Burma with Simon Reeve - Season 1

First aired: 5/13/2018 2 episodes

Episodes

1. Episode 1

Aired: 5/13/2018

Adventurer and broadcaster Simon Reeve heads to beautiful and troubled Burma - or Myanmar as it is now officially called - for a new two-part series. Cut off for decades under military rule, the country now has a democratically elected government led by world-famous Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. But in August 2017, the world was left stunned when a brutal military operation drove hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from their homes. In this first episode, Simon travels to Burma to find out the roots of this crisis - as well as heading to Bangladesh to witness the drama that is still unfolding. He begins his journey in the biggest city in the country, Yangon, and drives north into Burma's Buddhist heartlands and the stunning ancient capital of Bagan - a sight that rivals the great wonders of the world. He meets the monks who supported the people through the darkest days of dictatorship. And he is granted an audience with some of the most contentious figures in the country - ultranationalist monks preaching hate against the country's Muslim Rohingya. Stopped from visiting the scene of the military crackdown against the Rohingya, Simon travels to Bangladesh to meet the refugees traumatised by the violence. In what is now the biggest refugee settlement in the world, he learns about a crisis that has been brewing for decades, with no sign of ending, and potentially grave consequences for the wider region.

2. Episode 2

Aired: 5/20/2018

The second of a two-part series, in which adventurer and broadcaster Simon Reeve travels deeper into beautiful and troubled Burma. Simon journeys up the vast Irrawaddy River to the old royal capital of Mandalay, home to an exotic market for precious jade. In Burma's mountainous highlands, he experiences the country's vibrant ethnic heritage at an extraordinary and explosive fire-balloon festival, then visits an elephant sanctuary and finds out how a growing tourism industry is helping them survive after working for decades in the logging industry. Burma is a melting pot of different ethnic groups, and having seen first-hand the suffering of the Rohingya people on the first leg of his journey, Simon now travels secretly into one of Burma's many other conflict zones to meet a huge rebel army who have been fighting the Burmese military for decades. Simon goes on combat patrol into the jungle with the rebels and learns why they have been fighting the longest-running civil war in the world.