Programme 2: Asia

• Simon Reeve's journey along the equator across Asia begins off the coast of Sumatra, in the far west of Indonesia.

  A collection of perhaps 18,000 islands here are home to more than 220 million people.

  At night the islanders sing of lost loves and the lure of working on the mainland.

• A boat trip along the equator takes Simon to mainland Sumatra, where he hears fears about bird-flu and meets the Minang people, where men live as guests in their wives' family homes, and it is the women who propose marriage.
• In Kalimantan, the Indonesian region of the island of Borneo, conservationists warn that hundreds of orangutans in Borneo are killed each year as a result of habitat destruction. The main problems are illegal logging and huge palm oil plantations, a product found in thousands of Western consumer products.

  EQUATOR: ASIA Sunday, 3 September, 2006 2000 BST on BBC Two Africa photo gallery Episode Two in full Africa photo gallery Episode Two: clips

  Simon finds illegal loggers who explain they need to earn a decent living and then heads to a protected orangutan area inside a beautiful national park.

• Heading east through Borneo, he arrives in a village where tribespeople offer to adopt him.

  Not wanting to appear rude, Simon accepts, and the next day he adheres to local custom by giving his new "father" a fine pair of trousers. He is then blessed with chicken blood, presented with a short sword and "adopted".

• Further along the equator on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, Simon is told of a long history of violence between Muslims and Christians.

  He visits the site of a recent bomb blast that killed several shoppers at a pig market and speaks to locals about the religious tensions there.

EQUATOR: ASIA Look at the highlights of Simon's journey in Asia. In pictures

• On Indonesia's beautiful Togean Islands, Simon stays in a village of "sea gypsies" who live in stilt-houses by the sea. Expert divers, they take Simon fishing for octopus, then let him win an underwater breath-holding contest.
• Simon and the crew head back to the mainland to get a flight out of Indonesia but are caught in floods that kill at least 220 locals.

  In a flooded town the crew are helped into a boat with their equipment.

  Locals pause while retrieving their belongings from flooded houses to wave and shout: "Michael Owen! David Beckham!"

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Producer/director: Darren Kemp
Series producer: Will Daws