Equator (2006) s01e02 Episode Script

- We're right on the Equator,
according to my handy little
gadget here,
and we're in western Indonesia - we
think this island is the first bit
of land
between here and Africa that way, and
now we are going to begin our journey
across Indonesia.
My equatorial journey across Indonesia
will take me
through some of the most beautiful
but endangered parts of the planet,
as well as areas of violent conflict.
My first stop, the Batu Islands, are
60 miles away from their neighbour,
Sumatra.
Very few ferries make the journey
here,
leaving the people here
isolated from the outside world.
My guide Amalia explained they don't
get many visitors here.
Hello, hello!
They're very excited.
- Very excited, the first time maybe
they see foreigners.
- The first time?
- Think so.
- Really? It's quite surprising in a
way, because it really is so
stunningly beautiful here!
At first glance, the islands are a
palm-covered tropical paradise,
surrounded by coral lagoons.
It would be perfect for tourists, if
only they could get here!
With little contact with the outside
world, the people here live a
subsistence lifestyle.
One of their main sources of food is
fish, and the men took me out to find
dinner.
- THEY SHOU
THEY SING
- We were off to do some fitabo, the
local method of fishing.
You fitabo, I will fitabo,
we will fitabo together.
Come on! We've got to catch up! Can we
join you here?
You're just deliberately soaking us
now. Stop that!
Fitabo involves all the men from the
village surrounding a lagoon
and then herding the fish towards the
shore in an ever-decreasing
circle.
- A fish! A fish! A fish!
- It actually worked.
Our main catch were the brightly
coloured parrot fish, whose colours
match the coral they graze.
They may have caught enough fish
for the evening meal,
but there was no escaping the
isolation and poverty.
Many of the children will leave the
island to find work when they're old
enough.
In the evening, the men gather and
sing
of how those who leave must never
forget the islands they come from.
We woke to news of a tragedy in the
village.
A child. A small child, I think,
Amalia?
Has died in the village.
Nobody was sure what illness the young
boy had died from.
There was no doctor in the village and
there would be no coroner's report.
In this hot and humid climate, burials
take place at once.
Obviously, there is a much higher rate
of infant mortality here
than there is in the West.
Do you think it's more accepted that
children will die before they become
young adults in this sort of area of
Indonesia?
- Yeah.
The health system doesn't work here.
They accept, for example, like the
child now die because they don't know
what kind of sickness he got,
so they said that maybe he got curse,
a curse in the way that they don't
know what kind of sickness,
so they just say that, but in medical
term, maybe the child got a fever.
- The islands may look like paradise,
but life here is hard and can be
desperately short.
The nearest medical help is a long
boat trip away from the village.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim
nation on the planet,
but the villagers here are Christians,
like 8% of the 240-million-strong
population.
The mother of the boy was a young
widow who had lost her husband just a
year before.
That night, we had to say goodbye to
the villagers,
to rendezvous with a small cargo boat
that would take us east to the Batus'
giant neighbour, Sumatra.
It doesn't look very big.
We're supposed to go right across to
Sumatra on this,
which is going to be a journey between
15 and 17 hours.
It was a traditional wooden boat
which usually carries fish, fruit and
livestock.
There were no cabins.
We were to spend our night under the
stars sleeping on a wooden deck.
A bit achey - not great, not
horrendous,
just a bit rough.
The crew seemed to have had a better
night's sleep than I did,
judging by the beating they gave me at
dominoes.
Oh, no!
Yet again, I lose!
Have we been playing for money?
No? Phew.
I had a horrible feeling I had just
spent all our budget.
We landed in Sumatra at Padang,
a port just south of the Equator.
Indonesia is made up of more than
17,000 islands, and hundreds of ethnic
groups.
Since independence from the Dutch, the
country has endured decades of
dictatorship.
But for the last eight years,
it's been a fragile democracy,
as the government struggles to
keep this disparate nation together.
We headed north by road towards
Bukittinggi and the Equator.
The scenery becomes increasingly
dramatic as the road climbs through
the hills of west Sumatra, with
jungle-covered mountains and
volcanoes.
Bukittinggi is more than 900 metres
above sea level.
Its name means "high hills".
The town's hub is the market.
Indonesians live much of their lives
outside -
they shop at street markets and eat at
street stalls called warungs.
Amalia took me to one to try a local
delicacy.
Really quick,
looks good.
- This is satay padang.
This is intestine, try it. Very nice.
- Hang on.
It's what?
- Intestine.
- Intestine.
- Of beef.
- And this is a delicacy? OK
- Still hot? How is it?
- It's still hot.
It's not that bad -
it could grow on me.
I'm not sure what the slightly
jelly-like substance in the middle is,
though. What would that be?
The contents of the intestine?
- Yes, maybe.
- Oh, no!
- Go on, finish it, you got three
intestine!
- Meat in the market is so fresh, it's
still clucking.
You wouldn't know it walking round
here,
but Indonesia has been badly hit by
bird flu,
with one of the highest number of
cases in the world.
We've got one in here that's being
Ooh, chopped to pieces by the look of
it
Seven members of one family died
elsewhere in Sumatra.
We were assured Bukittinggi hadn't
been affected.
Have you noticed your sales being
affected at all,
any of the shoppers concerned about
the bird flu?
- AMALIA TRANSLATES
I'm not worried about bird flu,
I'm not worried about bird flu, but it
affected my chicken sales.
It has affected my chicken sales
- In the past, not so much now.
- Yes, not so much now.
- Are people getting maybe a little
bit complacent about it, then,
as it's still a threat, isn't it?
- Yes, it's still a threat.
- Have you been given any advice by
the government about how to prevent
bird flu?
- Yes, the government give,
erprecaution training to them, how
to give a vaccine, etc.
He says that people might be afraid,
but we are here from 6am until 6pm
dealing with chicken.
- And they're OK
so far.
- And they're OK so far.
- Amalia, what are we doing now?
- Well, she's checking which chicken
that has an egg,
so after that once they've found it
and then they have to try it.
Put your finger in the chicken bum.
- Put my finger in the what?
- In the chicken bum.
- In the chicken's bum?
And why would I want to do that?
- So you can know whether there's an
egg or not in the chicken.
It's fun, isn't it?
- Oh, it's fun, that sounds fun,
a fun day for me consists of putting
my finger up a chicken's arse, for
sure.
- Come on, try it!
Is anything there?
- There's nothing there, no!
- Nothing there in the chicken bum.
Smell it.
- I don't want to smell it!
- Smell it, Simon, smell it!
- I was keen to get on and see some of
Indonesia's slightly more exciting
wildlife.
So I took a flight east to see one of
the world's largest populations of
orang-utans,
on Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of
the island of Borneo.
Borneo's the next major island along
the Equator.
I knew the rainforest on the Equator,
a home to the orang-utans,
is under threat from loggers.
To be certain of meeting orang-utans I
needed to
take a detour south of the Equator,
and headed towards a national park
considered one of the island's great
treasures.
Zacky?
- Yeah.
- Hello.
- I'm Zacky.
- Simon.
- Zacky.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you too.
- We meet up with Zacky, a zoologist
from Orang-utan Foundation
International,
an organisation dedicated to
protecting the primates
from extinction.
He was taking us to Tanjung Puting
National Park,
where hundreds of orang-utans have
found sanctuary.
- The last count,
6,000 individuals there.
- 6,000 orang-utans in the park, so
we'll definitely see one at least?
- Yeah, I guarantee that!
- More and more of the Borneo forest
is being chopped down every year.
It's estimated that Indonesia as a
whole has lost three quarters of its
native woodland.
And as loggers chop down the trees,
orang-utan numbers are collapsing.
The park is one of the few remaining
protected areas of this extraordinary
island.
To give you some idea, the UK has just
over 30
native species of trees.
Borneo as a whole has more than 5,000.
But the current rate of forest loss in
this country is the worst in the
world.
Are we arrived?
- Yeah, we are here now at Camp
Leakey.
- Fantastic, it really does look like
paradise.
Look, there's somebody coming to meet
us.
Can we go?
- Yes, sure, sure.
- Is it OK for us to have food in our
pockets, or water?
- Yeah, they're looking for water or
something, but I can handle him and
you go.
- I just run off and leave you to look
after him?
- Oh
- Well, he managed to get that from me
quite quickly.
- Yeah, he makes sure it's food or
water.
- So have you got to try to recover
all the water now?
- Yeah.
- Are you just gonna take it off him?
- Give him one and then make sure.
- He doesn't want to have the plastic
bag.
Shall we get the plastic bag back?
- You can get the plastic bag.
- No, you can get it back!
- It's OK.
- Can we have that back?
Thank you very much.
You are absolutely incredible.
Can we take the top off for you, at
least, so you can have a drink?
No, he's done that, he doesn't need
our help.
Give us the plastic back.
You don't want the plastic.
Go on, spit it out, spit it out!
Thank you, you make me feel like Dr
Doolittle!
The reception was a reminder that we
were now in their territory.
The literal translation of
"orang-utan" is "man of the forest".
This is an area where you feed them.
- HE CALLS
- Presumably they're calling them down
now.
And here they come.
Many of these apes have been
rehabilitated into the wild,
but there's not enough forest and wild
fruit to support them,
so the Foundation puts out food to
help them survive.
Orang-utans used to be spread across
south Asia.
Now they're only found on Sumatra and
here on Borneo.
Oh, this is really quite
breathtaking
Somebody has got a weapon.
We'd made the cardinal mistake of
guests, and outstayed our welcome.
OK, now she's getting really cross
with us.
- Yeah.
- Our cameraman, Fred, bore the brunt
of the attack.
Now she's getting really cross with
us. She's had enough!
- It's getting almost tempting to
throw something back.
- Ooh!
I think it's time for us to go!
The Foundation also looks after around
120 orang-utan orphans.
How old are these little ones?
- About nine months.
- And what are their names?
- Leah and Lesley.
- Leah and Lesley.
You poor thing! Most of these orphans
have the same story.
The dwindling forests are no longer
big enough to feed the orang-utan
population.
Their mothers were forced into the
open, leaving them vulnerable to
hunters and loggers.
Baby orang-utans are spared because
they're valuable as pets.
These are the lucky ones who've been
rescued.
Look at all of them! They can't wait!
- Simon, you can take one.
- OK, do they want me?
- Beautiful, pretty.
- Yes, thank you very much.
And who's this?
- Osborne.
- Osborne.
So, Zacky, why are we taking the
orang-utans on a group outing?
- This forest is like a practice for
them to the real forest,
to the real jungle,
like thisforest they can practise
for climb, for
- So you want to reintroduce them into
the wild?
- Yep, yep.
- Oh, this is what she wants.
Here we go.
Off you go!
Many are ready to go back to the wild,
but the Foundation is running out of
safe forest where it can release them.
So where have all of them come from?
- Well, most from central Kalimantan,
from logging concession, from palm-oil
plantation -
the big, big problem, the big, big
threat,
that destruction area from palm-oil
plantation.
That's number one.
- The government has clamped down on
illegal logging for lumber,
but now the great problem is the
destruction of the forest
to make way for palm oil, a new
supercrop.
Conservationists claim this huge
plantation,
with its smoking factory,
has been partially built on land which
is inside the boundaries of the
National Park.
Stephen Brend is another zoologist
working for the Orang-utan Foundation,
who's campaigning to stop more park
forest being cut down
to make way for massive palm-oil
plantations.
So what exactly is it?
- Palm oil's this miracle crop,
vegetable oil, it's in 10% of all UK
supermarket products.
- 10%?!
- Often when you see something that
says "fried in vegetable oil", they'll
mean it's palm oil.
It's in biscuits, it's even in ice
cream, it's in cosmetics
and it could end up in your petrol
tank if the demand for bio-diesel
booms.
This is This is the fruit.
This is palm oil.
This very thing is what the problem is
all about. But it's not that.
What the problem is that the return
per tree is so small,
to make it economical, they grow palm
oil in multi-thousand-hectare
plantations,
and where the palm-oil trees go used
to be rainforest.
It is a wonder crop, and it's
incredibly useful,
and we've got to use it, but it's
where we grow it and how we grow it.
Indonesia has every right to the money
that can be got from harvesting this
fruit,
but it shouldn't be done at the
expense of the National Park.
- Government officials are currently
reviewing the boundaries of the park.
It could mean the loss of a further
300 sq kilometres to palm oil,
an area nearly the size of the Isle of
Wight.
Stephen thinks it could mean a further
500 orang-utans losing their habitat.
But while the battle over the future
of the Park continues,
small-scale logging still goes on.
So Stephen, what's going on here?
- Well, this is a logging rail -
this is how people move logs out of
the National Park.
- Legally, or illegally?
- It's in the National Park - it's
illegal.
This is the area that's in dispute of
the National Park -
and so we're getting the sense that
local people are saying,
"Look, this is going to become a
palm-oil plantation anyway,
let us get the wood out."
It's a very difficult situation to try
and control.
- I can hear the
- You can hear it
in the background.
- ..the chainsaws.
You think we can get to it this way,
Zacky?
- Yeah, a little bit far, but we can
try.
- We decided to follow the noise.
Let's hope they're friendly.
Have you had a hard day today?
How many trees have you managed to cut
down today?
- TRANSLATION:
- We have cut down
two trees today.
- Two trees today?
Do you think these trees belong to
your village or do they belong to the
National Park?
- TRANSLATION:
- This here - the trees belong to the
village.
- The men, who claimed they didn't
know they were doing anything wrong,
say they supply the wood to local
businesses.
Do you think there will be any trees
left when your kids grow up?
- TRANSLATION:
- We don't know.
We'll have to see.
If companies keep cutting down trees,
obviously all the trees
will go.
- It's just the same message - palm
oil robs us of the forest - it's the
same thing.
He didn't use the word "rob", he just
said the trees go, I'm using the word
"rob".
- The Equator cuts right across
Borneo,
and the road taking us east was
bordered by what's left of the once
mighty rainforests.
The ravaged landscape was a stark
reminder of what the future may hold
for the National Park.
But man hasn't just been destroying
the native habitat and species here.
In recent years, the people in Borneo
have been turning on each other.
The main ethnic group here are the
Dayak head-hunters.
There's eight million here on this
equatorial island,
some living primitively in the forest,
others in towns and villages.
I was heading east from the National
Park to the town of Palangkaraya,
in the centre of Borneo.
The Dayaks here confirmed their
fearsome reputation a few years ago
when they went on the rampage,
attacking another ethnic group, the
Madurese, immigrants to the island.
Jihan, who worked as a journalist in
the town during the attacks,
wanted to bring me here and show me
around.
- This is the first road I took, and
the first body that I found
was located right in that side of the
road.
- First body?
- Yes,
and
it was quite terrifying, quite
shocking for me,
cos it's kind of hard to comprehend,
seeing a body without a head.
- Did you feel personally threatened?
- Somehow, I didn't, I didn't really
care what my ethnicity at the time,
until later on, I realised I still had
a little bit of Madurese blood,
when someone, one of the Dayak leaders
kind of like identified me and saying,
basically, like giving me a
notification,
or sort of like a warning saying,
"You're not one of our targets,
"but, at the same time, we cannot
guarantee your safety."
- The Madurese came to Borneo as part
of the Indonesian government's policy
of transmigration -
a system of moving people from the
overcrowded islands of the south
to less-populated land in the north.
The policy led to clashes over land
and culture, particularly between
the Dayaks and the Madurese.
- A mob of Dayaks came down here and
hunt down the Madurese
and try to demolish anything that
belongs to Madurese,
just to make sure that no more
identity of the Madurese left in this
one particular place.
For the Madurese who managed to take
shelter and seek refuge at the
military base,
or the police stations, the most
important in their mind - just leave
this place.
- Get out.
- Just get out, definitely.
- Between 1997 and 2003, the Dayaks
killed thousands of Madurese.
Nobody knows the true number.
Eyewitnesses said many were
cannibalised after their deaths.
We were invited to a Dayak village to
meet some of those involved in the
fighting.
We found them in a celebratory mood.
They were holding a Tiwah, a religious
ceremony dedicated to the dead.
We were welcomed as honoured guests
and asked to take part in the dancing.
Something curious is about to happen,
I can see.
After the dance, one of the elders,
Robert, agreed to tell us about the
attacks on the Madurese.
What is the problem the Dayaks have
with the Madurese? What was the cause
of the conflict?
- TRANSLATION: The Madurese behave as
they pleased, gambling, cock fighting.
That was the start of it.
They always carried their weapons and
used them in arguments.
- What happened during the conflict,
can you explain a little bit more
about it, what was the conflict
about?
- TRANSLATION: They attacked us first,
killing two people from our village.
If you are good to us, then we will be
very good to you.
If you treat us badly, then we will
treat you worse.
- Was my sword here
involved in the fighting at all, would
this have been used?
- TRANSLATION: This is the Dayak
traditional weapon, which we have used
for a long time.
When we had our fight with the
Madurese, we used it.
Many Madurese were beheaded with these
swords.
We chopped off their heads with these
swords.
- So were you actually involved in the
fighting?
- Not directly, but I was giving out
orders.
My son was involved in the fighting.
- And what was your son's involvement,
what did your son do?
- What I did at the time, I forbade my
son to join.
The Madurese had killed his best
friend.
If they were Madurese,
my son did not hesitate to kill them.
Off with their heads.
If they were Madurese, he had to kill
them.
It was payback time.
We destroyed everything, including
their livestock.
- You've already prepared breakfast
for us! You are being too kind!
Robert wanted to show us the other
side of Dayak culture,
the great hospitality given to
strangers who aren't seen as a threat.
I thought it was just going to be a
meal,
but he'd decided he wanted to make me
a Dayak by adopting me into his
family.
- They consider us as family, that's
why they want us to take part here.
- I was anointed with chicken's blood,
which is meant to bring me good health
and good luck.
Rice was placed on my head,
representing power and food for the
community.
Thank you, thank you!
What are my responsibilities now as
your adopted son?
- TRANSLATION: Your responsibility is
just to remember us here -
we want you to remember us - your
father and mother.
I did have 11 children, now 12 with
this one.
- I had mixed feelings leaving the
Dayaks. They had been fantastically
welcoming to me,
but they also weren't ashamed to
admit they'd killed settlers on Borneo
who they'd fallen out with.
Borneo isn't the only island where
conflict is destroying lives.
I was leaving from the port of
Balikpapan on Borneo's east coast,
just south of the Equator.
I think our boat is this way.
It looks huge!
The ferry is one of the craft which
knits together this nation
of different islands, races and
religions.
Conditions look a bit rudimentary
inside.
Hello!
Having spent a night on deck during
our last sea trip,
I wasn't looking forward to the
overcrowded sleeping arrangements on
this one.
I'm not sure if we're
supposed to be sleeping in here.
Upstairs?
It's like a cross-channel ferry.
Whoa!
- Look at this!
- Do we have a bit of luxury travel?
- Not bad. Look at it.
- Much nicer than I expected! Oh!
What a relief!
It turned out my cheap ticket entitled
me to a luxury cabin
for the night!
This is really quite nice!
The ferry was taking us to Palu,
a town just off the Equator on the
island of Sulawesi.
It's an island of dramatic
mountains, and a striking coastline.
But its beauty contrasts with bloody
religious conflict.
- PEOPLE CHANT PRAYERS
- Like the rest of Indonesia, the vast
majority of people
living on Sulawesi are Muslims.
But it also contains significant
numbers of Christians and other
religious minorities.
In recent years, clashes between
Muslims and Christians have claimed
more than 1,000 lives.
There have been recent bombings in
Palu and, as I drove into town, the
atmosphere was still tense.
The problems started in 1998, when the
national government
had collapsed
and Indonesia was in chaos.
Local political rivalries split along
religious lines.
Street fights over political power
escalated until entire
communities were being massacred.
Elias, a university lecturer, agreed
to show us about.
He's Muslim, but a large part of his
family is Christian.
Elias has got this truncheon.
Are you carrying this because of
security?
- Yes, for protecting myself.
Before, I am not afraid anything here
because I have many family here,
but, since the things
- Since the attacks?
- ..since the attack, I am afraid.
This is one of the churches.
Was Someone put the bomb here.
- Oh, there's a police point just over
here.
The police are guarding the
churches now, are they?
- Yes.
- Right.
Elias took us to the pork market,
a place where only Christians would
shop.
A bomb attack here a few months before
had killed nine people,
including Elias's Christian uncle.
Is the policeman coming with us as
well?
The bomb was right here?
- Yes.
- Can you explain what happened that
day?
- TRANSLATION: Shoppers had started
pouring into the market.
When the bomb went off, I was standing
over there.
It was all so sudden, I was so
shocked.
I did not know what had happened.
I couldn't hear anything. I went deaf.
- Were you injured at all?
- Yes, I was injured on the leg.
- The police were now guarding the
market.
Who do you think was responsible for
the attack and what was the motive?
- TRANSLATION: I think Muslim and
Christian communities live here in
harmony,
but there are people who don't like to
see that,
and those people want to start a
conflict between Muslims and
Christians.
- Killings have been carried out by
both sides.
We were taken to an area for Muslim
refugees from the fighting.
So where are we going now?
- We are going to Sophia's house.
- Sophia, who is she?
- She is a victim ofalso conflict -
she lost her husband and her extended
family, so it's around maybe 50 family
members.
- 50?!
- 50 people in the family.
- Sophia, can you explain to me what
happened during the conflict?
- TRANSLATION:
- They tied our men like animals, so
when one fell,
they all fell.
We watched our husbands while they
were beaten. I asked, "What are you
going to do with my husband?"
"Shut up," one man said. Then they
kicked him.
- All of the males, including boys,
were targeted.
Many were never seen again.
Sophia thought her son would be killed
if discovered.
- When I was trying to escape, I put
girls' clothes on my son, so they
didn't know he's a boy.
The Christian militia stopped us and
asked if they were boys or girls.
I replied, "I have two children, and
both are girls."
I have no idea why they killed my
husband.
We saw lots of bodies floating in the
river.
My children said, "Let's wait here.
Who knows, we may find Dad's body."
But all the bodies were naked and
headless - you couldn't tell who was
who.
- How do you feel about Christians,
after what you've gone through?
- After the fighting, after we lost
everything we had,
I do think there's a gap between us
now.
Now when I see Christians, I feel very
deep hatred.
- Peace deals have been brokered, but
none so far has fully held.
In a nearby town, three Christian
girls were attacked and beheaded
as they walked to school.
We left the mainland and headed for a
more peaceful part of Sulawesi.
We sailed north, back towards the
Equator and the Togians,
a group of coral and volcanic islands.
The seas here are rich with marine
life, and some of it came to welcome
us.
- Come on. Watch the dolphins.
- They're just riding in front of the
boat.
Amazing little things.
We were staying with the Bajo people,
one of several ethnic groups known as
sea gypsies who live on the waters
around Indonesia.
As most of the country strives to
modernise,
they do their best to live apart and
cling to their traditional way of
life.
- PEOPLE WHOOP, DRUMS BEA
- We're being welcomed in the pouring
rain,
and they're doing a sort of martial
arts demonstration that I'm told
is meant to prove they can protect us
-
it's not meant to frighten us away, as
I originally thought.
The culture and economy of the Bajo
people is derived from the water
around them.
We left the village, and set out in
their small traditional wooden boats
to go and see them where they excel -
in the sea.
Their livelihood is derived from
fishing and scavenging the seabed.
With us were the younger members
of the community.
The children must learn to become
divers if the
Bajo are to have a future.
I think it's time for a swimming
lesson.
Mine, not theirs.
These children are already expert
swimmers.
Bajo tradition is that newborn babies,
just a few days old, are dropped into
the sea
by their fathers, to introduce them to
the environment which plays a crucial
part in their lives.
The kids here are a little bit too
good in the water. They keep
using us as a climbing frame.
I've been kicked in the face twice by
small urchins.
All of this play means that by the
time they're adults, the children
will be highly skilled divers.
The men hold their breath underwater
for up to five minutes at a time.
They go to the bottom to harvest a
slug-shaped creature called a sea
cucumber,
which is closely related to anemones.
Fish are caught with homemade spear
guns.
It's really quite a sight, just
beneath the boat
because the divers are just hanging
motionless in the water with their
spears
waiting for a fish to swim by in front
of them.
It's just amazing, just watching
them just waiting there -
it's a totally inhuman thing to do
really,
just hanging around underneath the
water without requiring air.
I decided to follow the men under and
try and stay with them, as they hunted
for fish.
But a city lad like me was never
going to last long with men who grew
up in these waters.
The exotic fish they catch mainly go
to Japan and China.
Export firms have encouraged the Bajo
to use hoses carrying pressurised air
to allow them to stay underwater for
longer to increase their catch,
but this has led to deaths from the
bends
and there are now dozens of men in
this community who are permanently
disabled.
- Oyster, big oyster.
- A huge one.
Anything inside?
It's really picked up suddenly.
Suddenly it's got choppier so
We don't want to risk the boat sinking
with the camera.
Whoa! I think I weigh a bit too much.
Quite a lot of water is sloshing into
the boat.
It's going into their sago, and in
here
Is there a danger of the boat sinking?
Yes?
- It's nearly sinking.
- You think we're sinking now?!
We decided to try and outrun the
coming storm.
For
- BLEEP
- sake!
I thought these boats were supposed to
be stable!
There's quite a bit of water coming in
now, guys.
We made it to calmer waters, but the
small boats weren't built
to carry my heavy western frame, and
it was still going down.
There's a boat coming to rescue us,
but they still think we're too
overloaded, so I'm going to get out.
Goodbye! Agh!
A more reliable passenger vessel
calls daily at one of the neighbouring
islands.
If we'd carried on east,
the journey would have taken us
through the Moluccas Islands,
the last bit of Indonesian land on the
Equator.
But there was a problem.
Christian-Muslim clashes, and a
militant independence struggle
meant we were forbidden by the
government from going there.
So the ferry took me north across the
Equator to the town of Gorontalo.
I thought our Indonesian adventure was
over but I was wrong.
We arrived right in the middle of a
major flood.
Heavy rain had been falling all night.
The river is right up, just underneath
the bridge now.
The water is absolutely raging
underneath here.
You see the power lines just here,
that are hanging into the water?
The houses by the side of the river on
the riverbank
are clearly over the first-floor
window there.
This doesn't feel a very stable or
safe place to be at the moment, so
we're going to go across.
The flooding had ripped through the
town, and the only way for
us to get out was to wade.
It's just an utterly bizarre
situation,
where we really are walking past all
these houses which are completely
flooded.
Really, this country,
it's been through
they had floods here a week ago,
there's a huge volcano
that's about to erupt in Indonesia,
they had mud landslides.
The current is very strong here.
What are you talking about? Football?
Soccer?
- Italy?
- England.
- THEY CHEER
- Very popular!
David Beckham yes, I've heard of him.
Michael Owen, yes.
An excellent footballer.
- England, England!
- Don't you worry about the flood,
just concentrate on the football!
Everything will be OK!
Whoa!
I can really, really feel it.
No, you have a cigarette! That's OK.
It's really, really strong, just to
warn you!
The flooding across Sulawesi had
claimed more than 200 lives,
and 4,500 people were evacuated from
Gorontalo.
Well, we've made it out of the flood
waters,
now we need to get to the airport
and then this should really be the end
of our journey across Indonesia.
We had wanted to go further east and
visit other places on the Equator,
but the Indonesian government said we
couldn't - we weren't allowed - too
much conflict,
and so this is really where our
journey across Indonesia ends.
I'd had an incredible journey through
idyllic islands,
threatened rainforests, and met some
amazing people.
From Indonesia, the Equator crosses
11,000 miles of Pacific
Ocean before it hits land again.
So my next destination, as I follow
the Equator around the world,
is the Galapagos Islands.