Top Gear: The Burma Special

Hello. Hello, everybody, thank you very much. Thank you.

- A big welcome! - Nice.

A big welcome. Thank you and welcome.

Welcome to what is a very special show,

because it is our Christmas special.

Yeah, and this year it's a little bit different.

Yeah, because it's actually the middle of March.

It is.

Right, the main reason it's a little bit different is because our producers

have told us that we should try our hands at long-distance lorry-driving.

- Literally, my idea of heaven. - Yeah.

They told us each to buy a truck and report with it

to what the BBC calls the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

But everybody else calls it Burma.

The meeting point was a giant parade ground

in the middle of the old capital city, Rangoon.

And I was the first to arrive.

I've bought a stereo.

I have a speaker system here in the roof,

the passenger seat has been replaced with a subwoofer,

and there are two amps with a combined power of 2,300 watts.

And the best thing is, included in the price was this comb

and...

an entire lorry.

It was built in 1959...

or 1976.

People are a bit hazy on that.

What we do know for sure is that Isuzu made the mud flaps, which is odd,

because it says "Mitsubishi" on the axles.

- Ooh! - (VEHICLE APPROACHES)

Is that James? It is James.

Don't really call that a lorry.

Morning.

- Van, mate. - What?

- We had to bring lorries. - That is a lorry.

It's a van.

Technically it's a crane, actually. I've bought a crane.

- Oh, is that what that is? - Look at that.

A crane, two winches, hydraulic rams, legs...

And it had the latest in hi-tech dashboards.

That's a mess.

Isn't this going to drive your OCD madness...?

Well, I've put labels on things corresponding to what I think they do.

Hazards... What's that? I've got one of those in my lorry.

I've had to put a question mark on it.

Mine is a sports lorry. Straight six, rear-wheel drive,

twin exhausts.

BMW 325i and this - almost identical.

Banging stereo.

Really?

Seriously.

- You want to hear it? - Not really. I expect it's quite...

- (BUZZING STOPS) - Anyway, I'm sure that won't become

annoying at all. I need to ask you a question.

- What? - Why are you wearing a tie?

Because I'm a modern lorry-driver,

and modern lorry-drivers are crisp and sharp.

The days are over when you simply turned up

with a glove box full of strong pornography, and egg on your vest.

At this point, Hammond arrived

with a glove box full of strong pornography, and egg on his vest.

What do you think?

What is it? A lorry or a Hindu temple?

This has been extensively modded.

- Has it? - Not just the visual improvements,

though they are significant -

the lights and the little studdy things, but note...

Oh, God.

All of that frame arrangement, right, it's a farm truck.

Yeah. - That's so it can accommodate

those low-density big loads.

- Big loads of what? - Of crops.

What crop? Here?

In Burma? Home of the Golden Triangle?

Hay.

- No. - Or turnips.

- No. - Kale.

No, heroin. That's all they really grow here.

You've bought a heroin lorry.

Fit a lot of heroin in there, wouldn't you?

Hammond, this seat...

- Yeah. - Let's be honest, it's a church pew.

Yeah.

It looks like the sort of railway carriage that Agatha Christie went about in.

- Let's look at what we've got. - James has bought a van.

Has he parked it a long way away, or is it that small?

As we were admiring the paintwork on Jeremy's lorry,

our challenge arrived.

Hmm.

I'm quite excited, actually, come to think of it,

cos, I mean, we're here, with these.

"In 1943, British, Australian and Dutch prisoners of war

"were forced by their Japanese captors to build the Burma Railway

"across Southeast Asia.

"Their efforts and their suffering were immortalised in the film

"Bridge On The River Kwai.

"That's what you're going to do.

"You're going to build a river bridge which is strong enough

"to support the weight of your lorries."

I don't know anything about

- bridge-building. Build a bridge?!

How big a bridge are we going to have to build...

How much does yours weigh?

- About 1,000 tonnes. - I'm afraid it gets worse.

You know they said long-distance lorry-driving?

Yes.

"The only trouble is that you have to drive to the river in question,

"which is in Thailand."

The River Kwai is not in Thailand.

Yes, it is. The River Kwai is in Thailand.

- Where's Thailand? - Is it?

Yeah. I promise you, the River Kwai... I know everyone thinks it's Burma,

it isn't, it's Thailand.

So we're going to go and build a bridge over the River Kwai.

Like Alec Guinness.

- I don't know how to build a bridge. - (ALL WHISTLE "Colonel Bogey March")

In high spirits, the journey began.

We are off.

Oh, yeah.

We worked out that the most sensible way of getting to the river

was to head right across Burma

to its northernmost border-crossing with Thailand.

On this epic 1,200-mile journey,

we would find strange new cities with no-one in them,

cross mountain ranges straight out of Jurassic Park,

ford disease-filled rivers and attend a party

which made the scene at the end of Apocalypse Now

look like a quiet night in.

And we'd have to do it all in lorries which,

right at the start, weren't really working properly.

There are gauges. Nothing works.

Nothing at all. Not one of them.

Not fuel gauge, oil, oil pressure, charge, vacuum,

temperature, nothing works.

- (GEARS RASP) - Oh, God above!

Ah! That's not it.

There's no synchromesh on this gearbox,

so when you go from third to second or whatever, you have to...

Oh, bloody Nora! ...double-declutch.

Like that. Only smoother.

- Oh! I can't... Oh... - (RATTLING AN D SCRAPING)

Oh, God.

How fast am I going?

Speedo doesn't work.

Oh, my giddy aunt! The ride is shocking.

Ugh!

Possibly a bit of play in the steering.

Let me talk you through my brakes. Um...they don't really work.

I've got three centimetres of pedal travel where nothing happens,

and then a millimetre where it all happens and the wheels lock up.

There's no handbrake, and I'm not being stupid,

I've looked everywhere. There isn't a puh-tchh one,

there isn't hand one, there isn't a switch.

And on top of the mechanical problems,

we had to deal with Rangoon's pedestrians.

Stop wandering about in the road!

Whoa! A grandad's just walked by with a child, right underneath your lorry.

Whoa! Somebody else just did it.

Pedestrians have no concept of traffic.

None at all.

And there was another issue.

One of the reasons that driving here is so difficult

is because everybody, as you can see, has right-hand-drive cars,

but they drive on the right.

And this is because, for 46 years,

Burma was run by a chap called General Ne Win,

who was a proper lunatic.

He was guided mostly either by his dreams or by his astrologers.

One morning, he woke up and he thought,

"My country is slipping too far to the left politically,

"so I shall correct this by forcing everybody

"to drive on the right-hand side of the road."

This makes life particularly difficult for bus passengers.

In a minute, we'll see a bus pulled up at the side of the road,

at a bus stop, but all the people will be getting out into the road

because the bus used to go on the left, so the doors. . .

It's just complete madness!

You may be wondering why, today, people don't buy. . .

left-hand-d rive cars.

And, if I' m honest, I' m wondering that as well.

Our worst problem, however, was that James was navigating.

James, can I say, this can't be rig ht.

- (HORNS HON K) - Sorry!

Sorry! Hold on.

How does James ever land his aeroplane where he wants to be?

Rig ht, should be this way.

IT wasn't.

Will I even fit down there?

Mind that sign on your right, Hammond.

Oh, this is ridiculously tight!

As I sorted out some compensation for the damaged fruit...

- Thank you. - No, no!

Oh, I see, it was not enough.

...Hammond was discovering for the very first time

the problems of being tall.

Hold on a second, these wires... These are too low.

Oh, God.

Right, I'm thinking if I crane out...

It's only this one, isn't it?

Yeah, lift that, you come underneath, I'll drop it on you,