Episode list

Rodney Fox is one of Australia's most famous shark researchers, probably also because he survived a frontal attack of a "Great White" - at that time a sensation for the world press - and only a few years later shot the underwater shots for Steven Spielberg's hit movie "The Great White Shark". Rodney and his son William live in Glenelg, a small fishing nest on the Victoria coast in southern Australia. The waters along the rocky coast, along with the Barrier Reef in the north, are considered a paradise for fur seals and thus the hunting ground of the "Great White". For many the voracious sea robber is still a killer, a man-eating beast. William Fox has been offering so-called "Shark Watching Dives" for several years, dives for adventurous trendsetters who approach the predatory primitive animal in steel cages. GO EAST accompanies the shark researcher on one of his tours along the Australian Victoria coast. The game with fear begins .

The largest picture book in the world has been opened up in the highlands of the Peruvian Andes: gigantic figures and lines carved into the rainless pampas by the indigenous coastal people of the Nazcas more than 1000 years ago. Ever since Erich von Däneken, the Munchausen of the space age, declared the Nazca lines an airport for extraterrestrials, Nazca has been almost as well known as the Empire State Building. The gigantic "geoglyphs", earth drawings, on more than 1000 square kilometers of dust-dry desert crust have survived thanks to the rainless climate until today. Caught in a web of lines and surfaces, a whole bestiary sits here: monkeys, spiders, dog-like four-legged creatures, reptiles and giant fish; the smallest is just 26 metres long, some giants even measure several hundred metres. There are still no clear indications what exactly the monstrous creatures may have meant for the Nazca culture. But one thing is clear: the whole area was a gigantic necropolis, a necropolis of the prehistoric Nacza - priests from the catchment area of the Rio Grande. More recent speculations suggest that the images served the priests as a gigantic astronomical calendar for predicting the solstice, sowing and harvesting times. "GO EAST" approaches the mystery of the giants of the Peruvian pampas and provides insights into the highly developed "cosmos" of a culture that dominated large parts of the South American world long before the Inca princes.

For almost half a century Hong Kong has been considered THE stronghold of the "EASTERN", films which captivate by the fact that a more or less talented kung fu expert struggles as an actor in action films. Over the years, the Hong Kong Chinese have developed an incredible range of bizarre aid techniques to free the actors from the laws of gravity. Success proves them right. The so-called "cookbook" of the younger directors uses these techniques, combines it with the plot of the script and the meal is ready. Jumps spanning 20 meters across the screen, preferably choreographed in pirhouettes and salti, have long been nothing unusual for the filmmakers of the Far Eastern metropolis. Today, modern computer-aided editing and animation techniques help to present the supernatural in an earthly way. "GO EAST" provides insights into the "making-off" of Hong Kong film, into the work on the nightly film sets along the Victoria Quay and - today more important than ever - into the digital trick studios of the Chinese film industry.

Mentawai - a magic word and the best kept secret of a conspired community of surf surfers until a few years ago. This refers to a palm paradise on the coasts of the four Mentawai islands off West Sumatra. Until a few years ago, Hawaii or the West Australian coast were considered the "Mecca" of surfing, but today the four small Sumatra islands are considered the "high C" of surfing. On Siberut, the largest of the four Mentawai islands, lives the people of the Sakkudai, rule forest inhabitants. They are animists, believers in nature, whose shamans still ascribe their own soul to every piece of nature - whether plant or animal. Monkeys even have the reputation to accompany the souls of their ancestors to the afterlife. Since the island was "discovered" a few years ago by some surf freaks, this last enclave of a paradise on earth is about to strand in the glossy brochures of international tourism multinationals. GO EAST accompanies some surfers on a breathtaking journey through the island world off West Sumatra and illuminates their "balancing act" between gentle adventure tourism and the knowledge that this could be the beginning of the end of one of the last paradises.

In order to please the spirits of the Mongolian steppe, it takes dance and singing, the magic drum and lots of smoke. "Burne", a 70-year-old blind woman, depends on the goodwill of the spirits. She needs her spiritual strength to help other people. Burne is a shaman. The woman with the leather-tanned skin is the eldest of the "Zaatan", a nomadic people in the extreme north of Mongolia. They are reindeer herders who have been wandering through the taiga on the border to Siberia for centuries. It is winter, cutting cold - minus 25 degrees Celsius on average - and the Chuwsgul Lake is frozen to a metre thick. The mountain valleys around the fourteenth largest fresh water reservoir in the world in the far north of Mongolia are home to the last "Zaatan" - just 300 people - and are considered the last refuge of shamanism alongside Siberia and Amazonia. Here, in the uncontrollable vastness of the Mongolian highlands, the animistic belief in nature has survived 70 years of Soviet communism. GO EAST accompanies the "Zaatan" on their hike through the icy tundra of mountain valleys in the far north of Mongolia and looks behind the myth of the shamanistic natural healers of the last steppe nomads.

On a warm summer morning in 1867, the intoxication began. The farm boy Erasmus Jacobs had found a strangely glittering stone in his parents' garden and brought it to his sister to play with. Three years later, a handful of such stones were found on Nicolaas de Beers' Zandfontein farm. Barely two weeks later, the entire area of the South African Transvaal was flooded by over 30,000 knights of fortune. It was the beginning of the legendary diamond rush at the South African Cape. The most productive finds were on the Colesberg Koppie, the location of the later Kimberley Mine. The mound was quickly eroded, and soon shafts had to be driven into the depths. Over the years, the world's largest man-made hole was created - the legendary "Big Hole", 473 metres in diameter and almost 600 metres deep. Today, the Kimberley diamond mine is considered to be the best guarded area on earth. The stories of the workers revolve up to today: stories of monster diamonds, big as chicken eggs. They are legends, because hardly any of the almost 2000 "Minors" will ever see a stone the size of a pebble. GO EAST follows the myth of the South African diamond madness: on land and under water, from the air and in the shafts of what was once the world's largest diamond mine.

Not only did they hunt down their enemies to eat them, but sometimes even members of their own clan had to believe it. The peoples on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea have long been considered man-eating headhunters, according to reports from explorers and first missionaries. The "cannibals from the bush" instilled such fear in many sailors until 100 years ago that they anchored their ships far outside the bays and tried to avoid any contact with the natives. Headhunting and cannibalism, as researchers of modern times found out, were by no means mere ends in themselves. Most of the nearly 800 peoples on Papua New Guinea are animists, believers in nature and the headhunting probably served to appease their gods. At the beginning of the last century such blood rites were forbidden by the colonialists, although even anthropologists were astonished by individual cases until the 1960s. GO EAST goes in the bush of Papua New Guinea on the search for the last "man-eaters" - and - finds none . Most of the peoples have renounced headhunting and use a worthy substitute. Gray spotted domestic pigs wander into nirvana, screaming loudly, to appease the spirits of the dead of the indigenous peoples. Does it help? Even die-hard pig breeders could not get a clear answer.

Jesus live . A young man with a lion's mane drags himself year after year almost 8 kilometres through a green Easter landscape in southern Poland. We write the year 1642, "Oberammergau" was not invented yet, the first miracles blossomed here already. Marian apparitions and wounds had to serve as evidence for the holiness of this place from then on. We are in Zebjodovska, a small village near Krakow. All Easter, a group of hundred laymen fights their way through the confusion of the "Passion Story", drags woods, clashes with sabers and wears a selfmade cloth. The story takes place against a breathtaking backdrop. A gigantic monastery, an even bigger church including a forecourt and 40 chapels: a truly worthy ambience for "Kalwaria Zebjodovska", the second largest passion spectacle after Jerusalem. Expert staff - monks, priests and monastic offspring - are always available, and sometimes even exchange the fine silk ornament for a freshly forged Roman shell. Golgatha live at Krakow, history lessons and religious tuition sometimes quite modern. GO EAST mixes with the Polish Romans and celebrates Easter with thousands of onlookers under the cross of Zebjodovska.

Water - the world here seems to consist only of this element. Whoever lives here needs amphibious abilities. We are in Bangladesh, more precisely, in the delta of the Bay of Bengal. After the Amazonas and the delta of the Congo, the Bay of Bengal is the third largest "water landscape" on earth. The inhabitants have adapted, live on ships, boats and if the monsoon doesn't wash away whole regions, on small islands in the middle of the moving water hell. The water is an animal, unpredictable and cunning - say the Bengali - because you never know whether your house will still stand tomorrow. Most of the "water people" of the Gulf live from fishing, smaller odd jobs or "in hell". Hell" is a monstrous scrapping yard, a house of the dead for disused soul sellers, a gigantic ship cemetery near Cittagong, Bangladesh's largest port city. Here, unskilled workers manually dismantle rusting refrigerator ships, passenger steamers and container ships around the clock. The area is regarded as a poison toilet that no one enters voluntarily. GO EAST visits the "scrappers from the Gulf" who work in an area that could be the backdrop for Hollywood's screen apocalypses.

Mexico around the turn of the century. Evil tongues claim that Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, the two Mexican revolutionary heroes, owe their plans for the century only to a century's intoxication - Tequila as the trigger of a revolution of the century ? Too far-reaching ? Legends are legends - the truth lies - as always - somewhere in between. Both were actually gifted drunks and that is historically handed down. In Mexico there was hardly anything more exhilarating than the national drink Tequila. "Aguamiel", the honey-sweet juice of the "Blue Agave", is the basis for the stuff that dreams of wild Mexico are made of. Tequila - agave schnapps - first a drink of the gods, then the "lubricant of machismo", is Mexico's number one export today. "As sharp as if a cat in heat were running down your throat," as connoisseurs rave. And, if it's good, just as smooth. Tequila is still produced today according to a centuries-old ritual: After approx. 10-12 years of growth, agaves are cut, fermented, cooked, distilled - the devil's stuff is ready. But only secretly kept ingenious details of this procedure bring the really good spirit into the bottle, which provides atmosphere at the bars of the world. A community of grim-looking machos from 178 distilleries around the city of Guadalajara watches with Argus eyes to ensure that this is done to the highest standards. Because only the high percentage that is bottled here may call itself Tequila. The best, by the way - nomen est omen - is in the small town of "Tequila". GO EAST observes an exhilarating piece of Mexico.

Many had been here, adventurers, millionaires, hobby researchers - magically attracted by this Mayan enigma, who ate dog schnitzel, stuffed the heads of deceased relatives and sacrificed the lifeblood of beautiful virgins for breakfast. The ball game, which is so popular with us, also delighted the jungle inhabitants long before our time, only the material of the ball was different. Especially popular were the severed heads of defeated enemies. It sounds terrible, it was probably also, however, with our yardsticks the former Maya universe can be grasped only with difficulty. On Mexico's peninsula Yucatan, home of the former high culture and her today's descendants, one needs a proper portion of confidence in his guardian angel, so the warning of a Campesinós, because the country is a mixture of blood and Tequila. A warning that has unfortunately been justified since 1993. Since the rebel organisation "EZLN", famous - notorious under the popular name "Zapatistas" - has made the area in the Mexican state of Chiapas unsafe, even the "Foreign Office" has warned against travelling to this region. The rebels merely insist on their ancestral land rights: they are Maya, descendants of a people that once belonged to the most highly developed peoples of South America. GO EAST fights its way through the dark rainforest of Selva Lacandon. The rainforest is considered the last retreat of the "Lacandons", one of the probably last true Mayan clans on the border to Guatemala.

Voodoo, the word itself associates ritual acts: archaic and sometimes barbaric. The roots of this bizarre cult lie in West Africa, where Niger, Liberia and Benin can be found today. For at least 4,000 years already, that is secured, people follow this religion. "Voodoo" was originally called: "That which cannot be fathomed", "The power which is effective". Religious regulations or even written foundations are unknown. The slave trade brought the cult to South and Central America and to the Caribbean to Cuba. So-called "Ronda Santerias", secret brotherhoods of the plantation slaves, quickly formed on the sugar cane island. The secret societies often still exist today and are now regarded as cultural heritage worth protecting. GO EAST visits a Voodoo Seance in a "Ronda Santeria" in Cuba and looks behind the scenes of this bizarre cult. The basis is an irrevocable law of natural faith, according to which there is no strict separation between life and death, between the "spheres of the visible and the invisible world". Similar to the conservation laws of physics, the universe is seen as a closed system in which nothing disappears. The gods and spirits of the ancestors thus also intervene directly in the lives of human beings.

Said bin Sultan, the legendary ruler of the "Army of the Silver Sabres", was the Lord of an area that had continental dimensions: it stretched from Mombasa via Zanzibar to the Indian subcontinent and included the entire Arabian peninsula. 150 years ago the empire of the Omanis was regarded as a world empire and the Dhau fleet of the Sultan as almost invincible. Above all the fairytale figure "Sindbad" as an icon of the daring seafaring people. Today, the Sultanate of Oman is just another OPEC oil supplier along the Strait of Hormuz - and by no means the richest. Closed off from the outside world, the former splendour was lost, the state fell back into a kind of medieval Sleeping Beauty state. We start our journey in Mascat, the legendary "coffee town" of the Sultanate. The brown powder, however, has long since served its purpose as a currency earner. Today, as 500 years ago, the waters around the Sultanate are considered the El Dorado of fishermen. Already the travellers of the Middle Ages had described the fish wealth of this coast. Marco Polo, for example, complained - several times even in writing to the Sultan - about the "terrible smell of decay that is stored above the markets". Hammerhead sharks, dolphins, moray eels: almost every hour new sea creatures are landed. A dive trip into the underwater world of the coastal waters still today confirms the impression that the French maritime researcher Jacques Cousteau already had 30 years ago: "Unique !".

It is the 18th day of the second Muslim month and in Gambia's capital and port Banjul all ferries are bursting at the seams. Thousands stand with small bundles at the jetty, dervishes dance and fish markets turn into rushing celebrations. It is the time of the "Magal" and GO EAST goes on the pilgrimage of the "black Islam" to Touba, the holy city of the Marabuts in the neighbouring country Senegal. Like every year, the Caliph of Touba invites you to a great feast. The caliph is a sorcerer, his opponents think, as a saint with magic powers, his followers cheer him on. His mere sight would suffice and one would recover from any illness. At the time of the "Magal" in Touba, hundreds of so-called dervishes dance in trance in front of Africa's largest mosque, screaming and stomping on the dusty ground. They put the pilgrims in the mood for a celebration to commemorate the founder of the religion "Ahmadou Bamba", who has his last resting place in Touba's mosque. To be close to him and the caliph of today once in a lifetime promises "gris-gris": happiness, child blessings and good business - for a lifetime.

The Bahamas - just the mention of this archipelago off the coast of Florida has been nourishing holiday dreams and snorkeling fantasies for decades. Only five years ago, some resourceful diving school owners "discovered" that the Bahamas have more to offer than miles of sandy beaches, palm-lined coastal groves and turquoise snorkeling areas. They chose the dolphin as the secret landmark of the archipelago and advertised it - not altruistically - as a "Diving Guide": after all, they earned several million hard dollars in no time at all with so-called "Dolphin Diving Tours". However, hardly any of the young "Dolphin Start-Ups" had enough experience to approach the curious animals with tourist snorkelers. Accidents were not uncommon - the vacationers simply had no idea how to deal with the marine mammals. Wayne Scott Smith, an American marine biologist, is one of the most famous dolphin researchers in the area and has been diving along Grand Bahama Island for more than 25 years. He knows the area like the back of his hand and warns of "diving quickies" with dolphins, which often lead to accidents without specific preparation. GO EAST accompanies Wayne on his diving adventures to "his" dolphin family and to old Spanish shipwrecks along the Grand Bahama Bank.