Los Angeles The Travel Show - Short Edition

dream come true. I still cannot quite believe it. That is all the

sport for now. There is more on the website.

Hello and welcome to The Travel Show with me, Christa Larwood,

Now, this is a town where the automobile reigns supreme, but it is

I am here to discover what happens if you hit the road on two wheels.

Ben finds out whether he has what it takes to grace the stage of

Something tells me that he probably hasn't.

But first, we are in Los Angeles in the Golden State of California.

While some American cities have developed skyward,

in the 20th century LA's population spread outwards, with

the region growing at one of the fastest rates in the United States.

It is home to some of the world's most rich and famous.

On the streets of LA there is really only one way

Each week, just over the Hollywood Hills here at Supercar

Sunday, hundreds of people park up and meet like-minded car lovers.

All of the car enthusiasts of LA seemed to be turning up

for this event today, including some celebrities,

Could you tell me a bit about your car?

You can't get anywhere without a car.

It goes like a mile or a mile and a half.

You can get from here to where that guy is.

But some feel that this love with the automobile has reached

a tipping point and that there should be easier and safer ways to

This is a safe place to cycle because they

Unfortunately, that is not the case when you head downtown.

Bicycle traffic deaths in California are among the highest

in the country and many cyclists fear that they will be involved

in one of the 20,000 hit and runs seen on the LA roads each year.

Mike Bonin was one of the council members responsible for

It hopes to ease congestion and introduce hundreds of miles

One of the things that we need to do is make cycling safer.

This is a city where people should be cycling more.

It is relatively flat and it is always pleasant weather and yet

Normally when we make transportation decisions in Los Angeles they have

been about the single-occupancy vehicle, it has been how fast

the car can get through an intersection.

But while conditions may be set to improve a little for

cyclists and the city, they have grown accustomed to dangerous roads

This has set the scene for an unlikely

but thriving cycling community united by a desire to experience

The group ride phenomenon in Los Angeles is based

Our roads are completely hostile to pedestrians and cyclists,

but if you are in a group, with a couple of hundred people, car

Don Ward played a key role in starting Los Angeles's group

He now leads a ride called the Wolfpack Hustle from his LA

studio, where he prints out merchandise and memorabilia.

The group ride scene started with Midnight Ridazz.

Don created the Midnight Ridazz website as a forum for people to

Soon it had spawned three or four rides happening

An all-female cycling group called the She Wolf Attack Team met

Every night of the week, there's a ride listed and they're mostly

And a lot of club rides graduated from that, where people still want

to go out and see the city at night, but maybe get a better work-out

Have we got a night ride to go on tonight?

It's like reclaiming the night, reclaiming the streets.

This has been amazing, but I think I will let you guys go.

The main thing was that we could really take over the street

and everybody felt really safe, despite the fact that there were

almost as many cars as you might get during the daytime.

There's something really special about the group ride.

I was well into it but I think that's enough for me.

Whether or not the new plans lead to Angelos leaving their cars

at home remains to be seen, but from what I have found from my experience

on bikes here, cycling seems set to go from strength to strength.

The Travel Show, your essential guide wherever you are headed.

Well, to end this week, we are off to Kazakhstan.

If you were watching last week, you might remember seeing Ben Zand

taking to the mountains on horseback.

Well, this week, we decided to get him to do something

a little more cultural and thought a spot of ballet was in order.

During the heyday of the former Soviet Union,

cut-price access to the arts was a cornerstone of political policy.

The argument was that the masses deserved to be uplifted,

even if many of the shops behind the Iron Curtain were half empty.

25 years on, here in the Republic of Kazakhstan, Soviet control may

have gone, but that idea of affordable access to things

Kazakhstan is a quickly changing country, but a relic of its former

days of a surprisingly cheap yet classy night out can still be had

I'm talking about the Abai Theatre in Almaty.

The stage plays host to both operas and ballets, but despite such

high-class entertainment, tickets here start at just ?2.

Mukhtar has been conducting here for over 20 years.

It will be possible to buy tickets, more people can go,

You feel the music and you feel a good feeling.

The opera classics like Puccini, La Boheme.

Despite a low price tag, they don't put on second rate shows here.

Rafael is a ballet principal dancer and he has got some serious game.

Does Kazakhstan have a good reputation

We have a very good history because our teachers started ballet

in Moscow, in Russia, at the Moscow Academy, the best

ballet, the Bolshoi Theatre, and Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.

Now, I am not much of a dancer, but when you get

the chance to learn some moves from the pros, who can resist that?

Not only did I not have the muscles for it, my body simply did not want

I suspect I am properly started about 20 years too late

But that doesn't stop me wanting to spend a couple of quid to sit and

Rather than go it alone, I'm tagging along.

And in keeping with our cheap night out,

We're paying about 2,000 tenge which is about ?2.50 per person.

Combined with our ballet tickets, our evening's total is just ?5.

Obviously, ballet is a beautiful form of dance, but is dance itself

Dance has always been in Kazakh culture, it is a more traditional

understanding of what ballet is, all the influence that came from Russia.

A lot of them are a mix of traditional Kazakh music

The Abai Theatre is a beautiful and grand building,

designed by Soviet architects just before the Second World War.

It turns out we have come on the pretty quiet night, but despite

the small numbers, the dancers still put on quite the show.

Some amazing dancers have trained and performed here at the

Abai Theatre and many of them have gone on to perform with the Bolshoi

And seeing the performance tonight, it is not hard to see why.

All in all, it has been a fantastic way to spend the evening, without

breaking the bank, and a great way to end my trip here to Kazakhstan.

Well, that is all we have got time for on this week's show.

We are in New York's Harlem where more

and more locals have been priced out of the area and church congregation

We discover how tourists are coming to the rescue.

In the meantime, don't forget, you can keep up with us

while we are out on the road, in real-time, by signing up to

But for now, from me, Christa Larwood, and the rest of The Travel