One of the problems about making a series like this
is that when we are out at somewhere like the Sahara
it's difficult to get there, you're fortunate to be there,
you've spent a bit of money getting there,
so you film as much as you can.
And not all of it can fit into a series.
And we've shot many, many hours for what is going to be a four-hour series.
But with the wonders of DVD, we can show you and bore you rigid
with things that didn't actually make the final cut.
Here are some of the sequences which I would love to have seen in the series
but didn't fit in; often because we had to move on
or we couldn't have too much in one country and not so much in another.
But I think they're all things with value of their own.
Fez, the old capital of Morocco,
was the sort of place that we could have stayed for most of the programme.
It's on our way through Morocco to the Sahara desert.
It was so fascinating because it's a still-working medieval city.
And among one of the things that we filmed but couldn't use
was this wonderful market,
where the skins that make the leather that Fez is famous for
are traded early in the morning.
We went along to see these skins being brought out.
What are they celebrating?
They're sort of saying that English people are coming to make, er...
millions here.
So yeah... Just... Anyway
Really? "English people are coming, get your cowhides out!"
The big spenders are here(!)
Let's see what else is going on.
(THEY SPEAK IN ARABIC)
So there's some...
He's just asked me if you are English tanners and if you are experts on hides.
And I said yes.
Hope he doesn't ask questions about that!
I'm not very good on tanning!
Look at that there.
You can see here, there doesn't seem to be many trucks or vehicles collecting.
- People on donkeys, things like that. - Yeah.
Because they are taken to the medina, in the medina there are no vehicles.
The vehicle would stop here. This will go to the medina.
Oh, that's why!
Yes, you couldn't get the cars through there. Right. Yeah.
In Fez we had a very good guide called Abdulfettah,
a wonderful man who's lived in England.
He did some designs for Mick Jagger's bathroom at one time!
Erm... camera positions... No, no! Only joking.
Tiles and things like that.
Anyway, a very good English-speaking Moroccan
and a craftsman.
We went back to his house... and he is married to a lady called Naomi.
Erm... and she has lived out in Morocco now for three or four years.
She's of Suffolk farming stock, so very down to earth.
And I was interested to find out from HER
what it was like to readjust to being an Englishwoman
living in a Moroccan city.
She gave us a very good interview.
HE's onE of sEvEntEEn brotHErs and sistErs.
I gEt on vEry wEll witH tHEm. I likE His sistErs vEry mucH.
In that respect, life is easy.
Life here is very much a community thing.
You're never on your own. You're always surrounded by family
and friends, there's always people around the table, eating with you.
It's not like England at all.
Do you find sometimes you miss having a bit of peace or time to yourself?
- Do you have private time here? - It's difficult, but yes,
you have to make it, sometimes I go to the roof.
When I need to release some "agh",
I go up there for a quiet time on my own.
What have you found out about the way life's organised here,
say, between husband and wife?
How different is it from England?
It's very much two different worlds.
The men have their world, the women have theirs.
The women are at home, cooking, cleaning, looking after children.
That's their role.
Do you think you will ever become... of Moroccan mentality?
I'm trying. I'm trying.
'Cause I think it would help me
in accepting a lot of things.
I think I've come so far...
perhaps I can't go any further.
Sometimes I think, "Will I ever accept that? I don't think I will."
But to go back to what I was in England
that would be just as difficult now.
I'm sort of between the two.
This was in the sequence that we shot in the refugee camp of the Saha... wa...
I can't say the word! In this you'll probably hear me trying to say it.
The Saharawi people.
They're the people who have been exiled from their country for twenty-five years.
When we were interviewing around the camp we met a lady called Metou.
I remember her because she had the... Arab dress on
over a pair of denim jeans
and Doc Martens boots.
She'd been educated part of the time in Wales.
We had a wonderful time talking about how to get from Machynlleth to Llandudno.
And other matters more relevant to Africa.
And she was a delightful person to talk to.
- You've lived your life as a refugee? - Yes, all of my life as a refugee.
Have you ever been to your country, Western Sahara, I suppose?
Never. I haven't been in my country, I've never seen my country.
I don't know my country... what this look like.
I hope one day to see my country.
What did your family do there? Where did they live?
My family... I live with my mother here.
My grandmother as well.
And part of my family live in occupied territories.
In Laayoune, the capital of Western Sahara.
- Do you still see your father? - My father
is one of the Saharawi people who was arrested in 1975.
- He was arrested? - Yes, erm...
I mean... the Moroccan people arrested them in 1975.
Why did they arrest your father?
Because my father was fighting for his rights.
He was fighting for the rights of the Saharawi people?
Yes. For the Saharawi people.
And the Moroccan people arrested him with 100 people.
I mean with his friends... with some people.
Have you been in contact with him?
No. I have no news about my father.
I have no contact with my father. I don't know if he's alive, if he died.
- That's terrible. - Yes. It was terrible.
One ingredient to any Sahara trip are of course camels.
And very early on, a sort of baptism of fire,
I lived with people who ate camel most of the time.
So I ate not only bits of camel meat but also camel livers.
Which I recommend you avoid.
Especially when they've been around over four days.
They set me off a bit, diced camel liver, but I ate camel,
I walked with camel, but this was my introduction to camel cheese.
Nancy. Michael Palin.
Very pleased to meet you. Thank you for having us.
This is the first time I've had camel milk. I've EATEN the various bits of camel.
- Yes, but here's the best part. - Right!
- I'll give it a try. - The milk.
Mm. Mmm, yes, it's lovely.
Mmm. Mm. Now, how does this differ from cow's milk?
- Is it more nutritious, less nutritious? - It has the same nutrition,
but less fat, less sugar.
And more minerals and vitamin C. It has more vitamin C than any other milk.
It's very good for you. It's refreshing and it gives you strength.
- Oh, good. - They say it's tonic for men.
- I don't know what that means. - Tonic for men? Gin and tonic? No.
So what else does it do? It's just general... very good for the spirits,
for the virility or whatever, they always say that, that'll sell anything.
Yes, they say it for tomatoes! This is our camel cheese,
the only one in the world you can have today... as of today.
- Camel cheese. That'll be a first. - Yes.
Mm. Mmm. Yes. It's quite mild.
It's sort of... not so creamy as Camembert.
- Not yet. - Not quite as... Not yet? It'll get creamy.
Not quite as tart as chèvre, but, erm...
Yes. It goes creamy like a very nice French goat cheese.
This is... Here, you have all the explanations in English.
It's, erm, the camel is an extraordinary animal.
I feel regeneration already! Better leave the shop!
Dakar really stood out as a rather sophisticated, cosmopolitan city.
Erm, and we tried to get a flavour of Dakar.
I went to a wrestling match, which is in the programme.
We went to the slave island of Gorée, just off the coast.
There are absolutely wonderful designers there and beautiful women too,
and we put the two together and improvised a model show.
We had mannequins parading up and down a strange catwalk in a restaurant.
It didn't work completely, but the dresses were smashing.
The ladies were lovely. And I was very sad to lose this.
I think it's one of the sexiest sequences in Sahara.
There wasn't much sex.
(DRUMMING PRACTICE)
(ARABIC CHATTER OVER PA SYSTEM)
(THEY CHAT IN FRENCH)
(CONTINUE TO CHAT IN FRENCH)
To smile...
When we went to Libya, a difficult country to get into,
difficult to get permission to go there...
One reason why we could film in Libya
is that we attached ourselves to a reunion party of veterans of Tobruk.
Erm... They were all people who had fought in the battle of Tobruk, 1940-'41.
It was the sixtieth anniversary and the last time a lot of these guys went back.
It's made a nice sequence for the programme.
There was more than we could use.
In particular, I remember wonderful shots of the graves themselves,
and the way they're beautifully kept by a Libyan gardener and his wife,
in very difficult circumstances, there's little water there.
It's hard to grow plants, but he keeps them immaculately.
I also remember talking to other vets.
There was a wonderful man called Ray Ellis,
who was actually captured and taken to a prison camp in Italy,
and he's written a book about his experiences.
And he just told a most wonderful story about his journey back to Italy.
(BAGPIPES PLAY)
I'm 81 now.
This is probably my last trip.
But you never know,
we Desert Rats seem to go on and on.
WE know tHis is tHE last timE wE'rE going to comE back.
I'vE bEEn back tHrEE timEs bEforE.
WE know tHis will bE tHE last onE.
WE'vE all rEacHEd tHE agE wHErE, um,
I'm afraid, wE can't ExpEct to bE coming back again.
(BUGLE CALLS THE LAST POST)
All so young, you know - twenty-one, twenty.
And very often twenty means a bride of nineteen.
And nineteen means a bride of seventeen perhaps.
And we think now of them, and they're eighty.
One thinks of that.
We will remember them.
(ALL) We will remember them.
I was taken prisoner where all these men died.
Then we were dragged across,
- I say "dragged" because it's too long and too horrible a story to relate now -
all the way to Tripoli.
And many men, MANY men died on the way
of dysentery and starvation and all sorts of things.
(MICHAEL) Were you marched through the desert or in vehicles?
First we marched. We had to march for water.
And many men died on the way.
They didn't die of thirst, the Germans mercifully shot them as they fell.
They dispatched them so they didn't die of thirst.
That wasn't being cruel, it was kindness.
Erm, then we were dragged all the way to Tripoli.
Then we went across to Naples
on a cargo ship,
in the bottom of the hold, battened down, praying.
The most frightening journey of my life.
That we weren't sunk by the RAF or the Navy, our navy!
We got to Naples and were taken to a town called Capua, near Naples.
And we were a dirty, lousy, filthy, unshaven, thin, begrimed group of men.
And in this way they marched us through the streets.
It was propaganda, saying "This is the British Army."
And the population were jeering and mocking, and I hated them!
I was full of hatred.
And then something happened which has lived with me all my life.
A girl came from the back of the crowd
and ran and put a peach in my hand.
It... was fantastic!
Erm... And all my life afterwards, when things have been very bad,
I've always thought, "Somewhere there is a girl with a peach."
Someone with another idea, with another thought,
who isn't following the general trend.
As I say, that girl with the peach, has lived with me all my life.
There are Libyans buried here in this cemetery, is that right?
Er... four.
I always take them poppies.
The Libyan grave doesn't say, "Rest in peace,"
it says, "He is forgiven."
(MICHAEL) The graveyards here are perfectly maintained,
they're absolutely immaculate.
They're maintained by a Libyan. Can you tell me about him?
His name is Hajji Mohammed, because he has made the Hajj to Mecca.
And he is the father of these, he calls them his boys.
I've heard him say to a grieving daughter, "Don't worry, I'll look after your dad,"
in Arabic.
Libya is quite a strange country to be in.
Not that people aren't friendly,
but it's very difficult to find them!
It is a HUGE country, with a population about the size of Greater London.
So we went through towns that seemed almost deserted.
And to add to that, some of the most beautiful places in and around Libya
are the old Classical Greek and Roman sites.
There's a place called Leptis Magna,
which is just a wonderfully preserved major Roman city.
I think it's well preserved because very few people visit it.
But we were there. And it was silent most of the time.
And suddenly children poured into the amphitheatre where we were filming,
all sat in rows and began to sing. I wasn't sure what it was all about.
But it was wonderful to suddenly have these dry, dead stones come to life
through the Libyan schoolchildren.
(CHILDREN SING)
Oh, right, yeah. These have come from the road? Yeah.
They've just... just walked in from the bush, he said.
Yeah.
- (MAN SPEAKS IN FRENCH) - Yeah. Just for the (INDISTINCT).
- (BOY) Bonjour. - Bonjour. Shall we go this way?
(RAPID SPEECH OVER PA SYSTEM)
So much choice! They've suddenly got here so much choice.
It's bewildering after what they had at home,
where they would exist if they didn't have millet, if they just have milk.
So here it must be dazzling. This strange rap, we have to find out what that is.
(FAST RAP-LIKE SPEECH)
They're basically selling noise, I think.
Do you like this... sound?
Is this from Agadez?
(UNCLEAR SPEECH)
Yes.
(CONTINUES RAP-LIKE SPEECH)
(FEEDBACK FROM SOUND SYSTEM)
(CHATTING IN FRENCH)
Rice.
It's good sort of fuel this, not what I'd normally have for breakfast.
But, you know, I've got whatever it is,
twelve to fifteen hours of... walking.
It'll probably be
the only meal I have for about another eight or nine hours.
Hence the chomping. The camel-like chomping
is familiar.
It's thick and coarse, and quite a bit of sand in this.
(CAMEL GRUNTS LOUDLY)
OnE HundrEd.
Fifty.
Forty. THirty.
TwEnty. TEn.
Reverse to Route A.
(TRAFFIC CONTROL) May I have your destination? Hassi-Massaoud or Algiers?
(PILOT) Algiers.
(TRAFFIC CONTROL) Yeah copied.
- It will last tens of years. - Tens of years?
Years. Yeah. It's very long. We can speak easily for hundred years.
It's amazing to be here. It's like sort of the lungs of the country.
The gas pumping out. Is any of this going to Great Britain?
- Sorry? - Is any of this going to the UK?
- Not through this pipeline. - Not through that.
I just thought I could send a message, you know, to our gas cooker!
- OK! - Probably be another month's time!
- Coming through! - Even you can go, it's forty-eight inches.
- All right, I'll go through! - It's a colossal way!
Those are some of the big moments, the larger scenes
that never made it. There are lots more little moments which never made it.
And I do regret that a lot of them aren't there.
But Alex, our genius editor, has put a few together.
(INDISTINCT)
- Can we look at this. - Thank you very much. (INDISTINCT)
Big church. Very good. Very happy.
You know, chaplain this one, from America.
(INDISTINCT) Four years been here. A service!
Thank you very much. After the service, told me, "Mustapha, goodbye."
Thank you very much. Remember. My name be here. Can you speak?
Yes, "Reverend John Hind on the first visit to Tangiers, Palm Sunday 1995."
- "By Mustafa Chergui."
(CORRECTS PRONUNCIATION) Thank you very much.
"Mustafa Chergui, Sexton."
"Photo by Lancelot Taylor, Church Warden."
- Thank you very much. - Splendid.
- Yes, ME, picture! - That's you. There you are!
- A little bit younger. - Thank you very much.
You work very hard!
The chaplains come and go, but Mustapha goes on forever!
- Thank you very much. - Thank YOU very much.
Agh-h-h!
Oof!
(LAUGHTER)
Yeah! That's OK(!) That just blast right across my face.
It's OK. I know how you feel now.
- Ooh! - Well, it worked.
I preferred it when it wasn't working.
(LAUGHTER)
- Are you all right? - Yes.
I got that right across the face.
It's OK.
Should've kept the spectacles on.
It's OK. I can still wink.
(MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
- (MICHAEL) It's all right. - It's OK.
Just take a bit of the... shrapnel out there.
(INDISTINCT CHAT)
(MICHAEL LAUGHS)
Ah, get rid of the wrinkles.
That's all right. A bullet hole's rather a nice cosmetic...
- You want medicine? - OK.
- MEdicinE, yEaH. - I think this is OK.
- No, it's not. - It's not in my eye.
- It's not in your eyes, not in your eyes. - Yeah. Yeah. (SPEAKS IN FRENCH)
(HUMS TO HIMSELF)
(TAP GURGLES AND SPLUTTERS)
I want to buck the trend, reverse the process,
to see where people have come from, not where they are going to.
I want to... I want... I want... Nyah.
I want to go back to see where people came from, not where they're going to.
I want to escape... oh-h!
Beyond those mountains today is the Sahara desert,
which is about...
Erm... Three thousand miles across. I ran out of things to say.
I want to reverse the trend, go the other way.
I want to go... Oh-h. Buck the trend...
Throughout recent history people have wanted to leave the desert...
People have escaped the desert... Sorry!
Throughout recent history people have tried to escape the desert.
From the Arabs who came here thirteen centuries ago
to thousands of Africans who risk their lives, who...
I want to reverse the trend. I want to go back... (SIGHS)
I want to reverse the process, buck the trend.
I'm more interested not where people have come from...
I'm standing on top of the Rock of Gibraltar.
Fifteen miles across the water are the mountains of Morocco.
That mountain in Africa and this mountain here
were known to the Greeks and Romans as the Pillars of Hercules.
They were the end of the civilised world.
Beyond that, complete darkness.
Beyond those mountains, less than 300 miles from where I'm standing now,
is the Sahara desert.
As unexplored a place as anywhere.
And that's where my new journey is taking me.
And I'm so excited, I wet myself(!)