Worn out by all this mental exercise, I go back to sleep until lunch. And what a lunch. The cooks have achieved a minor miracle. In a tiny space beside the toilet they have cooked up the crab, prawn and lobster with turmeric, quince, chilli, coriander, onions and ginger into a perfectly balanced and gorgeously fresh-tasting stew, which must rate as one of the best meals on the entire journey.
After this celebration, sober reality intrudes. Time is no longer on our side. One of the boats is not even making nine knots and, in a last hope of reaching our rendezvous, we lash the two Fenis together and use the power of the better performing engine.
From here on, it’s all anxiety. Looking at watches and trying not to look at them at the same time. Watching the sky, cursing the slightest headwind, fearing the worst at every change in engine tone.
With less than an hour to go until sunset, the waterway opens out into a wider bay and suddenly we are at the sea. Not far ahead, with huge relief, we catch sight of the jetty at Katka, where we have arranged to meet up with our forestry launch. The only thing missing is the forestry launch.
By the time we reach the tall, mud-encrusted pier and the launch still isn’t there, we have resigned ourselves to the fact that it’s never going to be there in time. We look around helplessly.
The place is silent and empty apart from the curved ribcages of boats long since abandoned to the mud.
Then into the bay comes another boat, a plain but picturesque small trawler with pointed prow, central cabin and some heavy structure at the stern. It’s moving steadily towards the jetty. Ishraq issues orders. As soon as the fishing boat reaches the shore, the bemused crew find themselves, literally, roped into the final sequence of a BBC television series.
Feni 3, acting as camera boat, is roped up to the trawler and a complicated procedure worked out, in which, having delivered my last piece to camera from the fishing boat, the ropes will be loosened and I and the plucky little trawler will drift off into the sunset.
It is a crazy, impossibly risky idea, depending on split-second timing, but, with total credit to everyone concerned, we complete a successful take minutes before the sun and the Bay of Bengal merge.
In the last words of this last shot, I say that, despite all the wonders I have seen, the majestic scenery of a half-dozen countries, the power and majesty of the highest mountain range on earth, it is the people I’ve met that will stick in my mind.
The enjoyment of the world is immeasurably enhanced not just by meeting people who think, look, talk and dress differently from yourself, but by having to depend on them. The trio of Bangladeshi fishermen who learnt the arcane art of television filming in a little less than half an hour are only the last of a long list of those who had every reason to think that we were completely mad, but who decided, against all the odds, to be our friends instead.
In the heady rush of our emergency ending, I almost forgot why we were here. Only after the camera’s turned off for the last time and we’re heading for the muddy shores of the Sundarban Islands do I have time to feel that umbilical connection between the water I’m on now and the remote mountains where it all began for us, many months and several thousand miles ago.
Acknowledgements
At four o’clock on the morning of 25 September 2003, in a cheerless hotel foyer in Delhi, Roger, cameraman Nigel Meakin and I celebrated, as best we could, an anniversary of sorts. It was 15 years ago to the day that, at the Reform Club in London, Roger had called ‘Action!’ and set Around the World in Eighty Days in motion. One thing we all agreed on that morning in Delhi is that not for one minute had any of us imagined we’d still be travelling together five series and a decade and a half later.
I owe Roger a great debt of thanks for being patient and tolerant, careful, critical and above all wonderful company. As series producer, he took the lion’s share of responsibility for Himalaya and, as co-director, led Saga Platoon through Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
John-Paul Davidson, who directed us in Nepal, Tibet and Yunnan in China, Nagaland, Assam and Bhutan, is a veteran of the Himalaya and his unflagging mix of energy, enthusiasm and invention was only matched by his empathy with the people, his love of the countries and his ability to produce fresh-brewed ground coffee at any altitude. Nigel Meakin made a mockery of the passing years by producing superb work in often awful and uncomfortable circumstances. Peter Meakin, his son and heir, is not only a credit to the family filming business, but also a dab hand with the sound recorder who got us out of a hole or two when altitude sickness struck. For a few weeks we were sadly deprived of John Pritchard’s affable company, as it was he who the altitude struck. His replacement, Chris Joyce, came out from England at very short notice, and ably picked up the baton (or whatever it is that sound recordists hold).
Vanessa Courtney, iron fist in velvet glove, negotiated us brilliantly through the choppy waters of security-ridden Pakistan and India, and the manic delights of Bangladesh. Claire Houdret soothed frayed nerves in Nepal, Nina Huang Fan was a tower of strength in China and Havana Marking and Natalia Fernandez kept morale up in the rarely trodden pathways of Nagaland and Assam. No-one could have looked after us better in the high Himalaya than Wongchu Sherpa, Mingmar Dorji Sherpa (who reached the top of Everest on 17 May 2004) and Nawang Dorjee Sherpa. Mingmar was both on-screen and off-screen star in Tibet.
Life on the road would not be complete without Basil Pao, gastronomic adviser, menu translator, peerless photographer and, I suspect, closet trekker.
In the front office, the experienced hands and cool heads of Anne James and Mirabel Brook once again set our journey up with speed and great efficiency. Anne watched us through to the end, whilst Sue Grant stepped into Mirabel’s shoes with aplomb. Natalia Fernandez worked tirelessly throughout the series, counting us out and counting us back. Lyn Dougherty and Steve Abbott took on the care of finances, and kept us both above the law and in the black. Paul Bird has done just about everything for us, short of coming on the journey, and Alison Davies has been wonderfully encouraging, as ever, as well as uncomplainingly taking on perhaps the worst job in the world - deciphering my sound tapes.
Special thanks to the sage of Harlesden, Alex Richardson, who should by now have been made the first saint of the editing world. Thanks too to Saska Simpson for taking on Alex’s role on one of the shows. And to Lorraine Heggessey, Nicola Moody and Tom Archer at the BBC for their continuous and constructive support.
Apart from those mentioned in my text I would like to thank others without whom Himalaya would have remained just another mountain range: Jonny Bealby, Abdul Kadur Jaffer, General Rashid Quereshi, Anuraag Jacob, Onkar Singh, Holly Williams, Mr Yang Le, Sun Shuyun, Mr Ding Duzhang, Yatish Bahuguna, Fazal Kamal, Doug Scott. We would have got nowhere without Maqsood Ul-Mulk and Hindukush Trails in Pakistan, Royal Expeditions in New Delhi, Peak Promotions in Nepal, Chhundu Travel in Bhutan and Purvi Discovery in Assam. Special thanks to all at Whitehouse Cox who made me two shoulder bags that went with me everywhere, and to Mike Griffin for all those farewells and welcomes.