Leaping Tigers, Naked Nagas Himalaya with Michael Palin

Hmm.

At last, a taste of the world's third longest river.

There we are, real Yangtze water.

So, the gorge, we're entering the gorge - Tiger Leaping Gorge.

The combination of swollen rivers and towering mountains

makes the Himalayan gorges the deepest in the world.

Tiger Leaping Gorge took its name from the legend that a hunted tiger escaped by leaping across it.

The gorge rises nearly two and a half miles from the river bed to the mountain summits above.

My journey through the Eastern Himalaya will take me to Lugu Lake, Lijiang and the city of Kunming

before crossing into Nagaland and Assam to link up with another great mountain river -

the Brahmaputra.

Though it looks remote, our path is well-trodden.

It was once part of the tea-horse route

along which tea from Yunnan in China was traded for horses from Tibet.

My guide, Li Yuan is from the Nahi people.

The Nahi, one of many ethnic minorities in Yunnan Province, have a long history,

a hieroglyphic language going back a thousand years

and are very good at running guest houses.

COW BELLS RING

While they rest the horses, I head for the rest-room.

Going to the lavatory tends to be one of the experiences you dread in places like this,

but this is rather special, the sign says "Number One Toilet on Heaven and Earth".

What a claim, must be investigated.

Can it live up to that?

Here it is...

"Women...

"Men."

Oh, it's a fairly normal kind of Chinese toilet, a little trench down here,

beautifully tiled though and, er, you sort of squat down and that's what makes it special!

Look at the view!

There's Jade Snow Mountain ranged above you!

I'd happily be here for hours.

Might have to be!

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

Uh-oh, it's the hotel switchboard again.

You can't escape progress, even up here.

Apparently that's the only place they can get reception.

I think I'll go back to Number One toilet.

Ah, look at that!

We're still only halfway along the gorge.

There's another hard day's trekking ahead of us.

Our excellent hosts, Mr and Mrs Feng de Fang bid us a personal farewell.

Oh!

It's amazing. We're about half way along Tiger Leaping Gorge now and that's the...

the Yangtze River, the great broad Yangtze squeezed into that white water, pounding away down there.

It really is extraordinary.

I keep thinking we've seen all the mountain scenery we'll ever see, but here,

right at the eastern end of the...the Himalaya, it just, um... it just gets more spectacular.

A tiger may be able to leap this lot, but for us a long trek is the only way

to get to our next destination on the other side of these mountains.

Well, I've reached the easternmost point of my journey.

This is Lugu Lake on the borders of Yunnan and Sichuan.

And the people who live around this lake are a matriarchal tribe called the Mosuo.

To find out more about them, I'm going to meet their local hero,

a showbiz superstar in China, called Namu.

Namu's sunny smile is in marked contrast with the out of season chill in this lakeside resort.

But at last I find someone who's prepared to row me across the lake to Namu's village.

-Hey, hey!

-Hello, Namu.

I'd recognise you, of course, because you're extremely lovely and famous. I'm Michael.

-Michael.

-Thank you.

Welcome. Welcome.

-Welcome.

-Thank you.

Buddhist welcomes and showbiz kisses over, Namu whisks me off to see the house where she was brought up.

Her people, the Mosuo, are renowned in China

for their unusually open attitudes to sex, typified by what's known as the "walking marriage".

Namu, can you describe, um...

what you mean by a "walking marriage"?

It sort of means that we don't get married, we don't have really a father...

-So you don't have a marriage ceremony and you don't have a marriage contract.

-No, no.

And no wedding rings, you know.

-No rings!

-No rings, no rings, yeah. And, um...

-How does that work? So it just, um...

-Oh, it works fine, you know. I think it's very healthy.

I never really see how the couple fight on the street, fight in the...coffee shops.

So, like a couple is never living together.

For example, you and me, you walk to me, I have your baby and my brother,

will take care, my uncle will help me

take care of my babies and then if we, your sister,

walking out with another man, she have the kids and you have to help your sister take care of the kids.

Uncles take the father's responsibility.

A woman wants to have you, or don't wants to have you, it's their wish.

She opens the flower chamber door for you if she wants to do. If she doesn't, she closes it.

-So it's the woman who takes the initiative?

-Yeah, yeah.

We have... We like dancing and we like singing,

so we have like a... We have like a circle dancing, we have 71 different circle dances.

And then if we were dancing, if I was interested in you, I were dancing with you,

and then I would do this to your hand, do this to your hand, that means I'm very much interested.

TRADITIONAL FLUTE MUSIC, SINGING

Despite my deft footwork, I feel a distinct lack of pressure on the palms.

But Namu hasn't given up on me.

So, what happens? This is what you call the...the flower room?

-This is our flower chamber.

-Yes.

-Flower room for girls.

The girl would be, what, thirteen upwards?

At thirteen, usually they have flower chamber, but they don't immediately go with men.

The mother have to training her, how do you serve a man, how do you serve a man, you know,

receive man, sexually, you know, not like the Han Chinese - very secret - we're open in this.

Ah, so is that what your, your mother told you?

-My mother told me, good sex is very good for the skin.

-Yeah. Very good for the skin!

I'm being sort of buttered up here by a...

potato and by a mandarin orange, I'm getting a bit over excited.

Have we run out of film, Mike? I think we've just run out of film, haven't we? Oh, dear!

-You're lucky to be in my room - my flower chamber!

-I'm very privileged!

If you have a long, long relationship with this woman, you have to come to the girl's flower chamber.

After, when the mama sleep, that's why there are so many songs about,

"Come on, Mother, you go to sleep, the mosquito bites me so much". You know, they...

NAMU SINGS TRADITIONAL SONG

So there are so many songs about this joke.

-Tell me about your flower chamber that you set up, I mean, did you have...

-I, myself, I'd no...

-You must have had lots of men queuing round the block, I'd imagine.

-Actually, I never had a...

-I never... My flower room, this room is still virgin!

-Really?

Because, um, I've, um... Right after I had my flower chamber I went to city.

Namu calls herself "a five-star gypsy".

The reason she deserted Lugu Lake for the wider world lies deep in her childhood.

She tells me about it over cups of butter tea and crispy pork fat cooked by her aunt.

My mother to me is...

in and out like a wind.

I only remember her is her skirt.

-I don't remember her.

-Why did she send you away, do you think?

I was a third daughter and my mother wanted to have boys, so she tried to give me away, three times, but...

because I was a crying baby, they returned me. So she sent me to live in the mountain with my uncle.

My uncles never speak and, um, yaks doesn't speak,

so I was in mountain for many years by myself, just, you know, wonder, thinking, um, that's why...

I can't imagine you without someone to talk to.

No, I talk too much, that's why nobody talk to me before!

And why did you decide to leave?

I wanted to go to Beijing, wear high heeled shoes and pink lipstick, you know, that's how I thinking.

But she doesn't want to be forgotten.

So what's this going to be, Namu, this huge palace?

-Castle!

-Castle on the hill, yeah.

-Actually, this is a museum.

-It's a museum of...

-It's a museum for my...

-personal museum.

-Oh, I see.

Because this is such a wonderful view. It's the best place to see Lugu Lake.

It's a beautiful place, but it's only been discovered in the last ten years, right, Lugu Lake, really?

-When you were growing up here, there were no tourists.

-No.

No, tourists and no cars, no mobile phones, and no...

electricity, you know.

But 60,000 tourists came last year.

In the beginning they... The idea... The idea for them to come over here, it's just one of...

looking for free sex... They don't get it!

Did they ask for their money back?

No, they get some other things, like the views, good air,

and also...

they sort of like come here and they'd like, they'd wash their heart.

Having washed, or at least lightly sponged my heart in the powerful atmosphere of Lugu Lake,

I feel it's perhaps time to take a check on the rest of my body.

The fertile Himalayan foothills provide ideal ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine.

Near the old city of Lijiang lives one of its most famous practitioners, Dr Ho.

Branded a bourgeois and banned from medicine

in the days of Chairman Mao, he's now built up a worldwide reputation.

I've been recommended to him by a Monty Python friend of mine.

Hello, Doctor Ho?

My name's Michael Palin, I'm from London.

I'm a friend of Terry Jones, who I think came here some time ago.

-I remember you, you...

-You remember me, was I here?

I don't think I was.

Nice to meet you again. Thank you very much for visiting me again.

You're welcome. Please.

-Your chi seems weak.

-My chi is weak.

-You know chi?

Chi means...your energy.

-Say, "Ah".

-Ahhhh!

Your digestion seems weak.

What should I eat or not eat?

Um, simple food.

Simple food. I've been having...

here in Lijiang the pork is very good. Is that good or not good?

I don't think so, pork not so good.

You mean the food in China... The good news comes when he compares me to other foreigners.

-Compare foreigners, you are excellent.

-Oh, right!

-Yes.

-Thank you.

You listen to me. You are good - your pulse, no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, no liver fat...

no kidney stone, no gall stone...

Everything's OK, only...

Your stomach's weak. Your stomach - a little chi, a little weak.

-Yes.

-So, don't worry, be happy.

Happiness, it seems, is the best medicine, second only to the cooking of Dr Ho's handsome wife,

sporting full Nahi costume.

Simple food that you were talking about?

Not really simple, not really simple.

She conjures up a gorgeous meal from hyacinth, water lily, anchovy,

baby pig, Yunnan ham and everything her husband says I shouldn't touch.

I think I'll settle for her prescription.

The old town of Lijiang is a winning combination of cobbled streets and sparkling canals.

Its strong, squat buildings show little sign of the 50 major earthquakes

that have shaken it in the space of 130 years.

Today it faces a different kind of seismic threat -

three million tourists a year.

Many of them head for one of the biggest draws in Yunnan - the Nahi Classical Music Orchestra.

The case for the old music is defiantly made by their leader, Shuan Ker.

They destroy the Chinese traditional music.

The music, it is disappearing.

It is disappearing in the shadow of the Himalaya.

ORCHESTRA BEGINS PLAYING

During the Cultural Revolution,

many instruments had to be hidden away as the Red Guards set about destroying the past.

Shuan Ker himself was seen as a dangerous intellectual

and spent the prime of his life doing 20 years forced labour in a tin mine.

Now, he's a local hero.

-How are you?

-Fine.

-How are you?

Very well indeed, thank you, very pleased to meet you.

I'm with this famous man, isn't he, a very famous man?

-Have you been here before?

-No.

He's not one of your orchestra, is he?

-Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

-He is one of your team?

But now he retired from the orchestra.

-Coffee?

-Coffee here?

-Why not?

-I've been a bit starved of coffee for a while, so proper espresso or something...

-Two cappuccinos.

-Thank you.

-Yeah. Two, lovely.

How do you see the future? Do you think you will tour more, travel more?

I think the future, no choice, it's, um, China in two ways.

One, it's according to the Confucian-ism and...

then added with Western capitalism, mixed together like Singapore...

Now what we were doing here, this orchestra, no coin from the government.

We made ourselves, selling tickets.

Now, see, lots of audience. Full of the concert hall.

So it is said, my pocket full.

The old musicians, their pockets full. That's the capitalism make.

If all dancing and singing groups in the China depend on the government,

they gave money - no good.

-The people living a better... a better life.

-Yes.

-That's...

-Higher standard of living...

-Yeah. But culture lost.

-Yeah?

-Culture lost. Even lost their language.

-Now they're speaking in Mandarin.

-Right.

-The local old ladies, "Ni hau."

That's not our language.

So they're not interested so much in the Nahi languages, as such. They want...

The local government is trying to do something for preserving the culture, but I think too late.

-Too late. I've been working hard for preserving the music...

-Yes.

Even that, change...the face.

A little bit I catch,

-otherwise everything gone.

-You feel it's slipping away.

The new China appears bright, glossy and unsentimental.

Her cities seem only concerned with the future.

In trying to compete with corporate America, China is growing increasingly to look like it.

This is Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.

It's one end of what used to be called the Burma Road -

a supply line for the Allies in World War Two that connected China with India.

The Hump was the name given to the 500-mile wide, 20,000ft mass of the Himalaya

over which, until the Burma Road was completed, lay the only supply route behind Japanese lines.

Planes were pushed to their limit.

Over 600 were lost, many plunging into the jungle

on the Indo-Burmese border, an area known to this day as Nagaland.

THEY CHANT

The Naga comprise a dozen different tribes of which these, the Konyak Nagas,

were the last to give up the proud tradition of head-hunting.

My Konyak friend, Shingwong, is a local official

who's brought me here to the border of India and Myanmar, formerly Burma.

And you know in the Second World War when they...

A lot of the RAF pilots, the people who had fallen behind the lines,

-as it were, were rescued, would it have been by people like these?

-Yes.

My father has given word to, information to all of the villages to see that no white man is harmed.

We still have a pilot's seat in the chief's house.

-A pilot's seat?

-Yes.

-Do they? That's great, yeah.

So there are some pilots around who, who owe their lives to...to the head hunters?

-Nine of them.

-Nine of them.

So these were head hunters with hearts of gold.

This weekend there's a big cross-border market.

One of the events is this re-enactment of a headhunting raid.

GUNFIRE, SHOUTING

It's a war dance.

You're telling me!

On these necklaces, each brass face means a head taken.

And I see quite a lot of heads.

The...the skull, is that a trophy from the head hunting days?

-Well, what's that, the...

-The porcupine.

Porcupine? Has it got a buyer? Right.

-Is it quite a delicacy, porcupine?

-Yes.

-It's quite nice...

-Is it?

-Like venison.

Like venison. Ah, yes, yes. Quite strong, quite gamey, yeah.

This gentleman here, is he a very distinguished man?

He looks it, with a head dress like that, rather important.

-He might have been...a warrior once.

-Yeah.

-You can see by the tattoo on the face.

-Yeah.

What's the largest number of heads that anyone's ever taken?

-One I know from...

-Yeah.

-..who had got 66 heads.

-Ah!

He's no more.

Another ex-head hunter, I think.

So, one, two, three, four, five - five heads he's taken.

Does he remember the British at all here? Did they seem strange?

SHINGWONG SPEAKS IN LOCAL TONGUE

He was afraid.

-Afraid to go near and he thought, "The white man doesn't have any blood."

-Yes. Good!

-A tattoo? Yes.

-A tattoo on his chest.

Yes, what does that mean?

Does that mean...? Oh, it goes all the way down?!

There's a lot of history in there!

My stomach's very boring. Look at that - very boring.

-Bloodless.

-Yes, not very nice at all.

Ooh, yes, there we are. Ooh!

I think you win! You win on the decorative stakes!

Other traditional activities go on away from the market.

Opium smoking still goes on, does it?

-This is clandestine, illegal.

-Yeah. Do the authorities turn a blind eye?

No, they're strict.

So there's a restriction.

So what happens to these guys if they're caught?

They may be imprisoned.

-Cultivation is also stopped, but they...clandestinely get it from Myanmar.

-Right.

So how many times a day do they smoke?

Three to four times daily.

Inside a long-house I find a pilot's seat from the Second World War

and an old book offering clues as to why anthropologists liked it here.

Perfect bedtime reading.

Next morning I'm invited to visit the Ang,

the local headman, in a huge house made entirely of vegetation.

I've come to see the chief. Hello, girls.

Ah, there he is. Watching television again.

EastEnders?

I ask Shingwong if the chief could tell me how a village like this had changed over the years.

SHINGWONG TRANSLATES People coming from enemy... Different villages, attacking them.

The moment the church was built, the moment religion came in,

this has all been stopped.

And they have only one fear - that is fear of God.

How many children does he have?

-Five from the actual queen...

-Yes.

-..And two from the concubines, so seven. And he has ten concubines.

-Ten concubines!

-I was going to ask, do the concubines all live here with...with the king?

-They all live together.

-In this...

-In separate compartments.

Is that still sort of permitted to have ten concubines in this...

-Christian time?

-Still with the chiefs, yes.

It's not allowed, but this carries on.

Oh, what other powers does he have?

Giving out capital punishment,

or imprisoning.

Everything will depend on him.

So he could... He could decide on whether someone was executed or not.

Capital punishment was given to a person

-who has spied against a village.

-Spied against the village.

And he has got... Passed some secret information to... villages.

-So, they were bounded and thrown over a cliff.

-Wow!

One of the great problems on this whole Himalayan journey

has been when we come to international frontiers. It's always so difficult to get across.

That's why it's lovely to be here, in Myanmar and to know

that if I want to get into India, I just have to do...that,

because the apex of the chief's hut here goes along the border.

So, this leg is in Myanmar, this leg is in India.

A truly international body.

There we are in India, I can hop into Myanmar, I can do my exercises...

Ho! Chest in India, bottom in Myanmar.

I can do international exercises without any problem at all!

Oh, if only all world's frontiers were like this!

Oh!!

COCK CROWS

We leave just in time.

The rains are coming and they can turn tracks into quagmires

and completely cut off these remote hill villages.

And is this road, are they going to... Will they make this a hard top road?

-Yes, there's a plan, a six year plan.

-Six year plan.

It's pretty rough and ready at the moment.

How strong is Christianity here now?

99% of the population is now Christian.

-99% are Christian?

-Yes.

-Wow. Why have so many become Christian?

It's because of education.

They've come in contact with outside world.

-Right. So, does the Christian religion provide the education?

-Yes.

At the Baptist Cathedral in Mon, 2,500 Naga voices are raised.

CONGREGATION SING: "Onward Christian Soldiers"

Memories of home have a habit of ambushing you in the least likely places.

The church hymns at Mon were one thing, but something even more poignant is awaiting me in Assam.

Two powerful images from my northern boyhood -

a steam engine...

..and a coal mine.

Tipong Mine has been in existence since the 1920s.

As has this engine.

Neither seems altogether real.

It may look like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Thomas the Tank Engine,

but Tipong is one of the mines that makes India the third biggest coal producer in the world.

They even have priests on hand to bless the morning shift.

I think I'm beginning to realise now what being given the tika by the priest is all about,

because behind me is a temple.

It's built over the entrance to the mine shaft.

It's a temple to the goddess Kali who was the great destroyer.

So I assume it's there, and the blessings go on to appreciate the goddess Kali, the destroyer

on behalf of the people who are going to go under the earth

and they do go down a long way. I'm told they go...

It extends down about 1,000 feet below the temple there, the mine shaft.

Assam is very, very prone to earthquakes.

A very, very strong earthquake area,

so I should think that a destroyer is quite, um... Needs a bit of propitiating.

As the miners head underground, I have an appointment with Mr Das - Tipong's chief engineer.

Security patrols keep an eye on us.

Security, like safety, is one of the buzzwords here.

Mr Das is keen that I should hear one of their latest safety songs.

THEY SING IN LOCAL DIALECT

-They're just...

-Yeah, that's great!

The best safety song I've heard!

-They sang a safety song.

-Yes, it's about safety in the mines?

Safety, about the safety in the mines and they are just going to say to everybody,

in true music, only one single message - that's safety first. Safety not at the cost of production.

Well, I think that could be a big hit. It could win Eurovision, let's face it!

SAFETY SONG ECHOES IN BACKGROUND

What they were singing is, "Safety first, safety first.

"In every step of work, heed the rules.

"It's for us to remain awake all the time.

"There is danger in every move.

"If you obey all the rules, there will be no sorrow for us,

"Safety first, safety first."

And what's the economic viability of keeping open a mine like this?

Does it make a profit?

Private industry, they are mostly profit oriented

and we have some other duties also regarding coal conservation,

service to the community, service to the welfare of the community,

so I do not think with the way we are running here, the same way would have one private company run this mine.

They'd have looked for a profit and once the profit stops coming

they'd have left, leaving the people here in the dark.

There's oil as well as coal up here.

Digboi not only produces oil, it has a museum dedicated to it.

This is the first oil well in Asia.

This was drilled in 1889

around the same time... This derrick came up around the same time as the Eiffel Tower.

So this was,

this area here was one of the first oil fields to be discovered anywhere in the world.

Yes. Coal had been discovered in Margarita just ahead

and they were building the railway tracks.

They used to use elephants for the railway work,

so one evening one of the elephants came back

with oil markings on its feet

and so that's how they discovered that there was oil here.

-And once...

-Yes. It figures.

-..And once the drilling started,

there were these Canadian engineers, they used to be so excited they'd say, "Dig, boy, dig,"

-because the wells were hand-dug and that's how the name "Digboi" came into being.

-I see.

-Is that true, or is that just a, a well-established legend!

-It's a well-established legend!

-I love all this. I think these are great.

-Yes, this is a BOC petrol pump, you know.

-BOC?

-Yeah, Burma Oil Company.

A hot and heavy morning at Digboi station.

Thanks to the coal and oil

there's been a railway line here for over 100 years.

Good morning.

Can I have a single ticket to Dibrugah, please?

Thank you.

18 rupees, that's very cheap.

Eighteen rupees, that's about... 25 pence.

The next big town is Dibrugah, on the fertile river plains

where, in 1823, wild tea plants were discovered by Scotsman Robert Bruce.

Now half of India's tea is produced in the carefully husbanded tea gardens of Assam.

This was the first place in the world where elephants were trained to work,

now there's much less for them to do.

The elephant minders, called mahouts, face a serious loss of livelihood

and the elephants an uncertain future.

Manosh Jalan is a plantation owner who loves elephants

and insists they're the best way to see his property.

And what's happening to them now that there's less logging

and the elephants are not much in demand?

Can they get other jobs, or are they just out of work?

There are fewer people taking up and elephants are doing a different type of work.

Like, they are pulling bamboo. They are not necessarily doing timber work.

Do elephants like working? Do they adapt to a discipline or...?

Yeah. You see, they are very obedient.

-Obedient?

-Very, very obedient.

MAHOUT SHOUTS AT ELEPHANT

Sometimes it doesn't sound like it, it looks as though they're being very disobedient!

You see, like with all wild animals...

-..there's always an element of uncertainty.

-Yeah.

Is there anything at all you can do,

I mean of the 20 words that you use to sort of control an elephant,

is any of them any good when it's bolting?

No, not, nothing, nothing, you just have to... You just have to say your prayers

and hope that you will get... You'll survive this and the elephant stops on its own.

Once I get used to it, I almost forget I'm on an elephant.

It feels more like being on board ship in a gentle swell.

Tea is more of a way of life in Assam now.

This is absolutely traditional.

The casual employment also comes out of the same family,

so it's generally the husband and the wife working and if one retires,

the child gets the job, and so the tradition carries on.

Do you expect your son or your daughter to go into this business?

-I think that they cannot escape from it!

-Oh!

THEY LAUGH

Ah, very nice, OK.

After two hours doing the splits, I'm quite glad when the time comes to dismount.

There's no graceful way of doing it, is there?

And clearly it's a relief for the elephant too.

It strikes me, Manosh, we're still terribly close to the Himalayas.

Does that make Assam very different from the rest of India?

No, if you look at the north-east India as a whole,

98% of our borders

is with international countries.

Only 2% are connected... are connected to India.

-Yes, because you've got a very narrow link with them.

-So the entire bordering,

immediate bordering areas of the north-east region are international.

You have Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Tibet, and so on.

You've got these two enormous countries

separated by the Himalayas - China and India - do you think there can be a meeting of minds between them?

It's not the mountains which are the barriers, I think it's the mind-set.

It's a mind-set which looks a bit different from here in Assam -

where Hong Kong is closer than Delhi and China is seen less of a threat and more of a trading opportunity.

The Brahmaputra, rising a thousand miles away in Tibet,

pours out of the Himalaya creating a fertile corridor that splits Assam in half.

Makeshift ferries, packed tight, leave from makeshift jetties. Nothing is permanent.

The Brahmaputra is a mighty river, isn't it?

Yes, it's just one little channel of the Brahmaputra.

-What, this is?

-Yes.

-Really?

-Yeah, yeah, several channels.

-A little channel?

-Yes, one little channel.

-It must be half a mile wide!

-Yes, several channels like this. In some places, four kilometres, five kilometres wide.

-Really.

-Where does the name Brahmaputra come from?

-Brahmaputra means "son of Brahma".

Brahma is the three, the trilogy of gods and it's the only male river in India.

It just looks very calm and serene now, but in the monsoon it's a different mood altogether.

It's my good fortune to be riding the Brahmaputra with Maan Baruja,

a 20-year-old walking encyclopaedia.

Can you tell me a little bit about Majuli, the island where we're going?

The main thing about the island is that it has lots of these Vaishnav monasteries.

What we call satras.

These create institutions now for Assam, because they're about 400 years old

and they create institutions of art, culture, dance.

These are celibate monks who live there.

Majuli is the world's largest river island -

250 square miles of flat fertile mud.

The arrival of a 16th-century saint, Sankardeva, left substantial religious deposits as well.

This monastery, dedicated to Vishnu, the Preserver of Life, is renowned for its music and dance.

TRADITIONAL DRUM PLAYING

Extraordinary intricate fluid movements.

How long does it take to learn something like that?

It takes about five years.

-At least five years.

-At least five years, from the first time from when you come here?

TEACHER INSTRUCTS CLASS

From the age of five or six, boys begin the painstaking

and sometimes painful process of learning

the 64 positions of classical dance.

I have about five minutes to master the classical Assamese drum, the khol.

My teacher Dulal is 41.

He's been here for 35 years.

This is called...means left side.

Then there is three sounds at first.

First is khol...

down, down there is two different sounds, you see...

-This is ta.

-Yes.

-T-A - ta.

And you will slowly give breath here and this will be tha, OK?

HE HITS DRUM SOFTLY

-I can't even get mine to resound.

-And this is than, OK?

-HIGHER-PITCHED BANG

-Yeah, like this.

TEACHER KEEPS RHYTHM

-So, you play.

-Is this my concert? Am I ready?

-Yes.

It's getting that resonance.

-So, you see...

-NOTES RING OUT

Oh, it's, just... I just haven't got the co-ordination.

And what do they give when you're a six or seven year old?

-Do you give a small one of these?

-No, this is the same one.

-Really? The same size?

-Yes.

FRANTIC DISCONNECTED DRUM BEATS

That's my entire repertoire, thank you very much.

There's no electricity or running water at the satra.

The vegetarian diet is prepared by tried and trusted methods.

Every day life here is resolutely pre-industrial.

The monks have taken strict vows of purity

and even the simplest tasks are accompanied by thorough ablutions.

Now, you're washing your hands and the floor.

This is very, very important, is it?

-The...the thing about purity?

-Yes.

Because you're... I'm impure and you're washed.

-Yeah...

-So, you can't touch me and you can't touch anything that isn't pure.

-And if you do touch me now...

-Not now. No touch.

-..you have to wash again, do you?

-I wash again, yes.

-Yeah.

So, Dilip, how long have you lived in the monastery?

-Nine years I live in this monastery.

-Nine years.

-And Lilaram?

-16, 17 years.

-16, 17 years.

-Sixteen. Ah, right.

-So he's been your guide? He's kind of helped you.

-Yeah.

I'm very happy and other monks I meet.

Other monks, we love kisses.

-Love.

-Love?

-Love, yeah.

-Kisses?

-Kisses, yeah.

-Do you think that you will stay here for the rest of your life?

-Yeah.

-You do?

-Yeah, I do, yeah.

-How old are you now?

-Now, 17 years.

-Seventeen! So you think you will stay here?

Yeah, I think I will stay here.

-Really?

-Really, I think.

Would you be allowed to marry and stay in the monastery?

-I'll marry I'll go outside.

-Oh, I see.

-No marry in the monastery.

No, no, so you have to be celibate?

-No sex, really.

-No sex.

-No sex when monks, yeah.

There are women on Majuli Island,

some of them engaged in quite bizarre practices.

These ladies of the Mishing tribe are fishing, but not with conventional methods.

Having trapped the fish with their wide wicker frames, they slip them down their cleavage.

Well, I've always said you see more on a bicycle!

Next day at the satra, preparations are going on for a rare treat.

The monks have agreed to show us an extract from the Rasa Lila,

a story they normally perform only once a year.

The details of make-up and costume must be as precise as the performance.

Most of the monks will be playing milkmaids.

These two are clearly not regular transvestites.

One of my hosts at tea yesterday will play the god Krishna.

Krishna is Vishnu incarnated as a bit of a ladies' man.

When he appears in the fields all the milkmaids fall hopelessly in love with him.

CHANTING

This monastery on Majuli Island really is a very special place.

Partly because in this sort of overgrown Oxbridge college atmosphere,

they really produce work of great skill and beauty.

Also the people here are very friendly.

They seem to be as curious about us as we are about them

and also it's just such an oasis of serenity on a helter-skelter journey.

It really brings the pace of life right down.

I think I'll surrender to that for a minute.

MONKS SING IN THE DISTANCE

Next day Maan offers to take me to Kaziranga National Park

where he grew up and where he still lives with his father.

Majuli certainly...

-had quite an effect. It sort of calmed...

-It's very tranquil.

..calmed us all down, very tranquil, kind of unrushed

and now we're going to Kaziranga, is that right? Is that very different, or...?

It's formed by the deposits of the Brahmaputra alluvial deposits.

About a hundred years of conservation has led to a lot of regeneration of grassland

and we now have the world's highest population of one-horned rhino, wild water buffalo and swamp deer.

So how was it that you came to be brought up in Kaziranga?

Well, my father's always been interested in conservation,

so he decided to set up a small project in Kaziranga.

And he's very unconventional in his thinking,

so he thought he may give me a better education there than in the school.

Yeah, it worked.

-Oh, I don't know.

-Is there anything you don't know?

You must have a weakness somewhere. Probably... Petula Clark's middle period!

Got him, you see, straight away! # Downtown! #

On arrival at Kaziranga, we strike gold on our first safari.

A long horned rhino, which this park saved from extinction.

First close encounter with a rhino.

Manju, your son has been a fount of learning and knowledge

for us on this, on this trip so far.

What sort of education did he have?

If he went to school, he waste a lot of time.

In school you have about two hours of study which you can do at home,

but to do that two hours of study, takes over six hours to go to the school and come back...

Maan's father, Manju, runs Kaziranga's best hotel.

But in the 1960s, he was a radical Marxist.

You see, when you're young you start off thinking, "Change the world."

Every young man...change the world. We'll do this, we'll do that... Revolution, we'll change the world.

After a little while, they get married and they say, "Let me change my wife, first."

Then you start thinking, "Let me change my son." Ultimately you think, "Let me change myself,"

because your wife doesn't listen to you, your son doesn't listen to you, so you may as well change yourself!

Manju has changed from communist to conservationist,

organising an elephant festival, now in its second year.

The organisers hope it will dispel local prejudice against elephants,

who many see as a destructive threat to their livelihood.

The message being pounded out is that people should see elephants

not as an enemy, but as fellow creatures we should look after.

I mean, who could possibly hate an animal that plays football.

They're not natural footballers, are they, elephants?

It's more like a rugby scrum.

Just in case there were any lingering doubts as to who is the stronger, a long-suffering elephant

takes on a team of tourists, trainers, local politicians and the entire organising committee.

To great applause, and a roar of irritation from the elephant,

he effortlessly pulls the lot of us out of the arena.

He's weakening, I think he's weakening, Maan.

At the end of the day, when all the stunts are over,

I have a rare chance to get close to the elephants...

on their terms, rather than ours.

They have very few sweat glands, so they need to cool off.

-It's very important.

-So how often a day would they really need to get into the water?

-At least once a day.

At least once a day. I'm not sure about this...

Underwater tusks...fine, fine tusks.

They don't need soap then, or anything like that? Just a bit of...

It takes a lot of washing, doesn't it?

-There.

-55 years old, this one.

-How much?

-55.

-55? Oh, younger than me then.

I must say, it's a rare and wonderful privilege to be able to make an elephant happy.

Who knows, he might be a television presenter in his next life.

It's been nice washing you.

Feel better?

SNORTING

I think we'll take that as a yes.

Next time on Himalaya...

I'm in the Kingdom of Bhutan, trekking up hidden valleys, meeting a high-altitude poet,

sending prayers for safety,

and watching dancing like I've never seen it before.

Seeing paintings the size of houses, and archery, Bhutanese-style.

I cross the Bangladesh border,

take on the traffic in Dhaka,

meet friends on the ferry

and follow the rivers till they reach the sea.

Himalaya...the best way to get high!