of rescuers who had been battling through freezing conditions, night after night, to reach them. the miners had been told it would take 1a more days translation: the critical patient comes first before the less serious ones. miners had been told it would take 1a days to dig a rescue tunnel. however, somehow a large ventilation shaft was cleared, which led all the way to the main group of ten. suddenly, the rescue was happening in hours rather than weeks. translation: the rescuers checked the miners to see if they had any - injuries and covered their eyes for protection. after lifting up the trapped miners, we will search for the missing ones. onjanuary 10th, a blast caught 22 workers underground. initially, the accident wasn't reported for 30 hours, costing precious time. the local communist party secretary and mayor have both been sacked

because of the delay and will likely face more strict punishment. one of those trapped, who'd been in a coma following head injuries caused by the explosion, has died. others are missing. but hopes are great for the survival of those already taken to hospital. bbc news, beijing. now it's time for a look at the weather with helen lots of snow around. as is more to come? more through the rest of the day, yes. it's likely to last throughout the rest of the afternoon. so, yes, it is causing treacherous conditions out and about and as the sun goes down, temperatures will fall away also. you can see on the latest rainfall, its no charge, because it is a snow in northern ireland and across wales and into england and east anglia, it

was no further west in the channel but in the hills will be hail and and snow. the north east are seeing this more significant for the snow but certainly the most places have seen a few centimetres of snow. fewer showers further north, but it is still cold out there and it will be bitter overnight. anotherfew be bitter overnight. another few centimetres be bitter overnight. anotherfew centimetres of snow as our weather front returns southwards before clearing and temperatures over the snow in midlands might hit 2—8 or minus nine celsius overnight. hello this is bbc news. the headlines: the government reveals there are 77 cases of the south african variant of coronavirus in the country. they are under close observation and we have enhanced contact tracing to

do everything we possibly can to stop them from spreading. fines are handed out as more than 300 people attend an illegal rave in east london— police say organisers locked the doors from the inside to stop them getting in. severe weather warnings for snow and ice are in place across much of the uk amid fears of travel disruption. here in the uk, the snp will present its national assembly with what it's calling a road map to a new referendum on scottish independence. a dramatic rescue in china — as 11 gold miners who'd been trapped underground for two weeks are brought out alive. now on bbc news. the travel show looks back at some of its best moments from southeast asia. the team jump on a unique bamboo train and visit one of the world's most remote food festivals. this week, some of our favourite adventures from south—east asia.

777 steps. from the top of a buddhist temple... and here we come to a bridge. to a bone shaker in the cambodianjungle. wow! from the trafficjams of manila... you don't want a distracted driver. the traffic here is a little bit crazy. i hi, bunma, hi, pearl. to baby macaques in thailand. bunma, don't try and steal pearl's. hi, and welcome to tokyo. well, travel is certainly a long way off what it was this time last year but that's not stopped us from digging deep and pulling out some of our favourite

trips from the archives for another airing. and this week, we're revisiting one of my favourite parts of the world, south—east asia. home to some of the world's most incredible beaches, food, and of course, wildlife. well, over a year ago, i visited thailand to find out why campaigners, along with social media giants, were asking people to think first before snapping a selfie with a wild animal. i am heading to the wildlife friends foundation three hours' drive south of thailand's capital bangkok to find out what's being done to help animals being used in the tourist industry. the 165 acre complex houses a rescue centre and thailand's first wildlife hospital. there's also a refuge for elephants, so there are plenty of photo opportunities. if i go on instagram

and search for say, �*elephant selfie,�* under that hashtag, there's almost 15,000 posts. but when i click on that hashtag, i get a warning that says, "protect wildlife on instagram. "animal abuse and the sale of endangered animals "or their parts is not allowed on instagram." the page asks the poster to be wary when paying for photo opportunities with exotic animals. it's an issue charities are trying to tackle on the ground. so how big a problem are these animal selfie pictures? it's huge, it's huge. let me show you a few of the things i've come across during my time here working in thailand. for example, here we have a gibbon being used as a photo prop animal. it is very, very common to see a baby gibbon or a slow loris being carted around by a guy and people might pay 100 or 200 baht to get that one—second selfie, but sadly it is a lifetime for that animal. there's a few more here, this is a liger. what's he riding on?

it's a liger, which is a cross between a tiger and a lion. the liger is the biggest wildcat you can have and this guy is riding it. a lot of these animals are just beaten into submission. this animal here, you can't see unless i zoom, but he is on a very, very short chain. this is a family, we don't know if the animal has diseases or vice—versa. these guys could have a common cold and it's very easy for that to be transmitted between the great apes. infant animals are particularly vulnerable to the photo prop trade. here in the wildlife hospital, babies that have been rescued or abandoned are cared for in the nursery. in the wild, these animals would hold onto their mothers throughout infancy so they instinctively cling onto each other to try and recreate the warmth and security they would normally get from their parents. hi, guys. this is our baby long—tailed macaque. bunma and pearl. 0ne male and one female. hi, bunma, hi, pearl. so have i got bunma?

this one bunma. bunma, why does he want that one? don't try and steal pearl's. the owner bought her from a market. this means her mother was killed by a poacher. so sad, so sad. so sad. it's nice they have got each other now. yeah. they know they have each other and it's a good thing for them. look at these sweet little baby macaques, pearland bunma. i love how they're so affectionate with each other. it's too young to be separated from their mother. removing a young animal from its parents impacts their behaviour for life. tom takes me to meet two indonesian orangutans who staff are trying to reteach wild habits to. maggie was found abandoned near the rescue centre. chico grew up in the photo prop industry and then was kept as a pet. he was given to the team here

when he became too big to handle. we have carers who bring maggie and chico into the forest every day, and we encourage them to climb in the trees, usually by throwing fruits into the trees wrapped in vines or something like that. we were hoping that he would copy maggie who is more wild. chico is a little bit more fond of humans. he's coming to say hello now. ok. hi, chico. should i be worried? it's ok, just stay calm. hi, chico. 0h, hello. chico's holding my hands. hello, chico. 0h, hi. i think chico likes my shoes. i didn't quite expect that, human interaction. he's almost like a small child. does that hark back to the days when he was used as a photo prop or even a pet? he would have been poached from the wild as a very young infant and has been with humans most of his life.

we're trying to erase that to a certain extent but the stark reality of a photo prop animal is, it's not all fun and games like we just saw then. yes, he was having fun with you but if he was to do that to a tourist, he would get beaten with a stick and that's how they can control these animals. so chico could probably never be released back into the wild. i wouldn't like to say never but it would be long process to rehabilitate him to a state where he would be a release candidate. fun times. well, that was over a year ago now. let's check in with the wildlife friends foundation and i've got tom on the line from thailand. hi, tom, how are you? hi. doing 0k. i rememberfrom my visit there that your foundation relied so much on tourists and their volunteer efforts, it must�*ve been a pretty tough year? yeah. right now, we have closed completely. the guests that come and visit us and stay at our eco resort could not come any more so our income went

from being sustainable to basically zero. we are running from month to month. we currently have funds that will take us up to the end of february. of course, if an animal comes through the door, we have to be here and there are still 700 mouths we need to feed and take care of everyday. wow. do we have an update on some of the animals that i caught up with? how are maggie and chico? they have both moved into a huge open—topped enclosure. when you were here last time, you were in the forest with them. we were taking them out of an enclosure they were in at night—time every day for walks into the forest. they now have a huge forested area. bunma and pearl were the two infant baby macaques. they moved in with a surrogate mother, and adult macaque, and now they have a mother figure that can teach them how to behave. oh, that's lovely. thank you so much for your time.

next up, we're heading to the philippines where mike jumped on board manila's most colourful mode of transport. one of the first things you realise when you land in manila is the traffic is awful. hurry! laughs. with no metro and a very limited bus and train service, the backbone of its public transport is currently this. it's a jeepney. the design is modelled on the usjeeps that were abandoned here and repurposed after the second world war. to this day, they're still the best way to get around. the problem is the system is quite tricky for a newcomer to get to grips with. 0k, as i weave my way through the traffic that is now on the sidewalk, i'm looking for one that says libertad. and it should be in paint, the place i'm looking for.

libertad, this must be it. if you have a smartphone, it makes things a lot easier. there is an app called is sakay.ph where you can put your origin and destination. so in this case, we're in intramuros and we want to go to libertad so it tells us to walk here where thejeepney is and that's about a us dollarfor an hour's ride. it's not bad, that's pretty cheap. we're taking this journey on a weekend when the roads are quieter. during the week, jams can go on for miles. and i soon discovered that if you sit right behind the driver, you're expected to help them out. ten pesos. so how the system seems to work, as the people comes on, the money starts to flow and it all comes through me because you don't want a distracted driver, especially in the streets of manila because the traffic here is a little bit crazy.

so it is my first time on a jeepney today. i am wondering if you have any tips for me. it's better to sit beside the driver because there is more fresh air, and at the same time, it prevents the whiplash effect of the long jeepney. the whiplash effect. i see. almost like a fish's tail so it's more stable at the front then. keep your bags close, always. always here. yeah. if you want to tell the driver - to stop, you just tap on the roof. one more time. that's go? that's stop. two is go. that's stop and two is go. i can do that about six times before my fingernail feels like it wants to pop right off. mike there getting to grips

with manila's trafficjams. next up, a slightly more leisurely way of travelling when henry took something called a bamboo train in cambodia. all right, so this is us, huh? this is us. 0k, jump aboard. seat ia and ib. first class, as some would say. excellent. all right. so it is a pretty simple engine, is it? very simple, yeah. i hope we're going to be all right. is it fast? uh, fast enough. the origins of this railway go back to colonial times, but it eventually fell into disrepair and was left half—forgotten. that meant that the khmer rouge overlooked the obsolete line as they destroyed the rest of the country's public transport infrastructure. once the regime fell, locals hacked through the jungle to clear the tracks and then started their own makeshift railway, and it is still running today.

so this is quite distinct, actually. i've noticed that they're not wooden beams. what is the track made of? iron and steel. it was built by the french in the 1890s and it has survived all this time. i love how rustic it is but you still get that kind of, where the track meets each other, that do—do—do — the typical train sound and feel. this is the life! it is! and how long have the locals been using such a service, i guess? about 30 years — since peace came to the area. it was the only way for many of these people to get into town. and there we come to a bridge. is this a bridge? oh! oh, wow! it's rather precarious! this is a railway where you will find no timetable, no signal boxes and no ticket inspectors, and also very little in the way of passenger comfort.

i think we have hit a bit of a problem — we've got somebody coming the other way! oh, my god! now, there is a simple rule — the train with the most goods or people on it has right of way, and you're going to find out what is going to happen right now. right on the bridge — the best place to stop. the platform itself gets lifted off and you're left with these wheels kind ofjust dangling around. 0ui, la bbc. bonjour, bbc! bonjour! so something like this kind of — did you come specifically to battambang to experience the bamboo train? yes, when we talked about a train, we imagined, really, a carriage — not this kind of thing. there's a lot of work, actually. it's not like a luxurious kind of a trip. no! there is some work to do — you've gotta get off, you've gotta get on. yes, yes. that's part of the experience! there's a truckload — or should i say a trainload — of these tourists sort of coming

by so pretty evident that this is a very popular form of transport in these parts. that was henry taking the scenic route there. well, stay with us because still to come on the travel show: i should have brought a spare pair of socks. why rajan is moaning about his socks. boiled snails. and one of the world's remotest food festivals. laughs. next up, we're off to rural myanmar, where rajan visited a holy buddhist temple known for its cheeky inhabitants. i'm heading to a pilgrimage site that is so uniquely burmese — mount popa. it's a volcanic rock over 700 metres high.

i can just about see it through the fog. meet the macaque monkeys of popa. yes, cute at first, but there are 2000 of them and i must admit, the novelty wears off. 0k, 777 steps. let's go. first, like all religious sites in myanmar, it is shoes off. shoes here, yeah? it's soaking wet. i should have brought a spare pair of socks! and you do wonder who is really in charge here. a little bit spooky. people are actually being

attacked by the monkeys! landing on their heads and stuff. the climb is steep and not helped by the fact that some of the steps are covered in monkey droppings. but the view going up is incredible — golden pagodas peeping through the swirling mist. it's a surreal experience. 0k, i've climbed the 777 steps to the top of mount popa, this ancient spiritual shrine, and because of that mist it's eerily beautiful. that was rajan in myanmar. well, lastly this week, we're off to the jungles of malaysia, where mike visited one of the world's most remote food festivals.

we're catching the eye of a lot of locals, because there's not that many foreigners, surprise surprise, in this part of the world. i don't know half of the foods here today and that's quite exciting for me. a local farmer called dayang offers to show me around. would you like to try our dure? i don't know what dure is... this is one of the local exotic vegetable found here in bario. it is a plant that lives in the jungle? yes. i could eat that all day. that's delicious. but it's got, like — i was thinking it was going to taste like spinach. it doesn't taste like spinach at all. ok. it tastes like, much heartier than spinach would. would you like to try the akep? chuckles. yeah, we can try the akep. so akep looks to be boiled snails, in case you can't see.

yeah, it's found in the paddy field here. it smells like boiled snails too. this is how we do it. so this lives in the jungle as well? yes. you suck it out? sucking. there you are. just like that. so you bite — you bit it first? yeah. just a bit. not too much. it's a little stuck on my teeth, 0k. and you suck it? suck it, yes. just suck it right out. yes, once. sucking. there we go. chuckles. how do you find — the taste must be fantastic? laughs. i wouldn't — i wouldn't use that word, but it's not bad. it's very chewy! chewy! this is classic traditional kelabit food, sourced from the surrounding area. welcome to bario.

dayang takes me to herfarm, where she grows one very important ingredient. it's cool, cos each plant has one pineapple? yes, so it will take about one year to ripe. but this looks ripe. yes. this yellow one. yeah, with the colour is a golden yellow. so how do we — can we pick one? how do we pick one? sure, you can just pluck it. i'm going to have puncture wounds after this, but it's ok. yes, yes. hey, that was easy! and twist? yes, because it's a golden ripe pineapple. imitates trumpet flourish. yes, it is very sweet. look at this — my first pineapple. oh! back at the festival, locally grown pineapples have been made into jams, juices and even pineapple cider. down the hatch. it's a little chunky. how many of these do i have

to drink to, you know, have a really good day? i'm not sure. shall we find out? i'm joking, i'm joking! since it started in 2006, the festival has celebrated both the cuisine and the culture of the highlands. up top, there are some bags with soda pop, cookies. the point is to climb up to the top, grab your prize and come back down. excuse me, sir. he's telling me it's my turn. ok, you can go. freestyle ? freestyle, yeah, freestyle. ok, here we go. laughter. come on. good try. come on. as the games continue,

my form doesn't really improve. come on, bbc! it was by a feather that we lost! applause. a game that i'm not bad at — i think it's my height advantage. everyone gets a shot, or...? hold on. let's watch. cheering and applause. that's way farther than mine! i guess you might think that coming so far away, you wouldn't be able to make friends or it might be a strange tourist experience. but i always find it's some of the best ones. when you come to these remote places, there's not many foreign tourists, so people are just so accepting and grateful that you're here, and will share everything with you.

right, that's all for this week. coming up next time: rajan is here to look at the uphill battle europe's ski resorts have faced during this winter of lockdowns and closures... this bridge is the only way up to the village. ..and visits a beautiful italian hilltop village that's fighting for its future. it is a pretty stunning entrance as well, isn't it? until then, you can catch our more recent episodes on the bbc iplayer, and we are on social media too — just search bbc travel show and you will not be far off. but until next time, from chillyjapan, stay safe, keep planning and we will see you soon.

hello, good afternoon. forsome hello, good afternoon. for some of us we are seeing our first significant snowfall of the season. causing treacherous conditions if you are heading out on essential travel. this is a little village in north wells. it was taken a few hours ago with snow falling and in fact, the snow has ground to a halt across some parts of north wales. here it is across northern ireland, it is turned fizzle out but for north wales and parts of north—west england, particularly the north england, particularly the north england, and the eastern side of the midlands and east anglia in the south—east, it is still coming down and it is a very slow moving band of snow so it is not going to move much now for the next few hours. so several centimetres will continue to build up, heavy showers are following behind with the possibility of hail and thunder, snow on the hills, certainly showers in northern parts of scotland and more bright spells coming through in northern ireland for the next hour or two but even with the sunshine,

it is definitely colder out there, barely freezing but we've got the snow falling. i don't really need to tell you that there are warnings out for snow and ice and the rest of the day with hazardous conditions on the road and on pavements also. you can keep up—to—date on bbc local radio. this evening and overnight we do see some movement in a band of snow as it pushes back southwards with a couple of centimetres in southern areas before it fizzles out. the showers continue in the north and it will be bitterly cold particular for england and wales with —8 or minus nine celsius where the snow is lying and really cold start for the morning and fog in the north. a few more showers penetrating into southern scotland tomorrow and that is a queue for northern ireland but not as much for today. driving and in wales. and more sunshine as a result, temperatures will be higher, but still cold. the recent dry weather doesn't last very long because when we get the atlantic weather system starting to come into our cold air to get that battle

between the cold air which is reluctant to push away and the mild atlantic air and with it lots of misty murky weather and quite grey. when that rain does come into the cold air, we get the renewed risk of the snow and it looks as if the rain is going to be the winner into next week which unfortunately is not great news as there are still some flood warnings in force because the ground is saturated and the rivers are still running high indeed. yes, it is cold initially, that cold air never really goes away up in northeast, particularly for scotland, but we have got some rain to contend with as we go through tuesday, wednesday and thursday. just a reminder that you can get all the warnings including flood warnings from our website. see you later.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines. the government says there are 77 cases of the extra virulent south african variant of covid in the country — the cases linked to travellers arriving in the uk. they are under very close observation, and we have enhanced contact tracing to do everything we possibly can to stop them from spreading. police fines as more than 300 people attend an illegal rave in east london — organisers reportedly locked the doors from the inside to stop officers getting in. severe weather warnings as snow and ice sweep across the uk amid fears of travel disruption. leaving the union — the snp to present its national

assembly with what it's calling a road map to a new referendum