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Asia

A trip through the natural history archives with some of the BBC’s favourite wildlife presenters as they share some of their most memorable adventures across Asia.

BBC presenters look back on their adventures throughout Indonesia and Mongolia, situated in earth’s largest continent - Asia.

Steve Backshall looks back on one particularly unnerving adventure in Indonesia, a place very close to his heart, where he and his crew were chased by the world's largest venomous lizards - a group of ravenous, three-metre-long Komodo dragons. George McGavin, meanwhile, recounts a slightly more sedate adventure in Indonesia: the time when he filmed in a school for orangutans in the middle of the Sumatran rainforest.

Chris Packham also has fond memories of Sumatra, as he recalls how, in 1998, he took a batch of photographs of the Orang Rimba people, a group of hunter-gatherers who live in the rainforest. Wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson also has an affinity with the archipelago; he looks back on his time spent filming Peanut, Hero, Tarzan and the rest of the monkeys that live on the island of Sulawesi.

From the lush islands of Indonesia in the south of the continent, we travel north to the vast lands of Mongolia. Wildlife camerawoman Sue Gibson was sent there a few years ago to film Pallas’s cats in one of the most physically and mentally demanding shoots of her career. And Gordon Buchanan reminisces about his time filming Kazakh nomads, who hunt with golden eagles on horseback.

59 minutes

Music Played

  • Gabrielle Aplin

    Home

  • Gabrielle Aplin

    Home

  • Ed Sheeran, Jake Gosling

    Drunk

  • Ed Sheeran

    Drunk

  • Olly Murs

    Busy

  • Kodaline

    Talk

  • The National

    Runaway

  • Kodaline

    Talk

  • Egschiglen

    Chandmani Nutag

Credits

RoleContributor
PresenterSteve Backshall
PresenterChris Packham
PresenterColin Stafford-Johnson
PresenterGeorge McGavin
PresenterSue Gibson
PresenterGordon Buchanan
DirectorJames Vale
Series ProducerBecky Pratt
Executive ProducerRosemary Edwards

Broadcasts

  • Sun 30 May 202120:00
  • Sat 5 Jun 202109:00
  • Thu 29 Jul 202101:55
  • Sat 16 Sep 202316:30
  • Boxing Day 202407:30