something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la sha la la la la la ♪ ♪ sha laa la la ♪ ♪ >>> hue in central vietnam is someplace i've never been before, but it's still vietnam where all the things, the smells, the sounds, the details i love so much. first night in country, it's like sliding into a warm, deeply comforting familiar bath. i've been all over vietnam, a place i feel a special connection to. my first love, a place i remain, besotted with, fascinated by. so back in vietnam, one of my favorite places on earth. and all of the things i need for happiness. plastic stool, check, tiny little plastic table, check. oh. something delicious in a bowl, check. in this case a local specialty, com hen, clam rice, sweet clams out of their shells, tossed with a wild swirl, beans, spicy green chillies, crunchy roasted peanuts, fried pork rind, and cilantro. and a similar variation with rice noodles. that fish sauce with chilies in it, and, oh, that'll just singe your eyebrows off. throw some chilies in. hit with hot clam broth, and you're on your way. i'm back. back i

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ shaa la la la >>> what do you need to know about tokyo? deep, deep waters. the first time i came here, it was like -- it was a transformative experience. it was a powerful and violent experience. it was as if -- it was just like taking acid for the first time. meaning what do i do now? i see the whole world in a different way. i often compare the experience of going to japan for the first time, going to tokyo for the first time, to what eric clapton and pete townsend must have gone through. the reigning guitar gods of england. what they must have gone through the week that jimi hendrix came to town. you hear about it, you go see it. a whole window opens up into a whole new thing. and you think, what does this mean? what do i have left to say? what do i do now? >> welcome to tokyo. you are not invited. this is the other tokyo. 12-hour flight and i'm baked. no sleep. might as well -- must -- go out. ♪ the kabukicho district near my hotel has the advantage of being where the subterranean lif

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la ♪ sha la la la la la ♪ sha la la >>> this house came to be built by a dr. blake, who was in the eastern company service. my grandfather came to be nominated to the body called the council of state, which used to be a part of british india. >> it was another time, one that few still remember, the india before partition, when these rooms, this house, was part of the seat of power. >> i had the privilege of being born in this house upstairs. >> this was the maharajah's bed. i mean, his chambers are present. >> and it was the routine that we would all ride up into my grandfather's room to wish him good morning, and then we'd all come down for breakfast. >> the walls tell a story, many stories. >> there used to be a lot of animosity. there were two very divided classes in india, so there was a lot of tension between the ruled and the rulers, but that was a different time, you know. now i think back, and it's more like a fairy tale. ♪ ♪ >> day one in northern india near the pakistan border. this is amritsar, the indian pun

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la ♪ sha la la [ laughter ] >>> whiskey for farmer. >> oh, that's good. trying to kill us. >> they make more than 100 bottles a day, so 30,000 bottles. that's a lot of -- did i do that right? or have i had too many whiskeys? [ laughter ] >> how did this happen? how did i get here? coming into focus, the man across the table. he looks familiar. maybe if i can remember who he is, it will be a clue as to where i am. >> okay. >> right. andy. andy ricker. the white guy who cooks awesome thai food. >> is it pretty spicy? put that in there. >> pok pok in portland. restaurants in new york. andy's made a name for himself faithfully reproducing the cuisine of northern thailand. >> mm. >> the good stuff. comes from places like here. rice country. chiang mai province. in this part of the world you live and die by the harvest. thai food is intensely regional. and northern thailand in particular has many distinctive features. this is a world of fresh, delicious, spicy, meaty, salty, sour, sweet, bitter. often

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ shala la la la la la ♪ >>> what is it exactly about this place? over the past century the system here, the tradition, whatever it is that took hold here, churned out a tremendous number of the world's most important chefs. chappell, bocuse, toisgros, bocuse, and most importantly, influenced nearly all the rest of them. >> why lyon? why is this such a gastronomic capital? why bocuse here? why troisgros? why all of these great chefs? >> because lyon is really positioned between the north and the south. >> right. >> you're locked in between burgundy and rome. >> lyon is the second largest city in france, situated in the southeast of the country midway between the alps in the east and the mediterranean to the south. >> this was also a bottleneck when cars became the mode of transportation. >> goes right to the heart of the michelin driving the destination on the way to -- >> completely. >> out of that system came chefs like this guy, daniel boulud. like prince or madonna, he needs really only

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la sha la la la la la ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ >>> ah, the storybook kingdom of grenada. one of the oldest, most complex, magically surreal places in spain. and one of the most beautiful. grenada is tucked against the sierra nevada mountains of andalucia in southern spain. it's not like barcelona. it's not line san sebastian. it ain't madrid. any reasonably sentient person who looks at spain, comes to spain, eats in spain, drinks in spain, they're going to fall in love. otherwise, there's something deeply wrong with you. spain is the sort of place that never really made any sense anyway, and in the very best possible way. this is the country that gave us the spanish inquisition. also anarchy. this is where devout catholicism mixes with surrealism, modernist cuisine with traditional tapas. christianity and islam spared space and traded places. the effects of influences of all those things are right here to see. you can almost look back through time and through the mists of history and see the phoenicians marching up acro

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ >>> right now we're in the middle of downtown jackson. farish street. >> a street with a lot of history. what did it used to be like back in the day? >> the street was packed with folks. folks all over. they had their own restaurants, grocery stores, juke joints, i mean, everything happened on farish street that happened in jackson for the african american community. >> the state capital of jackson, mississippi, located along interstate highway 55, just outside what's known as the mississippi delta. it's the kind of place that makes you wonder why did they make it the capital? until you grab hold of what used to be around here. farish street used to be the hub of african-american life in this city, its black commercial, cultural center. when dr. king came to town, he came here. everybody did. medgar evers had an office just upstairs here. musicians like tommy johnson, sonny boy williamson too, and elmore james all played here and the likes of duke ellington, cab callaway, c

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la ♪ sha laa la la >>> this is the bronx. you've probably heard about it. you may even have a pretty solid image in your head of what it looks like, what it is like. or maybe you can't picture it at all. the south bronx sounds familiar as a bad thing. and the bronx at one time was said to be burning, wasn't it? for the most part, the bronx is overlooked. the never visited borough in new york city, which is a shame, because the bronx is a magical place, with its own energy, its own food, vibe, and rhythm. you've been to brooklyn. maybe it's time you took a look at the bronx. >> in august of 1973, the sister of d.j. kool herc was holding a birthday the party for herself. in the basement of 1520 sedgwick avenue. as kool herc was playing the music on his two-disk turn table, he began to slow the music down, slow the record. people stood up and took notice, and they began asking him to do it again. he did it again. they asked him to do it again and again. he did it again. he attracted more and more pe

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ sha la la la la la ♪ sha la 4 la la la ♪ sha la la la la la in the capital city of nyanmar, it's dark. blackouts are common with the ancient power grid. what sources of light there are in the street cast a eerie, yellow orange hue. for almost 100 years under british rule, this was rangoon. in 1948 after helping the british fight off the japanese, there was a new taste for self-determination, the country gained independence. after a decade of instability, however, the military consolidated power and never let go. elections? they came and went. the results ignored, opposition punished, or silenced entirely. burma, now myanmar, where orwell once served as a colonial policeman, where he first had grown to despise the apparatus of a security state became more orwellian than even he could have imagined, in a nation where even having an opinion could be dangerous. >> i am very honored to be here at this university and to be the first president of the united states of america to visit your country. >> morning in yangon, to nearly everyone's s

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪ >>> 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, alternately, as only a 17-year-old could be. this is where i lived. very happy summer in the early '70s, and that was my room on the left. it's an amazing spot if you think about it, a bunch of knuckle heads working as dish washers, pizza servers. we could work on a beach like this. happier, stupider times. you know, i can still hear the play list, the brothers johnson. if you put on marvin gaye right now, i'd burst into tears. what do you do? you're young, you go to the beach, you know, you get laid, and you get high. it was here, all the way out at the tip of cape cod, provincetown, massachusetts, where the pilgrims first landed. and it was where i first landed. 1972, washed in a town with a head full of orange sunshine and a few friends. provincetown, a wonderl

to go out in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ la, la, la, la, la sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪ ♪ sha, lala, la, la, la ♪ >>> the western mist has pretty much captured the american imagination. none of us can escape it. for ages, we identified ourself with the cowboy. the freedom of wide-open spaces. few places in america still manage to embody that mythic landscape of the imagination, like the state of new mexico. what does freedom mean? it's different things to everybody, it seems. but something about this place manages to capture the overlap between a whole hell of a lot of very different cultures. ♪ old route 66 runs through new mexico like a collapsed vein, right through santa fe and albuquerque. they must have seen, like magic once, families loaded in massive chrome and steel chariots with powerful v-8 engines and took off down that highway. they slept in bungalows. and swam in kidney-shaped pools. then, it went redundant. route 66 was demissioned, and forgotten, except by desperate and lazy travel show hosts. anybody drive around about 10:15 at night looking for tacos. if you can i

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha, la, la, la, la sha, la, la, la, la ♪ ♪ sha, la, la, la, la ♪ i am not going to get there by accident. that is part of the whole experience of the desert, is that it ain't friendly. it ain't nice. it ain't good, you know. you're out here a half a mile and it doesn't matter if you are a half a mile out or 20 miles out, there is no reason to walk a mile further. you are already in infinite desolation. sin city was true. it was real. part of moving out here, you would never see the family again. i'm moving to vegas and you ain't coming to see me and i ain't coming to see you. that was the character of the city. it was the pitiful of america. it wasn't somebody that would come out here and make big bucks, it was i'm going to come out here and make a few bucks and you ain't gonna bug me back home. >> in vegas, there is winners and losers. and god knows, i've been both. in a place like this, where you can lose your shirt on the unlucky turn of a card, you need a friend. and for my sins, i got ruhlman. evading every jurisdiction from clevelan

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la>> china's younger generation is driving a growth in consumption. >> this is where the real power is -- china. >> if you live in manhattan like i do and you think you live in the center of the world, this place, shanghai, will confront you with a very different reality. turn down a side street, it's an ancient culture. a centuries-old mix of culinary traditions, smells, flavors. a block away, this. an ultra modern, clanging cash register, levels of wealth, luxury, the sheer volume of things and services unimagined by the greediest, most bourgeois of capitalist imperialists. the city split by the huangpu river, a tributary of the yangtze. in the older section which features the bund and the newer built-up section of pudong. the one thing i know for sure about china is i will never know china. it's too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. there's simply not enough time. that's for me the joy of china, facing a learning curve that impossibly steep. the certain knowledge that even if i ded

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, latern myth has pretty much captured the american imagination. none of us can escape it. for ages, we identified ourselves with the image of the lone cowboy, the perception of frontier values, self-sufficiency, rugged individualism, the freedom of wide open spaces. few places in america still manage to embody that mythic landscape of the imagination like the state of new mexico. what does freedom mean? it's different things to everybody, it seems, but something about this place manages to capture the overlap between a whole hell of a lot of very different cultures. old route 66 runs through new mexico like a collapsed vein, right through santa fe and albuquerque. it must have seemed like magic once. families loaded in a massive chrome and steel chariots with powerful v-8 engines and took off down that blacktop highway. they slept in whimsical motor lodges and bungalows, swam in kidney-shaped pools. then it all went redundant. route 66 was decommissioned, chopped up, largely forgotten, ex

something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha-la-la-la ♪ sha-la-la-la ♪ sha-la-la-la ♪ sha-laly everything american and great came from. the things the whole world wanted, made here. the heart, the soul, the beat of an industrial cultural super power. a magnet for everyone with a dream of a better future. from eastern europe to the deep south. american dream? you came here. >> the one straight ahead with the green roof? >> the rococo building, completely empty. >> unbelievable. >> the white one is being rehabbed. there's money coming in. the one on the right is completely empty. the great pyramid with the spire on top sold for $5 million. >> $5 million for that? you can't buy a garage in the hamptons for that. >> $5 million for a skyscraper. >> it is post-apocalyptic. i mean, it's like a science fiction film. what the hell happened here? >> well, it is post-apocalyptic. except for the fact there are several hundred thousand people living here. >>> 2 used to be 2 million people. that was rubber. that guy was steel. that guy was a doctor. this was what made america. the road sta