Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve

At around 5:30pm yesterday I engaged in that old pastime of channel hopping. Everything had been done for the weekend; couple of morning runs, check. Watching and listening to the football, check. (it wasn't really a strenuous weekend) So all that was left to do was to see the rest of the weekend out. Flicking past the usual repeats of Top Gear, Britains most haunted and something random on ITV17, I came full circle and landed on BBC2 with Simon Reeve's journey around the Indian Ocean. Starting off in Sri Lanka, he visited the north of the island and scenes which saw brutal battles between the Tamil's and the Sri Lankan army. A conflict that was brought to an end with the help of Chinese money, bringing a 30 year war to an end.

Traveling north up the coast of India he climbed aboard a local prawn trawler, witnessing the effects that particular type of fishing is having on the Ocean. The nets being brought up after an hours trawling provided pretty scarce pickings, small fish with no sell on value would be flung back into the sea as well as other sea creatures that had just been caught in the crossfire, to be discarded. The prize the fisherman were really looking for were Prawns, that's where the money lies for them, so if it meant having to rake up other sea creatures from the sea bed to get to them, it was well worth it. The problem really lies in 'supply and demand', the west's appetite for Prawns, Tiger Prawns especially means it's big business in India and especially Bangladesh. Reeve's visited the coast of Bangladesh and it's network of rivers to be greeted by hundreds of Prawn farms, splayed out as far as the eye could see. The money involved in prawn farming had meant many local farmers had turned from traditional crop growing, to flooding their land with salt water and turning to prawn farming. But with the prices being driven down by middle men and the buyers in the west, even being a prawn farmer see's little profit, only providing just enough to live. This has seen many of the prawn farmers try and revert back to growing crops, only to find their salt water sodden land turn into baron plots, completely unusable and having to travel on to the next village that didn't turn to prawn farming to buy food and even water.

Moving on to Bangladesh's second city, Chittagong, he was met by the more industrial scene of the ship breaking beaches. It looked quite a sight, absolutely humungous liners littering the beaches, the majority in the process of being dismantled, with the sides open, allowing you to peer into the deep bowels of the boats. Armies of low payed workers were busily working away on the ships, using axes, blow torches and anything they could find to dismantled the giant vessels into smaller parts, to sell on the steel and other materials. The conditions for the workers are hazardous to say the least, with Reeve's guide explaining that an average of 8 people loose their lives each month. The industrial waste and oils were also pouring freely into the sea, polluting the water around and it was for these reasons the local authorities were none too keen to allow the camera crew to film.

Despite the poverty and hardships show in the film, the beauty of Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh still shone through, with glorious countryside and some stunning beaches.