In Skardu, in the heart of the Karakoram,
a local businessman has used a crashed airliner about 30 years ago,
towed it into his hotel and used it as a cafe.
Thank you very much.
An exotic-looking sarnie. Thank you.
(CHOKING)
This may sound silly, but I just don't trust the vehicles.
So I'm just going to try walking myself.
It's a bit bouncing all over the place, but somehow I feel safer like this.
The main thing is just not to look down and keep going.
Keep on going. Oh, it's up and down and all over the place at the moment.
I think we're nearly at the end, so I feel slightly better. Wow, what a ride.
For lovers of geography, this is one of the great focal points of our journey.
Three mountain ranges meet here - Himalaya, Hindu Kush and Karakoram.
The Indus meets the Gilgit and begins its long journey to Karachi.
It's also my first time next to the Karakoram Highway.
(VEHICLE APPROACHES)
We then continued via the Karakoram Highway -
which is known up there as the eighth Wonder of the World - over the Indus.
That took us eventually down to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
Locals say that Pakistan begins 15 miles outside Islamabad.
Islamabad is a very modern city,
unlike most of the noisy, boisterous cities in the rest of Pakistan.
It's the home of many famous people, including Imran Khan -
cricketer turned politician - who invited me round to interview his dog.
He was asleep, so I interviewed Imran instead.
What made you give up what could have been a comfortable life of cricket punditry -
you're well respected in the game - and turn to politics?
I thought since I wanted to live in Pakistan and since I'm respected in this country,
I might as well try and make a difference.
So that really was the reason.
It was pretty tough because that meant I had to stand up to the status quo,
which is very strong here, and fight the traditional parties.
Unfortunately, money in Pakistan is in the hands of crooks.
The majority of people who go into politics have crooked money.
They make money through illegal means, some of them are mafias,
they use that money to fight elections, they come into power and it's the best business.
That's like an investment and they make money once in power.
We were one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Would a smart, bright lad from the bazaars, poor background, make it in the country?
Almost impossible.
He would end up in a government school where the quality of education is so poor
that there's hardly any chance of him ever fulfilling his potential.
Another thing that strikes me coming out from the UK,
certainly in the North-West provinces, is you very rarely see women in public.
That, to an Englishman coming over from a very open, materialistic society,
seems rather odd.
Do you think that women should have more of a role in Pakistan?
Of course, women... especially talking about the North-West Frontier...
Women in the rural areas actually have... they work, they have a big role.
They work alongside men in the villages.
They work as much as men. It's the cities where the problem arises.
Because of urbanisation, when rural people come into the cities,
somehow they get disorientated and they don't know how to protect their women.
If a man cannot protect his woman...
If something happens to his woman, then the whole family's honour is at stake.
So they get... There's a lot of confusion.
Urbanisation is relatively new and people haven't quite adapted to it.
So what they do is more or less shut the women inside.
Do the women want to be protected like this or do you think they want to see a change?
I know it's impossible to say, but do you think women want to have a more open role in life?
For women it's very difficult. I think they find it very difficult.
There's segregation, and the activities they can do are very limited.
Most of the women go into teaching - they become primary-school teachers -
but it's still new and I think it's evolving.
I feel that the trends in Karachi...
If you go to Karachi, which is down south, the women are very active.
All stratas of society, from the lowest to the highest, the women are working.
The problem is in the northern areas of Pakistan and the North-West Frontier province
where this is a very new phenomena and...
I expect it will still take some time before the women can find their role.
Imran Khan has one seat in parliament - his own.
He's probably better known as a cricketer and a playboy.
I'm sorry to ask this, but in one of the authoritative travel guides to Pakistan
on page 100, you are described as - this was before your marriage, of course -
"a playboy and seducer and the world's most eligible bachelor."
What's your reaction to that in a guidebook to the country?
I guess because I wasn't married this sort of thing came up,
but I always describe my life as...
what I was...
pre... post-Jemima and pre-Jemima phase.
Before I was married and after marriage.
And I seem to have forgotten all my life before I was married.
I have selective amnesia. I don't remember what happened before then.
I like to think of myself as a happily married man.
Not far from the steaming, busy streets of Rawalpindi,
you find the largest and one of the very few breweries in Pakistan
which is allowed to make alcohol for non-Muslims.
The Murree Brewery - established at the height of the British Empire.
94% of the workforce producing the alcohol here are Muslim,
so presumably can't taste their own product - which was pretty good.
Beers ranging from a 7.6 down to a lager.
They make three million pints a year - not bad for a non-drinking country.
Minoo Bhandara, from my college at 0xford, runs the brewery, and I talked to him.
Can you explain the legal position
for Muslims who are found possessing or drinking alcohol in Pakistan?
The law is pretty rigid.
No Muslim is entitled, by law...
to possess alcohol, to consume alcohol or to trade in alcohol.
But the fact of the matter is that in the Punjab,
all those who dispense or sell alcohol, ie, the large hotels -
the Marriotts and Pearl Continentals and so on, Flashmans -
they are all owned either by Muslims or by corporations that are controlled by Muslims.
As far as we're concerned, that does not quite fit in with the law.
What's the extent of bootlegging?
I'm afraid it is quite extensive,
just as in the United States it was very extensive during the Prohibition years.
I should think in Pakistan it's even more extensive.
As far as the upper classes are concerned...
they have access to alcohol which is imported from,
or bootlegged from, places like Dubai in fairly substantial quantities.
One has only to ring up one's bootlegger
and you can get your choice of wine, liquor or beer.
Most people prefer it that way because it's a headache to be getting a permit
and being identified as a permit-holder and so on.
As far as the poorer people are concerned, who cannot afford imported bootleg liquor...
there is moonshine, and there is plenty of that around.
In point of fact, at times the moonshine liquor way outsells our legal liquor.
Have you any numbers on that?
We can't be certain of our numbers,
but I think that the numbers are between one bottle of licit liquor
to about three or four bottles of illicit liquor,
depending on the season and the time and the mood of the government
and the police surveillance at the time.
I would say the average is between two and three bottles of liquor, in addition to ours,
of bootleg liquor.
I went off to find some beer - not easy to find,
but at the back of a hotel, the other side of the Grand Trunk Road,
one of the great arteries across the subcontinent...
- (CRASHING) ...led me to Flashmans Hotel.
I was told if I went round the back I could buy my quota of drinks,
provided I could prove what religion I was from.
- Hello. I'd like to buy a bottle of whisky. - You have permit?
No, I don't have a permit. I need a permit?
- Then you have to fill this out, sir. - OK. Let's have a look.
- Thank you. - This is your permit, sir.
"Religion?" Christian or agnostic?
- As you like. - Oh, I don't know.
How about "agnostic with doubts"?
- How much can I buy? - You can buy up to six units.
Which is what? How much is a unit?
- Six bottles. - Six bottles.
- 120 beers. - Or 120 beers.
- Sign there, please. - OK. Lovely. Thank you.
So a bottle of the VAT. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Do you sell a lot of whisky?
Yes.
Who buys the whisky? Is it foreigners who buy whisky?
No foreigners. Christians here and non-Muslims.
Right. Christians. Parsees. Quakers.
Thank you very much.
There we are. Thank you very much.
I think he got the measure of me because he shouted as I walked away, "I do ginl"
These steps are slightly awkward for humans, but that's 'cause they were built for elephants.
This was a special entrance for the Mogul courtiers
so they could come into their apartments without getting off their elephants.
I've got to hand it to the Moguls, they really had style.
There's a sad story attached to this place.
It's where Emperor Akbar used to meet one of his favourites in the harem, Anarkali.
One day, his son Prince Salim passed through.
Akbar thought he glimpsed in these mirrors
a flirtatious glance exchanged between Anarkali and Salim.
He got very angry, as chaps do at moments like this,
and had Anarkali immured - walled up and buried alive.
Many years later, when Salim became the Emperor Jehangir, he set up a tomb
and on it wrote, "If I could but see the face of my beloved again,
"I would give thanks to God till the day of resurrection."
It's a lovely, if slightly gruesome tale, and probably untrue,
but somehow it's stuck stubbornly in the folklore of the city.
The size and scale of the Mogul buildings and the beauty of them.
There in the distance you can see the Badshahi Mosque,
one of the great mosques of what was then north India.
This little gem of a building - it doesn't surprise me - was built for Queen Mumtaz,
the wife of the Emperor Shah Jahan.
He wasn't averse to spending money on ladies he liked -
he built a tomb for her which is the Taj Mahal.
Part of the beauty of the decoration here are these pieces of pietra dura,
which are inlaid marble, very precious stones -
so precious that some of them have gone missing.
In the 17th century the Moguls decorated these buildings.
Another exquisite pavilion with the curved roof.
It was based on a local country hut and it's in marble - that roof is marble.
Water and the things you could do with it
were very important to the builders of the Mogul palaces.
This is the Shalimar Gardens - a wonderful series of fountains and waterfalls.
They tried to unclog them for us because they're not in such good shape.
# Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar...
(MAN SINGS ON OLD RECORDING)
# Where are you now?
# Who lies beneath your spell?
# Whom do you lead
# 0n rapture's roadway, far
# Before you agonise them in farewell?
# Before you agonise them in farewell... #
Lollywood is Pakistan's answer to Bollywood -
Bombay's centre of the Indian film industry - in Lahore.
A lot of them feature Shaan Shahid. Here he is bleeding from the head.
Action!
(FAINT DIALOGUE)
Cut!
I was invited along to the studios to watch Shaan at work.
All the films are made at night when it's cooler. It's far too hot in the day.
In between making nine films, he agreed to be interviewed. Here's the man.
- How many movies have you made? - Around 223.
223 in 14 years?
For two years I went back to New York and didn't work, so 12 years.
What's a typical day like for you?
I do about nine projects a day. Nine different films.
I give two hours to each project and then I run to the other one.
So during the daytime I finish about four,
and then I go home, rest for a while, go back to the gym,
have dinner with the kids, then work till five in the morning.
Now I'm doing four more shootings. On this set I'm going to be two hours only.
So if they don't finish my work, too bad, I have to go.
- You play nine different characters a day? - Yeah.
If you do an equation on that, within 28 days, I finish one film.
- Are you allowed to kiss on screen? - Not the lips. Not on the lips.
Probably on the hands or the forehead
or on the side cheek or something, but not on the lips.
My wife is not going to agree to that, anyway, so forget about it!
- Does that seem unnatural to you? - No. That's natural. I would feel the same way.
Camera... Aiyai!
At one time it seemed unlikely that we'd film in Kashmir because it's high security.
There's been conflict there for many years, lots of lives lost,
but it's also one of the most peaceful and beautiful places that I visited.
This is Lake Dal, early morning, going to the floating market.
People here live around the edge of the lake.
They grow their food very often hydroponically... on the lake itself,
take their produce to the market where you'll find dozens of boats lined up.
- Is this the main market, Lhasa? - Yes, this is the main part of the market.
So we just push in there and we stop, I suppose.
It doesn't look as though we're gonna be able to do much supermarket shopping.
0n my boat - that was called "Stranger in Paradise" -
I talked to Mr Lhasa, the boatman.
He pointed out what was going on in the market.
These people live on the edge of the lake?
Yes, they live here on the small islands and go everywhere by boat.
- Yeah. - They don't have here any roads.
So they are harvesting by boats, growing by boats...
- Selling by boat. - Selling by boats and buying by boats.
And the farmers come very early in the morning.
- Yeah. What are these? Beans. - Those are beans. Those are radishes.
So they come early in the morning?
They come here early, so after they sell and buy,
they have all day free for selling and for the farming.
The farmers go back to the farming. Everything we grow here on the islands.
Are the prices being negotiated here, all the shouting that goes on?
This is why they are making a big argument.
That one is selling there... spinach. The long things there.
It's a Kashmiri spinach.
And those leaves there. They're great stacks of lotus leaves?
- Water-lily leaves. - Right.
Water-lily leaves. That's for the cows.
I'm fascinated by what comes from the lotus. What are these?
When the flowers are falling down, then after that we get the seeds.
- Yeah. - These are the seeds.
They're selling here on the vegetable market.
We buy those and take these out like this.
- Then we peel this, like this. - I see.
After, we peel that again - the green part we peel again.
Then we have this white part.
You can pick that from my hand and put it in your mouth.
You eat it just like a nut.
Mmm.
- It has a good taste. - It's a very cleansing, fresh taste.
- Fresh taste. - And those are lotus seeds.
- Yes? No? - Yes, you can come and talk to me.
There aren't many tourists now in Kashmir,
so when a tourist boat does come along, you're besieged.
They really won't let you alone.
The flower sellers were determined I should have flowers wherever I went.
All right, I'll have some flowers. A bunch?
Let's see how much those are.
- Lovely. How much are those? 200? - 200 is these.
200 is those. I like those, though. Can I have those for 200?
- 350. - 350? How about 250?
OK, I give you 300.
- 275. - I do not tell you expense.
You don't tell me expense. Are you together?
I thought you were competitors.
All right.
Those for 200. 200. Thank you very much.
- No, they're 200. - 200.
200 are those? Are they? All right. I don't know if I've got... I'll have to have a look.
- Take that bouquet. - One bouquet. What about those yellow ones?
- How much are those? - 500.
500? Oh.
I can't. Are you trying to break me? I've got 200 there.
200. I've got 200.
And how about some lotus? No.
- I have plenty in my garden. - You've got plenty in your garden!
What have I got here?
- 250. - 300.
This is my 100 special I keep separately. There might be an emergency.
I have to keep this in case everyone goes and I'm left stuck alone in Kashmir.
Excuse me. Too much here. No other side of business.
No other kind of business?
I'll give that to a lady friend.
If I find one. There we are. Thank you very much.
It's going up. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much. What is your name?
My name is Bachir. Mr Marvellous.
Mr Marvellous is nice. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Do you have an email number we can tell people at home?
Anyway, we have to go now. Bachir, thank you.
No, we have to go. There's somebody else.
We're in the middle of a sort of flower explosion.
There you are, Nige. They're for you 'cause you're taking so much.
(LIVELY MUSIC PLAYS)
At the headquarters of the Tibetans in exile in Dharamsala,
it's not exactly Speech Day, but it's a special day at school
where the girls do a dance for their parents.
These are basically Tibetan-style dances,
with the long sleeves you see in Tibet.
Proud parents taking photographs of their girls.
What they wear and those amber and coral beads are terribly important.
(APPLAUSE)
When you go around the world, and you've met some of the leading statesmen
over the last 40, 50 years - from Mao Tse-tung to George W Bush -
do you find that they respond to what you're saying?
These are people with enormous power, enormous armies, they can take major decisions.
Do you feel that your message - which is such a clear message
and such an uncontradictable message -
do you feel it gets through to people?
Can you see change happening when you meet these people?
I think...
My own case, one level...
Dalai Lama or Tibetan or Buddhist.
- But the fundamental level is human being. - Yeah.
So, similarly, no matter what sort of position,
basically, on a basic level, all same human being.
Yeah.
So, for example, when I met Chairman Mao...
or President Bush,
I always look mainly on the level of human being.
Human brother.
So, on that level, we have no differences.
And, usually, whenever I meet these sort of...
leader or businessmen or scientist or a politician...
I always communicate with them on human level.
That's the main thing. So I do not find any... How you say?
...difficulties, or not much differences.
So Chairman Mao, as a human...
like all people...
very often coughing.
So, one experience of the few occasions I dined with Chairman Mao,
and it was a party, a big banquet.
So I was sitting beside him. I stayed by him.
So he almost...
appears like father figure.
So he... You know it's the Chinese tradition to use chopsticks.
His own chopsticks he'd use with vegetables or things like that
to put in my plate.
So sometimes I'm a little uncomfortable because he's always coughing.
Always a very gentle way.
He'd give me in a compassionate way, but I was a little... anxious!
So on a human level, very beautiful, very nice.
President Bush also, very straightforward, very nice person.
Of course, political and as leaders
they have their own different views and different responsibility.
And, actually, my main motivation when meeting these people
is mainly as another human being who has a lot of responsibility.
But the main thing is as a human being.
So human level, more compassionate person,
than his or her professions, politics or business
or education or anything.
Do you ever encounter a situation where you meet someone who you can't get through to,
in whom there is a coldness and an indifference which you just cannot permeate.
Er...
Usually... 90%, I think, 99%...
my meeting usually goes, on that level...
and very friendly.
A few occasions... One occasion... That was strange.
A Christian minister or something...
he tried to sort of impose his faith on me!
Really?
- Wow, he's... - I found this useless.
- I am Buddhist. I study Buddhism a lot. - He tried to convert you?
It's rather difficult to convert easily!
Well, he certainly tried at the very top.
You're the best travelled of any Dalai Lama in history.
You have a very hectic schedule.
Why is it important for you to travel the world...
as much as you do?
Actually, a lot of invitations come.
- You can't say no? - I have right to say no.
But then I don't want to say no!
So I happily accepted some of these invitations.
In some cases, I can't... How do you say?
...time not permit.
Then, also, at the time, my first visit outside India...
That was 1973. To the West.
I described myself as a world citizen.
From my childhood, I always have curiosity,
or desire to know more about different people, different culture,
and, as a Buddhist monk, I also have gained interest to learn more
about different religious traditions.
I read that you had a big atlas when you were young that was rather important to you.
I was exactly the same. I loved the atlas and wanted to go to these places.
Actually, I think...
I think the factor which...
How you say? ...which bring interest about map
is during the Second World War.
Really? To know what's going on.
I want to know where's Germany, Italy, Britain, France. Like that.
"Where's Japan?" more importantly, I should think.
Then, eventually, I developed some interest about...
How you say? ...geography.
And different cultures of different people, different area, different climate.
Perhaps one reason -
in our own Buddhist literature some description about the world...
and how it developed through evolution.
So I have this interest...
What's the differences? The more scientific explanation.
How developed this whole world? Like that.
So... something like that.
Do you worry about travelling now?
There's a lot of tension and fear in the world
about which countries we can and can't go to.
What advice would you give to somebody - say, some young people -
wanting to travel now in this troubled world?
Take more caution,
because now some unexpected things may happen.
Do you have any fear when you travel that something might happen to you?
Generally, no.
Wherever I met some people, it's always a friendly atmosphere.
Immediately it happens.
Even when I'm passing through the street, I always smile,
and I look one another...
Usually I smile, but sometimes the other side don't smile.
- Yes. - More serious.
Then I also can change my face.
But, usually, when I show them a smile
the other side also, even without knowing, just as a human being.
Some very positive, very peaceful manner.
- I agree. It's a universal thing, a smile. - That's right.
You also have the same experience.
Even though you may not sometimes communicate with their local language,
- but with your face... - I just smile and hope for the best!
They probably think, "Who's this idiot?", but if you smile...
Most people are good, except security guards. Don't try it with border guards, I find.
Are there any statesmen in the world today, or anyone in the world today,
that you would like to meet and haven't been able to? Does anybody come to mind?
(SPEAKS TIBETAN)
Oh, I don't know. I don't know.
At least among...
those leaders who I already met...
Among them, one, President Havel...
I have great admiration and respect.
- The Czech Republic. - Czech Republic.
For lovers of geography or anyone with a sense of the dramatic...
(LORRY HORN BLARES)
Over there are the Himalaya range...
(LORRY HORN BLARES)
They meet here at the confluence of the Indus and the Gilgit.
The Indus flows to Karachi. This is also my first contact with the Karakoram Highway.
As you can hear.
- I like that. - (SOUND MAN) I screwed it up.
You were completely drowned out. It was very good.
- (PALIN) Yeah. - I'm sorry.
- I put too much on it. - (PALIN) That's all right.
- "For lovers of geography..." - (PALIN) "Or just lovers, generally."
(SOUND MAN) Just for the DVD.