of the most selfless people I've ever met.

[2023] Yeah.

[2024] While he's talking about it, he wants to start praising the doctor and telling me I should get the doctor on the podcast.

[2025] I'm like, let's let's get to the point.

[2026] What's going on with you, man?

[2027] I'm like, tell us what's happening.

[2028] He's like, even in describing his own life -threatening illness, he's trying to promote people and help him out.

[2029] Amazing.

[2030] That's the way forward, isn't it?

[2031] That's the way forward.

[2032] I like him, man. I mean, he's got a, it's a wonderful story.

[2033] I don't know if you ever heard it, but it's, I don't use that word wonderful that often, but with him, I do.

[2034] It's like he was bullied.

[2035] He was bullied when he was a kid and then got into fighting and then became depressed.

[2036] It was a UFC top heavyweight.

[2037] He was not, he didn't win the ultimate fighter, but he was one of the top guys in the ultimate fighter.

[2038] And then he left the UFC and just started to do all this work in the Congo and started to build well.

[2039] So the Pygmies and then decided to come back to fighting just to sort of.

[2040] to raise awareness for the Congo and to start this foundation so he starts his fight for the forgotten foundation starts his fighting career off again becomes one of the top heavyweights for Bellator catches malaria three times three times and keeps going back and forth to the Congo to spend these long trips out there but in the process he's gotten really sick the last one he doesn't know he looks great still but he's still fucking with him what yeah what now was he I don't know I mean they've just got to find what it is.

[2041] They're going to figure out what it is.

[2042] And hoping that these anti -parasitic medications are putting them on to have an effect on whatever it is and maybe it goes away.

[2043] I don't know, man. The worry for me is when someone says they might, it might have gotten into his brain.

[2044] And I'm like, what is that mean?

[2045] What is that?

[2046] What happens then?

[2047] When something's in your fucking brain?

[2048] Like, what's going on in there?

[2049] Terrify.

[2050] Or have you seen the disease?

[2051] Yes.

[2052] Or is it?

[2053] The worm at the back?

[2054] Yes.

[2055] Behind the eyeballs?

[2056] Yes.

[2057] Yeah, you can actually see it.

[2058] Yeah, we play.

[2059] that on the podcast we played the video of it was frogs right and people too can't people get it people can get it too yeah there dude then you're gonna go in there i was that not so much anymore you've just put me off but no no this was i was planning to walk i was looking into walk in the congo before the yanksi the yanksi made more sense um but now after that i'm like no no if i'm going to the congo it wouldn't be the duration of hiking a river that was would take probably over the years shorter, so much more dangerous, you know, got everything there.

[2060] So maybe we'll just stick to a two -week holiday in the Congo, hey, and plan my journeys elsewhere.

[2061] If you go to the Congo, you got to go walk through the stretch that has that giant chimp living in it.

[2062] Do you know that about that giant chimp?

[2063] What is it?

[2064] What's his name?

[2065] The Bondo ape?

[2066] Yeah, it's a larger version of the chimpanzee.

[2067] It's like six feet tall, huge, 200 plus pound chimps.

[2068] The locals call them lion killers.

[2069] Really?

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] They nest on the ground.

[2072] We got an image of what are those?

[2073] They nest on the ground like gorillas.

[2074] Yeah.

[2075] Well, this one is not, this is an image is a dead ones.

[2076] See if you can go to, there's, if you just Google Bondo Ape, there's some really good, see that one in the upper left -hand corner, Jamie?

[2077] Yeah.

[2078] But that picture, I don't think is real.

[2079] I want to say that's fake.

[2080] Congo's giant Bondo -Aid.

[2081] See, that one's real.

[2082] That one's real.

[2083] Those people with the dead one?

[2084] Okay.

[2085] Make that larger, please.

[2086] Can you just make the...

[2087] There you go.

[2088] That's the first evidence of one that they ever found.

[2089] Wow.

[2090] And then they shot this thing, and they took pictures of it, but I believe that was in the 1930s.

[2091] And then they got another one that they shot at an airport, and these guys are posing with this thing.

[2092] See if you can find the one That's it at the bottom The very bottom That right there Bang Look at that Go full screen The one below it Yeah look at that Make that larger Look at the size Of that fucking chimp So that is this thing That they call the Bondo ape And it has a crest On its skull like a gorilla Yeah Yeah It's not like a skull It's not shaped Like a chimpanzee skull And so go back to the picture Please That's okay That's big enough But because it's not a very clear picture anyway So these guys shot this at an airport and uh look at the hog on them too but the size of that thing i mean look at the the men behind it i don't know how big they are but let's assume they're tiny and they're five foot five that thing is five ten five eleven yeah yeah probably well north of two hundred pounds and it's a chimp oh my god a rip you to pieces yeah easy but the the cool thing is this is a weird subspecies that's only in this i think it's called bealy in the congo and They either call it the Beely ape or they call it the Bondo ape.

[2093] But it's an enormous...

[2094] Yeah, never hit, but I'm sure I've stopped picture there where the guys are either side holding it up.

[2095] I'm sure I've seen that so wonderful.

[2096] Google Bondo Ape camera trap photo.

[2097] There's a camera trap photo of one of them walking upright, and it's about six feet tall, upper left -hand corner.

[2098] That one.

[2099] Six feet tall.

[2100] They said by measuring the stuff around it, they think that that is a six -foot -tall -chimp, Pansy walking through the fucking jungle.

[2101] And that's this guy.

[2102] There's a guy named Carl Amman.

[2103] He's a, I think he's from Switzerland.

[2104] He's a wildlife photographer.

[2105] And he spent a considerable amount of time trying to find these things and take photos of them because of all the descriptions that the natives have of these enormous chimpanzees.

[2106] They got video of one of them eating a jaguar.

[2107] They don't know if it killed it or if it found it dead.

[2108] The most mysterious parts of the world.

[2109] Whereabouts in the Congo is that?

[2110] In Bealie.

[2111] Bealie.

[2112] I think it's called B -I -L -I.

[2113] It's not a large place, but it's an incredibly dense jungle.

[2114] So it's very hard to get to.

[2115] But for a long time, it was just legend.

[2116] But now they have actual video of them.

[2117] They have photograph.

[2118] They have scat samples, DNA.

[2119] And then they have the skulls.

[2120] The skulls that are not quite gorilla and not quite chimpanzee.

[2121] Got you.

[2122] When they first got it, I'm pretty sure they thought it was a hybrid.

[2123] They thought like a gorilla fucked a chimp.

[2124] Like, come here, bro.

[2125] And then now they think it's a totally different subspecies of chimpanzee.

[2126] So there it is.

[2127] Oh, there you go.

[2128] Billy Uly Forest.

[2129] So that's where you got to go, bro.

[2130] Yeah, that's not far from the, it's that the sort.

[2131] That looks like the source there.

[2132] Yeah, is that what?

[2133] Could you go through there?

[2134] So that area looks small, but it's probably bigger than Florida.

[2135] The area where these things, I mean, the Congo's so big.

[2136] It's just always, from a young age, you hear all sorts of stories about the Congo, don't you?

[2137] Isn't it wider than the contiguous United States?

[2138] I think the Congo itself is wider than the United States.

[2139] I think there's more, land mass in the in the Congo there's an amazing BBC documentary on the Congo from many years ago yeah I think it was like from the 90s but uh they spent a 29 times the United States is 29 times bigger than the Congo okay hold on stop stop uh 200 and 342 ,000 square kilometers but the width of it I think it's the width um about only 5 million people even the size of it Oh, that's it.

[2140] Okay, no, it's not.

[2141] Okay, it's not as wide.

[2142] It's not even close.

[2143] Texas or something.

[2144] Yeah, it's like, it's bigger than Texas for sure.

[2145] It's like Texas and California and maybe like one other state smushed in there.

[2146] It looks like it's like 30 % of the United States.

[2147] Still a lot of wilderness that, though, wasn't it?

[2148] Oh, yeah, man. And if there's a fucking giant chimp living in there?

[2149] Yeah.

[2150] And all kinds of other shit in there.

[2151] All sorts.

[2152] All sorts.

[2153] Have you seen that shoe bill bird that lives there?

[2154] No. Oh, my God.

[2155] It's a five foot tall dinosaur.

[2156] of a bird with an enormous face.

[2157] His face is like this big and it looks like, it doesn't look real.

[2158] Like, you see it walking around.

[2159] The way that you're describing it, maybe photos, videos.

[2160] Oh, the face that they have, there's some great high resolution photos of the shoe bill where you look at them in the eye and you're like, what the fuck is that?

[2161] Is that real?

[2162] They're like the most ferocious looking bird.

[2163] It looked like that, right there.

[2164] Yeah, come on, bro.

[2165] That's badass, isn't it?

[2166] Face.

[2167] Imagine.

[2168] Imagine walking through the jungle and seeing that looking down at you Yes Or walking through the jungle And you part some leaves And that fucking thing Is staring at your face Oh my God We came across You know Have you heard of elephant birds No I think David Attenborough Elephant birds Elephant birds I think David Attenborough First Discovered it Or went to Madagascar Because he was fascinated By the elephant bird Went extinct I don't know how long ago But their eggs Were about About what's Half a foot Like a football yeah almost like a yeah rugby ball football yeah um in in size oh there we go oh my god look the size of that egg that'd be painful that's so big look at the size of that fucker there you go look at that comparison with an ostrich oh my god um on the there you go yeah holy fuck and these were big but i came across the elephant bird eggshells they're about this thick as well maybe quarter half a centimeter in thick in thickness and they're just scattered across the southern beaches of Madagascar and there are thousands still there.

[2169] So this thing is still alive?

[2170] No, this is going to extinct.

[2171] It's just the eggs.

[2172] But the eggs are still there you go.

[2173] There's David Atabra.

[2174] I think you bought one back.

[2175] It's in Cardiff, which is the capital city.

[2176] There's that many of them?

[2177] You can just go get one?

[2178] There's a thousand, yeah, just crushed because they're so thick.

[2179] Oh, look at that compared to it.

[2180] They just last forever.

[2181] Wow.

[2182] Holy shit, they're huge.

[2183] Forget how many years ago they went extinct?

[2184] She was a couple of thousand.

[2185] How many of these things have been captured?

[2186] collected.

[2187] I'm not too sure.

[2188] I don't know how many...

[2189] Why do the elephant bird disappear?

[2190] What does it say?

[2191] Human people, what?

[2192] Yeah, I believe it was the humans, wasn't it, hunting them?

[2193] Scroll down?

[2194] Humans may not be to blame.

[2195] Oh?

[2196] God damn pop -ups.

[2197] Get us every time.

[2198] Wow.

[2199] Amense, that's huge, though, isn't it?

[2200] Yeah.

[2201] But did you ever see the ones they had in North America?

[2202] The terror birds?

[2203] No. Oh, fuck.

[2204] They had seven feet tall, murderous, carnivorous, birds that couldn't fly running around North America.

[2205] America.

[2206] Yeah.

[2207] Pull up terror birds.

[2208] Jamie's.

[2209] He's searched overtime in this episode.

[2210] I'm just trying to scare you with all the shit that you've seen your whole life.

[2211] These were enormous birds.

[2212] There's one that shows the...

[2213] Look at the size of that thing.

[2214] There's one that shows to...

[2215] Go back to that National Geographic thing that you just had right there, Jamie, in the middle.

[2216] Yeah.

[2217] I think that was like a CGI documentary that they had done on one.

[2218] It says versus wolves.

[2219] I don't even want to click on.

[2220] Well, I think there's so much bigger than the wolves They probably hunted them down And there's a size comparison there Isn't there next to a human?

[2221] Yes, it's a far left chain Yeah, that's crazy chasing horses and shit You imagine like exploration back then Oh, it'd be a whole different ballgame, wouldn't it?

[2222] Oh, you had no idea So much more excited, but dangers as well, you know?

[2223] Well, when you're talking about people that believe in witches And people that believe in witchcraft Like back then, you almost had to have some belief system to keep you going because you had no idea what was around the next corner so these terror birds were alive I believe when human beings were alive right when did these things when were these things alive if I had a guess I'm going to guess they died out million years ago half a million years ago 62 to 1 .8 million years ago whoa 62 million to 1 .8 million says the temporal range covers from 62 to 1 .8 million years ago So I think that's 62 million, not 62 years ago.

[2224] Okay, so no people.

[2225] So, definitely no people.

[2226] Dinosaur, dinosaur, rage.

[2227] Cenozoic era.

[2228] Cenozoic.

[2229] So just some kind of monkey chimp type thing was all we had back then.

[2230] I think that was like Australia Pithicus or something like that.

[2231] What year was that?

[2232] Okay, I'm over -googling you.

[2233] Still stuff living withers, though, isn't that?

[2234] That's terrifying.

[2235] Have you?

[2236] The camel spider.

[2237] Yes.

[2238] Where it injects you with like an anesthetic.

[2239] Yeah.

[2240] And they're like stories of soldiers waking up hard.

[2241] and ear missing because they've been being injected in the middle of the night by this big ass camel spider size of a dinner plate, isn't it?

[2242] What is this, Jamie?

[2243] Mammals of the Mises scene, which are, I guess, the same era.

[2244] So it looks like giant sloth time period, that North American bear time period.

[2245] Look how small the horses are.

[2246] Holy shit.

[2247] Compared to those giant sloth things.

[2248] It's like Avatore, isn't it?

[2249] Oh, that's a short -faced bear.

[2250] That's what that is.

[2251] That's that enormous bear.

[2252] You've seen that thing, right?

[2253] The short -faced bear?

[2254] Short -faced bear.

[2255] Have I seen it?

[2256] No, bro.

[2257] Short -faced bear was the most terrifying bear in all of history.

[2258] Short -faced bear was way bigger than a polar bear and super carnivorous and they think it might have been the thing that kept human beings from successfully navigating the trek through the bearing landmass until they went extinct.

[2259] They're huge.

[2260] There's a picture of a guy standing next to a recreation of a short -faced bear.

[2261] And it's fucking grave.

[2262] It's so big.

[2263] They think people probably hunt them off to extinction or they don't they don't really really know do you get an image of a short face bear that's ridiculous animal but i don't even know existed until a few years ago oh that's probably so much that's why that's sapien i don't know if it goes into the details yeah sapien just go into the details of this go with the one in the far right corner upper right yeah look at that yeah that's what it looks like oh man you just would not venture outside just fucking imagine how big that is that's a brute isn't it it's like a cartoon comic book version of a bear like you can't believe we're looking at this thing where literally this thing is standing up these gentlemen let's just assume they're somewhere in the neighborhood is six feet tall this thing is their entire height plus a couple of feet so double their entire height I should say plus a couple of feet that's ridiculous like their head this thing's standing up and their heads are like right around where his hip bone is although he is on a little bit of a mound Counten.

[2264] It's pretty close to 14, 15 feet, maybe staying on his leg.

[2265] Yeah, but why they have him on a mound?

[2266] Listen, bitch, we know he's tall.

[2267] Put him on, you're exaggerating.

[2268] You're making it look more ridiculous.

[2269] It's ridiculous as it is without him being on a mound.

[2270] Why do you have them, you're trying to make it even crazier?

[2271] It's crazy enough.

[2272] But super predatory.

[2273] Short -faced bear.

[2274] Yeah.

[2275] Between that and Sabreto Tigers, there was an African lion that used to live here.

[2276] Look at that.

[2277] Because we were just the bottom of the food chain, weren't we?

[2278] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2279] As soon as we invented the fire, wasn't it?

[2280] As soon as we discovered the fire, boom.

[2281] Yeah, control of fire probably helped, weapons, flints.

[2282] Yeah, that's it.

[2283] I wonder what came first.

[2284] We were just after scraps, weren't we, leftovers from lions.

[2285] Do you feel when you're doing these treks and you're going on these journeys and you're walking through places like Mongolia that are incredibly wild, do you try to like envision what it must have been like to be an early person without all?

[2286] All these amazing resources that you have at your disposal to help you get to this area that you're going to?

[2287] Yeah.

[2288] Oh, it would be a whole different kit and everything.

[2289] Like so in Mongolia, didn't he actually even use that GPS because that failed me. Oh, really?

[2290] Yeah, all communities were in different places.

[2291] It just didn't work.

[2292] I went back to Bog Standard's map and compass.

[2293] Can you imagine even before then as well?

[2294] Map and compass.

[2295] So a fold -up map?

[2296] Yeah, fold -up map.

[2297] Yeah, let's get out, yeah.

[2298] Did you use Google Earth?

[2299] No, no, no, no. No, again, Bog Standard.

[2300] low budget journey the mongolia one was so um so if you lost your map you'd be fucked yeah that but also the the track that i was on as i said that you could be following goat track or camel track and that is your lifeline that leads you to the next water source so if you're in a desert storm for example it'd make more sense to try to keep going uh well no just try to to camp down hide under your shelter if you lose sight of the track but if you don't you can keep going yeah so if you did that's why i didn't walk at night as well a lot of people say, well, it's hot during the day, and you're suffering with dehydration, why didn't you walk at night time?

[2301] And you've got the ammo pit vipers, the snakes.

[2302] You stand on the back end of them because you don't see it.

[2303] You're pretty screwed.

[2304] But you've also got the tracks.

[2305] You need to be able to see in the distance, the tracks splitting off, because you'll come across almost like a junction, four to five different tracks that are splitting off.

[2306] That's when you need your map and compass to be like, oh, which one?

[2307] Which track should I go down, you know?

[2308] Terrifying.

[2309] Oh, my God.

[2310] I can't even imagine.

[2311] And you can't communicate if you come across, if you're lucky to come across locals as well, they'll just point you in the wrong, they'll normally point you in their community, which is down south or up north and you're trying to go east.

[2312] They're trying to say, no, I want to go that way.

[2313] No, no, no, no. Next community is this way.

[2314] So I don't want the next community.

[2315] I want to walk to the most eastern, you know, so it gets difficult.

[2316] But yeah, that was always a threat.

[2317] The dehydration in Mongolia, it really terrified me. Now, what happens if a Stanstorm cumbers the track up?

[2318] Yeah, back to your mind.

[2319] map and compass and just hoping that you can be aware of the people around you, hoping you've got enough water, hoping you make it to another community or settlement.

[2320] Whereas the jungle, harsh environment, you know, spiders -wise, snake -wise, etc., but at the same time, you've always got water, you've always got water, you can't hack in the bamboo and it just leaks out water, you know?

[2321] You always got food.

[2322] Does anybody know where you are?

[2323] Yeah, I had a tracking device, and especially for Mission Yanksy, because it was Guinness World Record, we set off a tracker, and every five minutes it'd come up with my speed.

[2324] So even if I jumped in a car on a bicycle, boom, every five minutes, it's my speed, it's my altitude, my altitude, coordinates, distance covered, whether I'm active and you'll zoom in and you can see my current location within five metres.

[2325] And that was part of the interactivity.

[2326] So I wanted to make this expedition as interactive as possible for the full year of like sharing blogs, videos, live streams, photos, getting people to join.

[2327] Again, presenting in schools, getting the kids out litter picking along the Yanksie River, doing the filming for the documentary which was securing international documentary the mission Yanksi will go out as so that's exciting so all of this was very very well planned in terms of the interactivity it's like six months of survival six months of interacting with all the locals and just sharing it getting out there as best as we possibly could so I was heavily on the radar with the GPS systems that trackers at a lot.

[2328] Wow.

[2329] Well, listen, man, you got an infectious sort of way of talking about this that makes me almost want to do something like this.

[2330] Yeah, come join me. No way.

[2331] But it does make me appreciate what you've done in a unique way because I can see how it's affected you.

[2332] It's like, and what we were saying earlier about things being, when you do something incredibly difficult like that, it sort of like enhances you as a person, enhances your view of the world.

[2333] You have just more things you've seen.

[2334] And the, like, how old do you?

[2335] 29.

[2336] Yeah, for the average 29 -year -old person, there's no comparison.

[2337] The things that you see and the way you've experienced them in a very difficult way.

[2338] And very difficult and, you know, it's a very courageous way, too.

[2339] Like, the way you're just asking people for food.

[2340] Like, it's kind of nuts.

[2341] Yeah.

[2342] Yeah, that's it.

[2343] I appreciate it, man. It's really cool.

[2344] But again, you know, it's normal.

[2345] bring in normal background.

[2346] So again, I do all of these school talks, corporate talks, and that's the main message that I want to portray is there's no financial background.

[2347] There's no even university degree, no military background, sort of just working through hard work, you know, and if I can do it, you can do it type of message.

[2348] You know, it's out there.

[2349] Just got to hold your vision, hold your dream, protect it.

[2350] It doesn't matter what else anyone says, and it doesn't matter if they don't see it for you.

[2351] What's important is if you can see it for yourself.

[2352] Also, go for it.

[2353] You have to be a special person to be able to do this.

[2354] All you knuckleheads out there that are thinking, I'm going to go walk across Africa now.

[2355] Don't.

[2356] Don't.

[2357] Don't.

[2358] That's it.

[2359] I want to discourage people.

[2360] Preparation.

[2361] And do it the way you've done it, the right way.

[2362] That's it.

[2363] Well, listen, thank you for coming here, man. I really enjoy it.

[2364] I really enjoy talking to you.

[2365] It was really cool.

[2366] And like I said, your story is, it's very, very inspirational, man. But it's also, it's exciting.

[2367] I like to know there's people like you out there.

[2368] Oh, that's great.

[2369] No. So thank you.

[2370] Thanks, Much appreciate it.

[2371] Oh, tell people how to follow you on Instagram and all that stuff.

[2372] Yeah, on the Instagram it's just ash underscore dikes.

[2373] Is everything?

[2374] Ash underscore dikes?

[2375] Yeah, everything's Ash Dites.

[2376] Twitter as well.

[2377] Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

[2378] And that's D -Y -K -E -S.

[2379] D -Y -K -E -S.

[2380] Yes.

[2381] Okay, beautiful.

[2382] Thank you, sir.

[2383] Thank you very much.

[2384] Bye, everybody.

[2385] That was fun, man.