Episode list

Simon starts his world trip along the northern border of the tropics in Mexico, a country of contrasts. Tourism and NAFTA-investment bring dollars and affluent foreigners, while poor Mexican (mostly illegal) migrants and drugs leave to the US. Exploitation, a violence-saturated culture (even a patron saint of drug crime) and ecological disaster result. Simon also tries "lucha libre", the local show wrestling. On Castro's Cuba, anti-Americanism and the US blockade are harder to bear since the Soviet collapse. Bermuda, a Caribean paradise resort, also has its contrasting 'spare labor' of Haitian boat refugees. And a sea-life disaster because of a poisonous fish escaped form a Florida aquarium.

Simon starts his world tour around the Tropic of Cancer in the Saharawi people's sand desert home, the south of the former Spanish colony of Rio Oro, disputed by Polisario's Western Sahara republic and Morocco, which occupies most militarily behind a sand ditch acting like an Iron curtain. Former French colonies Mauritania and Algeria next, rich in mineral resources, but the first obsessed with fattening up women, the second recovering from a very bloody Islamist civil war. Finally colonel Khadaffi's Libya, rich in oil and subterranean water, hence gigantic engineering amidst vast sand wastelands occasionally interrupted by an oasis, finally the Egyptian border.

In southern Egypt, where the official baby-sitters prove extremely bothersome, Simon visits the Aswan dam's giant lake, pharaoh Ramses II the Geat's Abu Simbl monuments, the modern Nubians. Further east, Bedouin nomads who abandoned desert life because of global warming and the Red Sea, a unique, still relatively well preserved marine biotope, under threat from tourism development. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, on the oil-rick Arab peninsula, Simon studies the mix of Islamic conservatism and western affluence. He meets a luxury sports cars street race gang in Jeddah and shopping, veiled wealthy women in Riyadh who feel far from oppressed. In Dubai, he contrasts the tax-free citizens' luxury with the misery of migrant laborers, who build the world-class infrastructure.

Simon spends this episode crossing the north of India during the monsoon. It's a fascinating subcontinent, huge with great bio-diversity in quite diverse landscapes. Alas it's under pressure from climate change and especially already over a billion inhabitants, belonging to varied ethno-cultural traditions, mostly Hindu and related creeds, nowadays also associated with political nationalism. There is great disparity in terms of wealth and development. Mainly by train, Simon visits from west - to east coast Ahmedabad, Jain holy city Ujain, still badly polluted industrial disaster site Bhopal, a tiger jungle reserve, Ranchi in the northwestern Maoist and nationalistic insurgencies area, metropolis Calcutta and its sewage-drowned wetlands.

Simon leaves India by river boat to Bangla Desh, the independent Muslim eastern half of Bengal, over the Patna all the way to capital Dhacca. On the way he witnesses traditional fishing with 'tame' otters and the extreme erosion of muddy banks without rocks due to greenhouse warming. Back to India, where the tribal jungle lands of Tripura are fading fast due to 'development'. In Burma (Myanmar), a Chin refugee shows how hard and risky life is for members of that minority or anyone not part of the military junta regime.

Being denied passing trough souther China (PR), Simon passes trough Laos and Vietnam, Indochinese countries developing rapidly, mainly interacting with China, including casinos and golf courses, but at a high environmental and animal welfare price. Then Taiwan shows how long-term capitalism and Chinese work ethos can produce exceptional wealth and welfare. On Hawai, conservation is desperately needed, as biotope destruction and pollution by washed-up waste cause staggering damage.