the following is a cnn special report. turkey neck. cool. >> i think everybody who listens to the open of "parts unknown" is suddenly like a pavlovian syndrome, really, electrified and prepared through that sound, for the music for something really different on television. ♪ ♪ >> tony was an original. that's very rare in this business. and not only did he have such a cool existence. i don't -- he had his own theme which is a huge thing and he sang in the song and an affirmation of what he was all

about, the organic nature of cutting his own path. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i was in my office. it was about 4:45 a.m. i was getting ready for "new day" which goes on the air at 6:00 and i had my back to the door and i heard my door shut and my boss jeff zucker was standing there looking ashened, and he says i have to tell you something, no one else know, but we're going have to report this. anthony bourdain is dead. i was shocked. i think i actually screamed "oh, no." >> this is cnn breaking news. >> we have some terribly sad news to report this morning. heartbreaking and devastating. once we were sure, all of his family member his been notified and that's when we went on the air with the news.

>> award-winning chef and host of "parts unknown," and our friend, anthony bourdain has died. >> anthony was found in france. he had hung himself in his hotel room. >> the idea that he was suffering somehow is heartbreaking. >> it's hard to talk about him in the past tense at this point. it's -- it's -- it's really -- yeah. it's really hard to -- hard to imagine. i mean, you never what goes on in anybody's head, and you never really know what goes on in anyone's heart, but certainly, you know, the pain he must have been feeling, at least in that moment or in those moments and the loneliness he must have been feeling, it's just terribly sad to think about, and it makes me

very sad for him to have -- to have succumbed to that. >> someone as vital and as passionate and as alive and warm as human as tony bourdain, i could not imagine, a, that he was gone, and b, that he was gone in this manner. that he took his own life at this time in our history. it's left a massive hole in, i think, our world. >> i lost a brother to suicide, and i know the shock that people feel and the shock that loved ones feel and it's something that i've thought about for 30 years and i don't have any answers about why somebody does it. >> anthony's life changed in 1999. that's when he wrote his famous article in "the new yorker." don't eat before reading this. revealing the secrets of the chef world, of the restaurant world, and it quickly became a book. "kitchen confidential ."

that came out in 2000. we're still reading it 15 years later and that's what led to the travel channel and cnn. >> this is the world of fresh, delicious, sour, sweet, bitter. >> "parts unknown" started on cnn in 2013 and it was like a bolt of lightning. >> the most vital thing, giver of live, sticky rice. >> i said, anthony bourdain on cnn? what the hell is that about? right? i didn't quite get it at first. i said we don't do -- that's not what cnn does. and then he did it. and then i got it, and i said this guy's genius. he's brilliant. >> what's the famous greeting? is it have you eaten yet or have you had rice. >> both. what it really means is have you eaten rice yet, but what it really means is how's it going? >> when i learned what his mission was, he basically said i

want to go to familiar and less familiar places to tell the american people about all these places, but through the medium that they will be able to relate to. so, food. everybody can late to food, right? so he was also tling about culture and politics and history and the geography, but through food. >> welcome to the chiang mai province and tucked near the borders of burma, china, laos, india not too far away. all of them have left their mark on the food. >> another episode that i loved was his episode about pittsburgh just because he's saying anthony bourdain "parts unknown," traveled the world and he's going to pittsburgh? right? >> this is anthony bourdain. >> how do you do? >> 103 years old. >> looking good. >> he was awesome. he talked about social issues

and the boom and bust of industry and how automation has left cities behind. >> money is definitely coming in. is it lifting all boats? >> no. >> it is not. >> so the episode in talking about the food scene in pittsburgh was little about the food and more about society and people and people down on their luck and how they fight their way back up. >> why did you decide to stay? >> i wanted to cook. >> and the economy that leads to government policy and everything in between. >> a lot of people in this country are angry. they feel that their anger has not been acknowledged in any way, and frankly, i think they're right. >> yep. >> and that's all encompassed in just an episode of "parts unknown" it's a rare talent to be able to put it all together.

>> for me, the word that best describes tony is passion. he just felt so much passion for what he did and what he saw, and i don't think he ever had no opinion on something. it was -- whatever. >> to the queen. >> i hate the aristocracy. >> he was exactly as you see on television. he was funny. he was sarcastic and he had a dark sense of humor. he loved nothing more than if you went out to a meal with him -- if i went out to meals with him he enjoyed getting me to eat bizarre foods that i would never in a million years eat because i have the palate of a 5-year-old. >> this is tripe. >> this is one of those words that means something i don't want to eat. >> it means good. >> is it brains or the penis of

a shark? >> no, no. not that good. >> it's the stomach lining of the cow. >> he loves the music and all of that was incorporated in these travel journeys that he would produce. i actually ended up taking trips to places he had been and i went to tangiers because i wanted to see what he saw. >> one day we were all sitting waiting for a segment to happen and he looked up and asked, what are you about? what is your passion? >> i said fighting. i love to fight, and his eyes -- i remember, his eyes went like -- and he had recently found bjj, brazilian jujitsu and he loved it. he loved it so much. >> every morning, every morning,

7:00 a.m., i'm here. and for the next hour or two hours or sometimes more, i am just getting crushed. >> the most recent conversation i had with him was not too long ago, and he had said, you know what i love about it? the struggle. i love the struggle. i love trying to figure out how to get out of this and what to do next and that struggle, no matter how much you think that's it, i'm going to have to tap out i find a way out of it. i love it. >> anthony earned practically every award you can earn in the tv industry. five emmy awards just for "parts unknown," dozens of other nominations. the peabody in 2013, one of the most prestigious awards on television. was presented his first year op cnn. >> we ask simple questions, what do you eat and what do you like to cook? and everywhere we go, we ask simple questions and get

astonishing answers. >> i get e-mails from viewers who say they feel they lost a friend because they feel the connection with him through the television. >> whenever we tape i would always yell back with him, in my next life, i'm coming back as anthony bourdain and he'd turn and look at me and say, okay. okay. good luck with that one. but i think that's why -- that is not unique to me. everybody wanted to be a little bit of anthony bourdain. over liquored, over fed, traveling the world, having fun, connecting with people and getting paid to do it. >> o, enchanted land of my childhood. a cultural petrie dish from which regularly issues forth greatness. new jersey, in case you didn't know it, has got beaches, beautiful beaches and they're

not all crawling with trolls with reality shows. i grew up summering on those beaches and they are awesome. >> and he just was a regular person, you know? in his regular jeans and his regular shirt. he had no pretension and he had no interest in pretension, and it was one of the most compelling and endearing things about him. >> he was somebody who was actually introverted and just happened to have this very public job of being on television and being in the >> it was interesting because he was such a dichotomy. he was this swashbuckling, larger than life character who was very good looking and, you know, women loved and men wanted to be, and yet he was always kind of -- to me, it always seemed that he was very confident or seemed very confident. he was always just winking at it all, that he was kind of in on the joke.

that it didn't really mean anything, that we're all humble. we're all fragile. >> jersey's got farmland. beautiful bedroom communities that that woman from real housewives that looks like dr. z does not live or anyone like her. even the refineries. the clover leaves of pipes, twisting in the wetlands, somehow beautiful. to know jersey is to love her. >> i'm a jersey girl. so i watched that with rapt attention of what he would bring to life in new jersey from his hometown. >> he had humble beginnings and came from the jersey shore and it was also the fact that he had such a rough life in his 20s and in retrospect was amazed that he had survived his 20s and he st he gotten him in touch of the humanity of not just himself, but of everyone. >> there's nothing like the

north atlantic. it's majestic. >> i love the beach. pretty much had my first everything on a beach. you name it, first time i did it -- beach. i was miserable in love, happy in love, as only a 17-year-old can be. this is where i lived a very happy summer in the early '70s. >> he drops out of vasser and goes to the culinary institute and has the story was working in the kitchens in province. >> it was here, all of the way out in the tip of cape cod, provincetown, massachusetts, where the pilgrims first landed, and it was where i first landed. ♪ ♪ >> 1972, a town with a head full of orange sunshine and few friend, a wonderland of tolerance, longtime tradition of accepting artists, writers and the badly behaved, the gay, the different. it was paradise. ♪

♪ ♪ we all did drugs. acted wild and crazy. crazy and tony was wild as some and not as wild as others. >> he was willing to show us all sides of his amazing life. the good, the bad and the ugly. we learned from him in the process. >> tony came raw to the picture. he ce iswith htory of his own demons. he didn't hide that he had these terrible problems with alcoh and heroin and yet, that's what made him so relatable. >> tony always owned his struggles and one was drugs and heroin which was something that largely was a 1980s thing for him and he worked through. >> i know what the life of a -- somebody who wakes up in the morning and their first order of business is get heroin and having been through it myself, going to a meeting of addicts. they had something to say to me, and i had something to say to them. >> there was a vulnerability to

him and as cool as he was there was a vulnerability to him that he would -- he would expose. >> i'll tell you something really shameful about myself. the first time i shot up i looked at myself in the mirror with a big grin. >> something was missing in me, whether it was a self-image situation, whether it was a character flaw. i had a stable family in the suburbs and i had a lot of advantages and there was a dark genie inside me that i hesitate to call a disease that led me to dope. i didn't have anyone else who could have talked me out of what i was doing, but intervention wouldn't have worked. i didn't have a child. i have a 7-year-old daughter now who i never would have had. i never would have thought. i looked in a mirror, and i -- i saw somebody worth saving or that i wanted to at least try real hard and save.

anybody can find themselves very easily in this situation, and you know, i look back, and i think about what i'll tell my daughter, you know? that was daddy. no doubt about it, but i hope that i'll be able to say that was daddy then and this is daddy now and that i'm alive and living in hope. he brought to cnn something that very few other his brought and that was a sense of knowing who he was, of not being afraid of saying who he was. of not being afraid to relate his foibles, his weaknesses as well as his strength and his unique ability to tell stories. he brought all that to people. he was really exploring the human condition. he was really talking about what it means to be human, and what we all share all around the world. obviously, we all share a need to eat and he was going so much further talking about what we

all have in common and what connects us. >> i've come to terms with the fact that in an earlier life i am responsible for one dead colombian due to my lifestyle in the '80s. there is a real effect on the ground. >> how does that sit with you? >> i question the drug -- i came back from it questioning the usefulness of the drug war. >> i asked about his own -- his own life and his own druuse which he talked about. 's been so candid about it for years, and i almost caught him off guard, and i just remember his response was something to the effect of he wondered if his own drug use from years ago, really heavy drug use contributed to the death of someone in the drug trade in colombia or beyond, and he was so serious about it. i don't -- i don't want to say

it haunted him, but it was something that he was aware of as one of his past demons. >> my drug addiction, i hope, is not the most interesting part of my life. in fact, i don't find it particularly interesting at all, but there is -- it is part of my life. it changed me, and it allowed me to, i think, better understand some things about life, about myself and what i'm capable of doing, and it's given me a certain, on the one hand, empathy, for some people and a complete lack of empathy for others. that's something i felt i should talk about. i see this particular moment as a clear example of how we might change our drug policy, and i

thought you shall know why it matters to me. it's that simple. >> i think he did everybody a real service by talking about his own addiction and how much he struggled with heroin and cocaine. i think that, again, the more that we can talk about these really hard subjects the more it removes the stigma and to know that he had overcome those things, i think, is inspirational. i think it gives everybody hope, you know, to know that they can overcome something really hard and that is why the pain of this, i think, is doubly compoundedecau hd overcome, it seemed, some demons in the past and i guess that doesn't make you bulletproof. >> i didn't know him well enough to know to know if he was still haunted by it, but i'm sure it never leaves you. when you go through that kind of experience it's always there. you fight it. you deal with it and move on, and i always thought he would do

an amazing job in moving on and in the process helping all of us move on. >> he was so real and so authentic and in the end, maybe he was too real for his own self. i think the real thing to know about tony bourdain is that he was a deeply, deeply human being. he was a giant talent. he was a unique voice, but he was deeply human. bourdain was a defining hire for cnn. it was announced back in 2012. it was a strange move. people were wondering why is cnn hiring this chef and author, but it was because the cnn executives decided to broaden out beyond just breaking news and headlines and start to bring in documentaries and cultural programming and new ways to tell stories. >> for me, travel isn't about taking a vision, sitting on a beach or listening to some cheesy tour guides with all-inclusive day spots. traveling is about going to parts unknown, and sharing a pipe with a shaman as the sun

comes up over a 2,000-year-old ruin and only then realizing you forgot to pack your toothbrush. >> i would describe myself as a lucky cook who gets to tell stories. i'm certainly not a journalist. i'm not a chef, anymore. i like to flatter myself by saying i'm an essayist. pu i'm a story teller. >> this was a risk for cnn, and it was a risk for anthony. ♪ ♪ >> myanmar, after 50 years of nightmare, something unexpected is happeningere and it's pretty incredible. t too long ago, even filming here with a western film crew would have been unthinkable. in 2007 a japanese journalist was shot point-blank and killed filming a demonstration. if you had a camera, there would probably be a knock on your door in the middle of the night.

if, so far, confronted with our cameras, a few smiles and mostly indifferent, at most. shocking considering how recently the government has started to relax its grip. >> i haven't been there to official, myanmar. what's that like? >> i've been a lot of places 20 years after the soviet left and 30 years, and people still shy away from the camera. they still don't want to talk to you. they see a camera and they close up at the approach of an outsider here. >> myanmar, about a year ago -- everybody was incredibly open. what i'm amazed is how friendly and open people are with us and it's very easy for me to say whatever i want about the government, right? we can go home, you know? our lives will go on. we don't pay the price.

everybody could very well pay who could pay the price. who he said us. >> a lot of people were very nice to us and i've already been in jail, you know? i really don't want to go back. this is a very real concern, what happens to the people we leave behind? >> for the moment, at least, things seem to be moving in the right direction. a country closed off to most for so long, sleeping, a 50-year nightmare for many of its citizens, finally, maybe, waking up. to what? time will tell. >> he'd been to myanmar which at the time was a full-blown military dictatorship, and he went there and said to me, here's what i can do with this program. when something big happens in a libya or myanmar or an afghanistan or iraq or wherever

it might be, american viewers and viewers around the world will also be able to know about the people there. not just about the dictators and not just about the politics, but they will be able to get to know the people, and i really think that's important because i think too often americans have just a one-dimensional view of a foreign country and it's only told to them through the prism of breaking news. >> i thought that he was a better journalist than many of us ever could be. because it came to him naturally. it was just curiosity and isn't that really what being a journalist is all about? being curious? and he brought something to cnn that had never been there before, and thus, to the entire broadcast news industry. >> he was like a breath of fresh air and viewers loved it.

the ratings on sunday night doubled. there were new viewers coming to cnn for the first time, including younger viewers who normally didn't want to watch the news, but they did want to watch this larger than life man, this handsome, striking figure explore the world and take them with him. ♪ ♪ this is tripoli after 42 years of nightmare. how to build a whole society overnight and make it work in one of the most contentious and difficult areas of the world is what people are trying to figure out. ♪ ♪

♪ >> outside tripoli's center there's this. one-time axis of all power and untold evil, a huge complex of sinister offices, barracks and residences on top of secret tunnels and underground facilities. the gadhafi's enormous compound. ♪ ♪ >> on august 23, 2011, it fell to the rebels. gadhafi and his family having fled. ♪ >> this is what's left of gadhafi's palace. ♪ ♪ ♪

>> when was the last time you were here? >> the last time -- the uprise of the people. normal people, finding something expensive here like the gold. >> what in the. >> they want us to stop filming right now. >> while talking, we didn't notice several pickup trucks of local militia had closed in on us. >> all right. >> you stop. >> just relax. >> relax. >> this is their turf or their area of operation or somehow under their control. whatever the case, they're the group in charge today. >> an argument ensues between our guys and their guys. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> all of whom who fought against the same forces on this ground a year ago. [ speaking foreign language ] >> let's leave. >> okay. let's go. >> he wasn't afraid of going to a place like libya which was -- is a very complex, all these different kind of nascent political parties and competing groups and he was always very good at sort of being aware of the complexity of a place and not dumbing it down or not even trying to give a dissertation on it. >> another morning in tripoli and life goes on. vendors are out. people go about their daily routine. ♪ ♪ >> this is our traditional breakfast.

>> what is this dish called? >> which is an overstretched omelet, i suppose, with an egg on top. >> you can get them with cheese and chili paste, you can have it with honey and sugar. >> how do you like yours? >> i like mine cooked. >> what's the name of this neighborhood? >> this is -- >> this was the first neighborhood to rise up? >> yes. this was the first to rise up. >> why do you think this neighborhood? >> it's been an impoverished neighborhood. they made them feel like they were not from this country. >> and we go for it. >> anthony bourdain really changed what cnn is. he brought this other way to learn about the world. this other way of asking questions, and not through an interview, not through an interrogation, but by sitting down and sharing a meal.

what he was doing was journalistic, but more importantly, it was so human, bringing people on a journey with him while he met people in their place with their food and with their meals, with their culture. >> i think tony was trying to make the world a little bit more hospitable. a little bit more understanding and more friendly. he was trying to show, yes, we speak different languages and we come from different cultures and different religion, but we're all people and we have unique stories to tell and he wanted to share those stories. in the process he would make the world a little bit smaller, a little bit more personal, and i'm sure his hope was maybe we could eliminate some of the abuses, the wars, the hatred and in the process, i think, that was his goal. >> what do i do? every show, i'm not going to say it's a formula, but the basic structure is a guy goes some place, eats a bunch of food and comes back. that's what i do every time. ♪

♪ >> this is not a food show, but there's food. this is not a travel show, but there's travel. i don't know what it is. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> anthony used food.

it was a way to start a conversation, but his shows, his life. he was really exploring the human condition. >> it's a food show, right? >> well, not really. ♪ ♪ >> it was a concept in a lot of ways. if you look at the mix of people and religions it's a sss story. >> let me try some of the octopus. octopus is chewy, but tasty. too spicy for me, man. believe me, only one will be shitting tonight and it's not going to be you. ♪ ♪ >> this is a sophisticated and complex a bowl of food as any french restaurant. it really is just the top of the

mountain, getting down to the residue at the bottom, and the burning feeling around my lips. happy. we can cancel the rest of the show. i've achieved my happy zone. it's all downhill from here. >> any story that we sit on television and argue about and have these heat the discussions about, all you have to do is interject food and wine into it at a table and it becomes much more civilized. ♪ ♪ >> korea, land of contrast. land of drinking, a lot. >> you can drink well. >> we're going to find out, aren't we? ♪ ♪ >> i did not love myself this morning.

>> dried squid, m&ms and mixing alcohol. >> the problem is that i'm generally older than everyone in this country and my glass is also full. >> we ended up -- i should say we, he ended up cooking some cuisine from south korea in particular. >> you've got pork, hot dogs and now you're adding spam, and oh, wait. kimchi -- oh, wow! >> oh yeah. >> i can honestly say this is the last thing in the world i want to eat. >> oh, do you see that now, but just wait. >> behold -- >> i have to say -- it's very good. >> i've done good in this world. >> i know people love him because of the food and drink. there are also some of us that say that was beside the point.

it was also just about him and his way of looking at the world. >> i come out of 30 years of preparing food for other people in a restaurant situation. most of the places had table cloths and i enjoy from time to time very much eating at fancy restaurants and that said, i am happy experiencing food in a purely emotional way. >> i love watching him go into a restaurant or home and just sort of becoming accepted in the process. >> we are here for a supra, if the home. a supra is like a feast. super traditional. a pig is dispatched and broken into constituent parts. the neighbors pitch in, helping to make three different varieties of a cheese-filled bread. >> while i'm always interested in what's cooking, i am much more interested these days in who's cooking, why they're

cooking, what they're cooking and what else they have to say. >> one of the things i remember was sicily where they were going to be making some octopus and basically these fishermen said we'll take you out and you'll get to go out and catch your own. ♪ ♪ >> are these prime fishing waters? i don't know about this. but i am famous for my optimism. ♪ ♪ suddenly, there is a dead sea creature sinking slowly to the sea bed in front of me. are you kidding me? could this be happening? it goes on. one dead cuddle fish, deceased octopus drops among the rocks or along the sea floor, to be heroically discovered by turi and proudly shown off to the camera and i'm watching as this confederate throws them into the water one after another.

>> the moment the dead octopus was in the water my rage and self-disgust and just -- i'm not going to say i had a mental or nervous breakdown, but i came close. >> it showed how passionate he and was in that particular moment it was very clear to me. just when my brain threatened to short circuit with pleasure, descended as if from heaven itself -- cheese. oh, god, the cheese. i have to tell you, i don't care how many naked breasts are on that beach right now, that is much more exciting. ♪ ♪ >> look at this. beautiful. >> he's a great chef, but did he have this unique ability to eat very obscure, remote, different kinds of foods, but he also

liked all of the foods that all of us loved and he could have a hot dog and speak about that for half an hour. >> as i've gotten older, i'm moving more and more away from fine dining, let's put it that which, and towards those foods and meals that make me happy. food i can eat with my hands, peasant food, home cooking, very small casual businesses. i'm not suffering from fine dining exhaustion and there will always be aspects of that world, that is the world i came out of. i like food emotionally whenever possible and as i've gotten older, it will be a pork shank and noodles that make me happy. as opposed to sfo lashing's tongues in aspic. >> sometimes the best-tasting foods are the joints off the beaten path. >> food is very important. it's worth arguing about and it's worth talking about all day long, but it's only part of a larger spectrum of the human

experience without the conversation and without the ambiance and without love it's worthless, basically. ♪ ♪ when people came to sit down to watch "parts unknown" they knew they were going to get something different even if it was a place they knew and even if it was a part unknown to them. >> his stories weren't about food. >> food was a conduit and once it drew you in, it wasbout the experience. it was about the connection and it wut his interaction. his interactions with people. >> it was the obama white house who reached out to cnn, and i put them in touch with bourdain. they -- i mean, that's who anthony bourdain was. obama wanted to go have food with him and not really the other way around. >> anthony's point of view is basically, i don't want some fancy state dinner.

it's got to be the scooter, the whole thing and he got it his way. >> good to see you. >> for him, while the secret service were apparently very cool, they were freaking out because they couldn't taste test the food. they couldn't do anything, but obama had no problem coming in and eating the local food and having a beer. >> how often do you get to sneak out? for a beer? >> very rarely.n't get to sneak once in a while i'll get to take and the problem is part of sitting in a straun is to sit with other patrons and too often we end up getting shoved in one of the rooms in the back. >> glad i could help. >> absolutely.

>> tony asked the president, do you ever just get to sort of do this? to sit down and chill and have a beer which is a great question to ask. >> we are at a point where we seem to be turning inwards. we are actually talking about building a wall around our country, and yet you have been reaching out to people who don't necessarily resist, gaza, iran, cuba. >> i wish more americans would have passports. and ask questions to the extent where you can see how other people live and be useful, at worse and incredibly pleasurable at best. >> it confirms the basic truths that people everywhere are pretty much the same. the same hopes and dreams and when you come to a place like vietnam and you former americans d vietnam vets someone like a john kerry or john mccain, two very different people politically, temperamentally, but were able

to bond in their experience of eating with their former adversaries and you don't make peace with your friends. you make peace with your enemies. >> as the father of a young girl, is it all going to be okay? my daughter will be able to come here in five years, ten years, she'll be able to have a bowl and the world will be a better place? >> heck, yeah. i think progress is not a straight line. there will be moments in any given part of the world where things are terrible, but having said all of that, i think things will work out. >> thank you so much. cheers. >> there aren't a lot of chefs that get to sit down and interview the president of the united states, but the reason they think president trump wanted to sit down with tony in vietnam had nothing to do with the food. it was the talk about, again, life. >> anthony interviewed a guy

named boris nemtsov, a critic of the regime and he was really good at picking people who were in the crosshairs of bad guys. >> so we were supposed to be dining at another restaurant and when they heard you would be joining me we were uninvited. should i be concerned about having dinner with you? >> this is a country of corruption. if you have business, you are in a very unsafe situation. anybody can press you and destroy a business. that's it. >> meet boris nemtsov. he w deputy prime minister undeyeltsin and today one of putin's most vocal ctics. ♪ >> this restaurant was kind enough to take us in, but the chef is a brit, so maybe he has less reason for worry. >> critics of the government and critics of putin, bad things seem to happen to them. >> a known enemy.

>> he had a bout of radioactive polonium, are you concerned? >> me? tony, i was born here 54 years ago. this is my country. the russian people are in very big trouble. russian court doesn't work. russian education decline every year and russia needs a chance to be free. there is a chance. it's difficult but we must do it. >> nemtsov ended up getting assassinated shortly after. so, you know, he -- anthony was not shying away in any way from syria's political issues in a place. he embraced all those things. the idea that bourdain would have met with boris nemtsov in russia before nemtsov was killed, that's what bourdain was doing, was looking to tell stories of humanity and oppression. >> i remember asking tony bourdain what would be the

bucket list location to a guy who has been around the world five times, and he said iran. lo and behold, several seasons later there he was. >> he was interviewing a washington post reporter and his wife. >> the official attitude towards fun in general seems to be ever-shifting, it's not even a good idea. >> there's a lot of security and lots of rules. there are a lot of people in places that make sure you do the right thing and not do the wrong thing, but a lot of push and pull. a lot of give and take. >> do you like it? are you happy here? >> look. i am at a point now after five years where i miss certain things about my home. i miss my buddies. i miss burritos. i miss having certain beverages with my buddies and burritos in certain types of establishments, but i love it.

i love it and i hate it, you know, but it's home. it's become home. >> are you optimistic about the future? >> yeah. especially if this nuclear deal finally happens. yeah, very much actually. >> shortly after jason was arrested by the regime and held and i remember interviewing anthony actually about jason, and you know, anthony was trying to speak out forcefully on jason's behalf. >> these are two lovely, blameless people who are not deserving of this fate. it was interesting to see anthony often winding up in the epicenter of very serious political situations. >> i also loved the episode when he went to jerusalem and went to israel and met with palestinians and met with israelis and brought his unique vantage of that situation.

that was very powerful. >> any story that we sit on television and argue about and have these heated discussions about, all you have to do is interject some food and wine and whatever into it in a table and it becomes much more civilized. >> first, zucchini. with mint. >> and the apricots we had -- >> those are intensely delicious. >> are you hopeful? >> of course, i have my children. we need to see them. >> i respect her religion. she respect my religion. >> together we can build something for our kids and our future. that's what we think and that's what we give the message. >> part of the attraction of the restaurant is it manages to do is not what so many chefs try to do is to mix your jewish background with arab food. >> what he did better than

people who went to school for journalism was he edated you and he took you on a journey with him, and we all went along for the ride. ♪ ♪ >> a few years back i got the words, i am certain of nothing tattooed on my arm. it's what makes travel what it is. an endless learning curve, the joy of being wrong, of being confused. africa, more than any other continent needs to be seen of the world as both the place we all came from and where we are going.

>> one of his friends described him to me as a freak of nature, a force of nature, unexplainable and the world is lucky to have had him. >> he was a modern-day adventurer and a unique -- and somebody with a unique voice and there's not a lot of people like that left in the world, to be honest. >> i am revisiting some stuff. i was in a weird place in my head when i first came here. i was personally and professionally -- everything in my life was changing. i was in this sort of nowhere land between previous life and whatever came next. i'm retracinmy sps tsee if it still hurts. >> just because somebody is open about their illness in the past doesn't mean that they're going to be as open about what is happening in their present, and we're going to have to learn more because i would not be surprised if the demons that he

had battled for so, so long wound up being part of what wound up taking him from this world. >> there is a real danger of becoming cynical. you shut yourself off from certain emotions that other normal people probably still feel. i've become harder in some ways, but some things always penetrate. there are some things you can't push away or push out or shut your eyes to. i think especially when you're a parent. the kids will get you every time. >> what was interesting is he can deliver something that was sad or tragic or very serious and then -- and in an instant uses sense of humor to take you somewhere else to weave this tapestry of a story that only anthony bourdain can do.

♪ ♪ >> clams. with pork cracklings? how could that not be good? >> this is the way so many of the great meals of my life i enjoy. sitting in the street. eating something out of a bowl that i'm not exactly sure what it is. scooters going by. so delicious. i feel like an animal. where have you been all my life? fellow travelers, this is what you want. this is what you need. this is the path to true happiness and wisdom. >> a lot of people try to do first person wanderlust travel work and show you things in places, but it doesn't really take off, why? because you don't really care about what that person thinks about thing, but with tony bourdain you cared about what tony thought.

>> i think we've learned something here today in chiang mai, i can't summon exactly what that might be right now. muhammad said don't tell me what a man knows or what he says. tell me where he's traveled. you learn stuff. >> language is storytelling. language is culture. language is civilization, and he used it to maximum effect. >> it's morning in the arabian desert. the place explorer bertram thomas called the abode of death. ♪ ♪ >> but it's a beautiful place, the kind of place i look for more and more these days. stark, empty, clean sand that stretches out seemingly forever. >> i was staggered by the breadth of his ability to bring new dimensions to the stories of a world that some of us think we

know so well. others don't know. >> as the evening progresses, the bourbon flows and the fire burns down to coals. a late-night vape with joe and the world seems to shift on its axis. later, stumbling out of my tent, i find myself somehow no longer vertical, looking up, up at a magnificent bewilderment of stars. >> as somebody who spent a lot of years traveling, it takes a toll and it's hard. you're in hotel rooms and you're on planes and you're away from loved ones and you're in places, you know, you're far out on the edge and often it's very lonely, and you're away from your life, and you come back and other people have, you know, continued on with their lives and it's hard to readjust. >> my rented villa is pleasant

enough, but to be perfectly honest, lonely. is it worse to be some place awful when you're by yourself or some place really nice that you can't share with anyone? >> he was generous in how he treated the rest of the world, how he respected the rest of the world, how he never considered anybody or any country or any ethnicity to be either beneath him or beneath the dignity of having their story told by him. >> i just turned 51, and i remember thinking, wow, if i can age like he is aging. he was, what? 61? and you know, he was getting tattoos and doing jujitsu, and he was just -- he actually -- he

actually -- i was actually thinking about this two months ago that i looked at him as somebody who gave me hope for what one's life could become, you know, at 61. >> so proud, so proud. >> what are any of our hopes and dreams? a roof over our heads? some security, maybe even some happiness for our children and the opportunity to be proud of something. we all have that in common. >> everyone has demons, and i'm sure he dealt with them as much as anyone else and just because he's on television, he's successful and he's famous, it doesn't mean that he didn't have a life that was tough and hard, yet fulfilling and happy at

points. >> where is home? most of us are born with the answer. others have to sift through the pieces. >> and he touched on the basic ingredients for all humanity no matter where it exists, and that's why no place was too remote, no people too obscure, no cuisine too exotic. he could make everything familiar. what a gift. what a blessing that was. the tragedy was that it wasn't enough for tony to know his own self-worth. >> i hope that our world can take just one more gift from tony bourdain, and really, really, really try to explore in all its facets the problems of

mental health. this has to be a moment where we take this epidemic and this crisis seriously. >> tony bourdain is the guy that you just want to hang out with. like, through osmosis, you hope to learn a thing or two about life. losing tony was losing a member of your family, our cnn family. >> another tattoo is never going to make me younger or tougher or more relevant. it won't reconnect me ten years from now with some spiritual crossroads in my life. no. at this point, i think, my body is like an old car. another dent ain't going to make a whole lot of difference. at best, it's a reminder that you're still alive and lucky.

another tattoo, another thing you did, another place you've been. [ speaking foreign language ] >> a final, long gaze at the river. take in probably for the last time in my life the slow rhythms of the village. ♪ ♪ >> one more thing to do. say good-bye to an old friend. ♪ ♪ i took a walk through this beautiful world, felt the cool rain on my shoulders ♪ ♪ found something good in this beautiful world ♪

you're watching cnn special coverage of the singapore summit between u.s. president donald trump and north korea's kim jong-un. hello, i'm anna coren live from seoul, south korea. >> i'm john vause in los angeles. it's just gone 11:00 p.m. here on the west coast. welcome the our viewers in the united states and around the world. what may have started on a presidential whim three months ago will soon become reality, a history-making meeting between donald trump and kim jong-un now less than 24 hours away. the first time ever a sitting u.s. president has met with the leader of north korea.