Places That Don't Exist

While searching something on the BBC a couple of weeks ago, I came across this program and I am so intrigued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/places-that-dont-exist.shtml

"There are almost 200 official countries in the world, but there are dozens more breakaway states which are determined to be separate and independent. All of the breakaway states have declared independence after violent struggles with a neighbour. Some now survive peacefully, but others are a magnet for terrorists and weapons smuggling, and have armies ready for a fight. In these two programmes Simon Reeve visits six such places: Somaliland, Trans-Dniester and Taiwan (part 1); Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Abkhazia (part 2)."

The guy who made this documentary, Simon Reeve, sounds as fascinating as his series. He is only 33 and is an expert on terrorism with a couple of books under his belt. Not to mention he's pretty cute (Hmm...brilliant, cute, and a big traveller...I wonder if he's single). It's airing again starting tomorrow and I kept see adds for it on BBC World but alas, I came home too early so I'll miss it.

Here is an amusing description of what Simon does:

"In this exciting new series, Simon Reeve is taught to fish by the President of Moldova, becomes an unofficial Somali diplomat, and finds himself crammed into a lift with the President of Georgia. He visits a little-known country stuck in a Soviet-era time-warp, and a mountainous state which claims to have the highest rate of longevity on the planet. Simon also discovers abandoned missiles capable of destroying skyscrapers, al Qaeda terrorists in an African jail and the mass graves of children killed by soldiers. Simon meets a blonde popstar who’s a crackshot with an AK-47, a mournful guitarist, and a Taiwanese boy band. He climbs the world’s tallest building, visits the site of the battle in Black Hawk Down, is electrocuted in Mogadishu, finds 5,000 year old rock paintings, buys himself a new Somali passport from a man called Mr Big Beard, and is held as a spy by the Transniestrian KGB. Snake blood is on the menu in Asia, rock-hard yoghurt in the Caucuses, camel milk in Africa and two bottles of cognac when Simon is forced to celebrate independence with a Communist politician. He meets a villager who sold a kidney to buy a cow, and children forced to live in freezing railway carriages. Amid the minefields of Nagorno-Karabkh, Simon is pelted with snowballs by refugee children. But in the sweltering heat of Mogadishu he needs a dozen armed gunmen just to stay alive."

Goddamn I wish I could see it!