tv The Travel Show BBC News June 4, 2021 2:30am-3:01am BST
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and that it was considering its next steps. dominic casciani reports. a former and rundown army base less than a mile from the english channel — a temporary home for asylum seekers arriving in dinghies and lorries, asking for britain to take them in. this is napier barracks. for months, campaigners have called for its closure, saying it's unfit for human habitation. hundreds of men in limbo, waiting for a decision on whether they can stay, or must leave the uk. men like these, from iran, kuwait and elsewhere, who, from behind wire, tell me they've spent years moving through europe, looking for a future. what's it like in there? there's no room. no, no, no, no room. like...line, and the animal is sleeping, one beside one. and this is why they say conditions are harsh.
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a blaze ripped through one of the dorms injanuary, as protests grew over conditions. injust two months, almost 200 men were infected with covid, as the virus swept through the packed dormitories and shared facilities. some tried to run away, fearing for their lives. today, mrjustice linden ruled that it was inevitable there would be a major outbreak of covid—19. he said that led to actual bodily harm of the residents and, as a result, the mental health of the claimants deteriorated. today, residents say they're still desperate to leave. we not have hot water. we not have internet, we not have electricity. we have just one douche for 100 person, and live in this military base for 100 people. you understand 7 if you need food — bad food. same food, notjust bad. and everything, my friend, is bad here.
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the home office today said it was disappointed with the ruling, but it hasn't said whether it's going to appeal — and it's go no plans, either, to close the facility. that's because it now believes it's safer — there's more covid testing, there's recreation for the men who are living here, and the barbed wire is gone. charities say the home secretary priti patel can't be trusted, that ministers need a solution to this now daily occurrence. more small boats across the english channel — around 100 people a day this week. as the summer hots up, expect more, and expect greater political and legal pressure on ministers to find a solution. dominic casciani, bbc news, folkestone, in kent. now on bbc news: on this week's travel show lucy hedges looks back at some of the unique places the team have spent the night over the years — from camping out inside a 13th century church in the heart of the english countryside to a sleepless night inside a recreation of a sarajevo bunker during the balkan conflict of the 1990s.
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coming up on this week's show... my very own spacesuit. i look ready, ifeel ready, i'm ready. you hear the echoing gunshots. door creaks. tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year, so that's good, as i head into my unheated church room for the night. this is an incredible . experience on an old, disused railway line, very shuddery, - but exhilarating! hello and welcome to the travel show, coming
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arguably the world's best sushi and capsule hotels, the uniquelyjapanese place to rest your head. but you also might end up bumping it if you wake up in the middle of the night. and whilst we wait to get back on the road again, this week, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the strangest places we've stayed on the show over the years. and while they might not be as cramped as a capsule hotel, they've left their mark and memories in other ways. well, let's kick off this week with a trip that mike made to bosnia back in 2018, to the city of sarajevo, which saw so much fighting and bloodshed in the �*90s as the former yugoslavia tore itself apart. mike met a man there that used memories from that time to create a unique,
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but traumatic place to stay. lying in a balkan valley, and studded with ancient mosques, synagogues and churches, it's fair to say that bosnia and herzegovina's stunning capital, sarajevo, is often unjustly overlooked by tourists. gunfire. 25 years ago, this was a very different place. bosnian serbs sat in the hills and laid siege to sarajevo, as the break—up of yugoslavia led to nationalism and inter—ethnic violence. 10,000 people died in this city, in some of the most horrific fighting europe's seen in modern times. it's cast a long, distressing shadow and in an attempt to help me understand what it was like being there back then, i've been sent here to a hostel in the city centre. hello. 01, nice to meet you.
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01 is your name? yes, it's my father's war codename. and this is the war hostel? yes, it's just this way. welcome. wow. inside, 01 attempts to simulate the experience of living in sarajevo during the siege. it's quite something different, isn't it? it is definitely something different. there are gunfire sounds that never get switched off. electricity is run from a car battery. the windows are covered, and you sleep on the floor on a rectangular foam. underneath the hostel, there's a collection of relics from the war — paraphernalia salvaged from 01's walks on what used to be the front line. and there's the bunker, a recreation of the front—line facility once used by 01's father, from fighting
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up in the hills. we're getting ready for a night in the bunker, 01 is in here preparing the room for us, and he has reinforced the point that it's going to be quite intense. we can hear the echoing gunshots much louder down here. can see the smoke already. door creaks. not many people choose to sleep down here, as the experience is pretty intense. distant echoing gunfire. one of the rules that 01 has for the bunker is no timekeeping devices.
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i had to forfeit my watch and my cell phone before he left. so i have no idea what time it is. they left me in here about 11.30pm, maybe it's been an hour. a couple of the sounds that play, whenever they sound, justjolts me. distant rumbling explosions and gunfire. well, the night's been a blur of pseudo half—rest, where i'm not really quite asleep, not really quite awake. 0k, well, there's some daylight. which i guess is a good sign. don't exactly feel like a fresh daisy right now, but the world seems to be awake. i take my leave of 01 in the morning, but one question has been bothering me overnight. is this all in good taste? well, somebody could think that
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we're playing games or war games, or something like that. it's not the point. the point is to just give you a small glimpse of what it was like for people who were forced to live through this, like me and my family, people who were forced to go on the frontline, how there was no choice. well, thank you so much. that was a night i will rememberfor the rest of my life. thank you very much for staying here. really appreciate it. thank you for picking us. thanks, 01. mike reporting from bosnia back in 2018. well, the year before that, christa got a slightly more restful night, sleeping inside a church deep in the english countryside. she was trying a spot
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of champing, or church camping, although something tells me it was the right location, but wrong time of year. let's see how she got on. here, in this barely used norman church, is my bed for the night. so it's very reassuring, walking through a graveyard to get to your accommodation. i'm here for a spot of champing — church camping. it's available at 12 historic venues around the country, beautiful ancient sites that are rarely, if ever, used as places of mass worship any more. it's a very big hotel room. money raised from letting champers like me stay means
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the crumbling buildings are spared a slow, inevitable decline. so i'm keen to give this champing a go. where will i be sleeping? yeah? so you'll be sleeping possibly in the executive pews, because it's meant to be the warmest part of the church. i'd expect nothing less! it's good that it's a box pew because it stops the draughts. and so here you are. ah, here we go! there are a few nice touches here — that good old staple, the tea tray, and a little basket of goodies with biscuits and wine. i mean, it's only 6pm and it's already cold — safe to say champing is usually more of a summer activity. at least the pub next door looks like it's going to be warm. why would anyone want to go champing? because you get to spend such a lot of time in truly amazing historic buildings. the way people usually visit historic churches, and i've seen it, is that they go to the door, they pop their head round, they go, "ooh, there's a font, "there's an altar, there's a very nice stained glass,
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"that's very pretty." and then they leave. but what you miss by doing that is you don't get to dwell in the place and really feeling for it. somebody at the pub just told me that tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year, so that's good, as i head into my unheated church room for the night. owl hoots. i've got my airbed. sleeping bag. so i'vejust got into bed, and it's quite comfy, actually. quite cosy, given how cold it is, and i can see my breath. i'm going to try to go to sleep now.
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and try and forget that i'm entirely surrounded by graves. it is quite cold, notably quite cold. i think there's a jolly good reason that champing is usually only done during the summer. because these old churches don't have nice central heating, but it's oddly peaceful, actually. it's cold, but peaceful. deciding to come champing in the dead of winter was a really terrible idea. birds tweet. morning. hi! how are you doing? hi!
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i thought you might want some coffee. you are my favourite person in the world. brilliant, and some bacon sandwiches as well. you, you...welcome! how did you get on? oh, yeah, it was great. i mean, it's the middle of winter, when you don't normally run champing! well, i was going to say, there's a reason why we run champing from spring to the end of summer. but how about the atmosphere, the experience? i tell you what, i was surprised, actually, because i'm quite a scaredy cat. but really, the second i sort of actually settled down to sleep... it's really peaceful, it's really lovely. you just sort of, you know, there's no sound from outside, and the atmosphere was surprisingly quiet. sort of calm. and all through the night, i had no moment of being alarmed. the champing season starts around mid—march, a far more sensible time of the year to try this. christa trying a spot of out—of—season champing back in 2017. stay with us, because still to come on the travel show: we look back at the time rajan
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spent a night at a station with no passengers, here injapan. so let's see where the night train takes me. goodnight. and lucy got a taste of sleeping on mars, deep in a cave in spain. i've not been in the top bunk since i was eight years old, so i'm not going to lie, i'm actually really excited about getting in the top bunk! now, when it comes to strange places that the travel show team have stayed over the years, there is one particular stand—out. it's that time that lucy went to spain tojoin a group of scientists looking to recreate life on mars deep inside a spanish cave. and it would have beenjust plain rude to turn down an invite to a sleepover. so, clearly, this is not
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a space shuttle, but mars, for the purpose of this exercise, is going to be in a remote cave in arredondo, and i have a feeling my sci—fi fantasies are about to become unlocked. the idea is to simulate how hard it will be to survive on another planet, with the barest of tools. this particular expedition is just for the night and is geared towards scientists who'll be doing experiments as if they're on the red planet. wow. oh, my god! down we go. but before any exploration, the team need to change. this is the bit i've actually been waiting for, my very own space suit, although it's a lot thinner than i thought. i thought it was going to be like this giant space suit that i was going to find a little bit unwieldy, but i think i can handle that.
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in fact, i think i've got an outfit like this. i look ready, ifeel ready, i'm ready. just one final touch. i'm ready for my ascent into martian land. i'm a little bit scared too! laughter. how's this? laughter. our aim is to get to ariz, our base, where we will be spending the night. it's anticipated that the first colonists to mars will also have to live underground in caves or lava tubes to avoid interstellar radiation. and there's no time to waste on the experiments. ok, so i'm collecting some samples of the water that's trickling from above, it's really quite cool.
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so the guys have just made quite an interesting discovery. they've discovered a rock showing signs of photosynthesis, which is strange because there's no light down here. so this is a pretty incredible breakthrough for these guys. finally, we make it to ariz. and it's a bit of a squeeze in the decompression chamber. but the team are immediately analysing their samples. ah. we have a table... the pod is set up with everything to meet your basic needs. and after all that work, it's time for dinner. couscous with chicken. wild berry yoghurt.
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they all sound the same. i'm going for one of my favourite dishes — bolognese. the water's in, give it a stir, leave for ten minutes... it looks a little bit like plastic! but i'm so hungry. that is actually quite nice. whilst the others finish up dinner, i sneak out to find out more about the project. also, any excuse to get suited up. one of the goals is to extend the stays in the cave to see how people cope. very soon, we'll need teams of scientists and engineers and people from all areas of knowledge and science, spending one month, several months, more than a year in this station. wow.
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more than a year? yeah. wow. when you're talking about isolating people for several months, or more than one year, there are so many things that come in that would be so useful for future space exploration. this experience isn't cheap. for non—scientists, it's about £5,000 for the 30—day experience, which includes preparation, training and about three days in the cave... i mean mars. so this is where i'm sleeping tonight. it's the top bunk of a bunk bed. i've not been in the top bunk since i was eight years old, so i'm not going to lie, i'm actually really excited about getting in the top bunk. i've got a sleeping bag, so it's like a really cool sci—fi sleepover over
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with all my scientist buddies! although i'm not sure what time they get up in the morning. i have a feeling it's going to be very, very, very early. in space, they say that you can't hear anyone scream, so in astroland, i'm really hoping you can't hear anyone snore. lucy trying to get some sleep in that mars mock—up in spain early last year. well, our next film is from right here injapan, where, in 2018, rajan headed north to the island of hokkaido, where he met a man with a lifelong passion for railways. and he got to stay in a station with no passengers and no scheduled trains. i'd arranged to stay in a unique guest house. tomioka worked on trains most of his life.
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timetable. when he stopped working on the trains, he restored an old disused station house back to its former glory. so this used to be a railway line here? in contrast to the japanese mainland, much of the urban life in hokkaido first developed around the rail infrastructure. some of the old local train routes closed with the loss of industry. but for some people, like tomioka, this is not the end of the line. this is an incredible experience on an old, disused railway line. very shuddery but exhilarating,
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i've got my sleeper carriage berth, so let's see where the night train takes me. goodnight. well, i hope you've enjoyed our look back through the archives, and it's managed to satisfy your wanderlust. let's hope we can all start travelling again soon. in the meantime, keep an eye out for us next time, when... as the uk starts to open up to tourists, we begin an epic journey across the country in an all—electric take on a classic british motor. to kick off, ade�*s in the scottish highlands where
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he meets the conservationists who are saving britain's largest national park. what we're trying to do is restore natural processes. so we want to see the forest continue to march right up the hills. and if we're able to come back in a couple of hundred years, we'd hopefully see some trees on the skyline. and it looks absolutely stunning. it is. it's beautiful. it's a fantastic place to work. well, that one looks like a good one. i hope you canjoin us for that if you can, but until next time, from all of the travel show team here in tokyo, it's goodbye. hello there. it was a bit cooler on thursday. we still managed temperatures into the low 20s in northern scotland. highest temperatures were across east anglia and the south—east — 25 degrees in suffolk.
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you may not find temperatures quite as high as that in the next couple of days but for many it will still be dry and there will be warm spells of sunshine, as well. the fly in the ointment is all this cloud we have kept a close eye on moving up from northern parts of spain across france and threatening to bring some showers across east anglia and the south—east. we have seen more cloud coming in across eastern parts of england for a while, hence the higher temperatures early in the morning. some clear skies for many other areas, quite a cool start for wales and the south—west. for many on friday, it will be dry with some sunshine, the threat of these showers coming up as the cloud thickens to east anglia and the south—east and already more cloud coming into northern ireland — that will be spilling its way into western parts of scotland. it could bring one or two showers towards the highlands. not as warm as it was thursday for northern scotland. much of the country dry with sunny spells, top temperature of 19 degrees. a couple of degrees lower in northern ireland and already more cloud. it will be brighter towards the east.
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a good deal of sunshine for many parts of england and wales — strong sunshine and high uv — but more cloud for east anglia and the south—east for a time through the day and a threat of some showers and wetter weather towards kent and east sussex. a chance we could see a little rain in london during the cricket at lord's but it looks dry on saturday and sunday with some sunshine, as well. that threat of showers pulls away overnight and the cloud will break early on saturday morning. then we look into the atlantic and this is where our weather is slowly coming from for the weekend. that weak weather front will bring more cloud to western parts of the uk, it could deliver some heavy showers in the afternoon across northern ireland and western parts of scotland. drier elsewhere with more in the way of sunshine towards the south east, and temperatures climbing up to around 23 celsius or so. heading into the second half of the weekend, probably starting sunny in many areas, temperatures rising and bubbling up a little bit of cloud, could squeeze out a few showers. a very low risk. the sunniest skies likely to be continuing around coastal areas and temperatures on sunday
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welcome to bbc news, i'm ben boulos. our top stories. president biden announces plans to share the first batch of the us�*s unused coronavirus vaccines — three quarters will go to the covax global programme. and why exiled uighurs are in london to put pressure on the international community to act against china. portugal is removed from the uk's safe "green" travel list. a bitter blow for travellers hoping to get to one of the very few options for european holidays. twitter introduces a new subscription service, but will users want to pay?
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