Michael Palin - Pole to Pole

Description

Michael's journey along the 30-degree east line of longitude encompasses 17 countries and both hemispheres -- from Greenland in the north to Kenya, South Africa and Chile in the south. Along the way communism collapses, apartheid ends, and a civil war is sparked as Michael meets Santa Claus and Lenin, goes shopping for camels in Omdurman and makes a final hectic dash to the South Pole. Interviews: Exclusive Interview with Michael Palin Michael Palin, star of Monty Python's Flying Circus and A Fish Called Wanda , is in a comic race against time to get from the North Pole to the South Pole. Palin balks at nothing, tries just about anything, and always finds time for a spot of tea. En route Palin stars in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attends a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, gets stuck in a Nile traffic jam, buys chicken in Wadi Halfa, goes camel shopping in Khartoum, and is prescribed tree bark by a Mpulugu witch doctor to get rid of his evil shadow. Even when things go according to plan, Palin travels in unusual ways--by dogsled on Spitsbergen, barge down the Dnieper, train roof across the Nubian desert, van through the Sudan, hot-air balloon over Kenya, and down Lake Tanganyika on the "African Queen." With curiosity, courage, and his standard aplomb, Palin plunges himself into the local cultures, beating himself with birch branches in a Finnish sauna and wallowing in mud in an Odessa sanatorium. Reminiscent of his Around the World in 80 Days , Palin once again brings some of the world's most inaccessible cities right into your home. An armchair traveler's delight, this collectors' edition of Pole to Pole is ideal for anyone interested in the funny world we live in. --Tara Chace