00:00Crocodiles, gorillas, hippos, forest elephants, malaria, dengue fever, river blindness,
00:06the diseases are rife and the animals are big. There's no way I'm not coming back with a parasite.
00:15I think it was age 16 that I was kind of like, I would love to just travel around,
00:20see the different opportunities, you know, because I'm a young lad from Old Colwyn, North Wales,
00:24no one really goes to Old Colwyn. So it's just like, there has to be a lot of opportunities out
00:30there. And then I set off at age 19. And I would say that the real catalyst of what I
00:35do today was
00:36realising that I'm on a shoestring budget, you know, in Cambodia, sulking on the Mekong riverbank,
00:42whining to my friends saying we're spending way too much money and just tourists. We are just
00:47tourists. We're sharing the same photos, stories and experiences as everyone else. How do we do
00:52something different? And I recommended, you know, let's just get a bicycle and cycle the entire
00:56length of Cambodia and Vietnam. And I was just like, this is insane. You know, and after that,
01:02it kind of then started to grow and grow. I was trekking the Himalayas illegally. I was crossing
01:07borders by the jungle illegally from Thailand to Myanmar. I learned how to survive in the jungle with
01:12the Burmese hill tribe. So it was all very foolhardy and reckless looking back now and then settling down
01:17pretty much as a scuba diving instructor and a Muay Thai fighter in Thailand before I was just like this
01:22life is getting a little bit repetitive. And I was just like, right, I need adventure in my life again.
01:31Not only is it the Congo Basin I'm planning for, it's ultimately six very extreme expeditions in six
01:39very different environments. The 700 kilometre sort of Sangha River to the Congo River. I mean,
01:44you know, the Congo is the world's most dangerous and deadly jungle for a reason. It's like the diseases
01:49are rife and the animals are big. You've got things from crocodiles to hippos, forest elephants,
01:57gorillas, snakes and spiders. You've got the different diseases out there as well. Malaria,
02:03dengue fever. You've got the parasites, which is a big concern. There's no way I'm not coming back with
02:08a parasite. And then you've got a thing called river blindness as well, which I did not know of.
02:13There's a lot of details that we've got to plan for. And you've got to sort out visas, permits,
02:20being really difficult, especially because the UK foreign office is advising against all travel to
02:25these regions. You've got to make sure that you've got all of the right pills and vaccines and medical
02:30kit and evacuation and insurance. There's definitely the fear of anything can happen. It is an adventure,
02:37adventure, and I feel that I've got what it takes to bring us all back. So when we finish, I
02:43mean,
02:43that'll be, yeah, you know, big celebrations. And then I think Mo Saka, I believe, has got a place
02:49place where we can pick up a coffee.
