Hacker Cinema
Long Way Round
2004 · TV series · documentary · 60 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman, David Alexanian, Russ Malkin
In 2004 Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman embarked on an epic challenge to bike 20,000-miles across 12 countries and 19 time zones in just 115 days. Watch as two friends ride around the world together and, against all the odds, realize their dream.
6 positive1 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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8 comments on Hacker News
Total agreement.
Long Way Round felt a lot more "natural" than the follow-on movies. They were all good, but Long Way Round was by far the best. IMO, followed by Long Way Home, which had no real pretense about being remote or "adventurous" - just two buddies doing what is likely their last moto tour together.
There's a video on YT that basically proposes the idea that Ewan McGregor's & Charlie Boorman's "Long Way Round" series has been the last "true" travel documentary made for TV. I thought that was a bit silly initially, but after watching it(the YT video) I can't shake the feeling that I agree with the premise.
Basically - in "Long Way Round" Ewan and Charlie take two motorcycles and they ride them from the UK east, going through Russia and finishing in the States. But even though they have support crew of two cars following them with extra equipment, it doesn't change the fact that back when it was filmed, they didn't have internet connected phones with them. The maps of Syberia were innacurate, they didn't speak any Russian, they were driving through really difficult terrain and you could "feel" that they were far from civilization - contact with family was infrequent, them they relied on kindness of strangers a lot because there was no other way to continue. There was a lot of communicating with hand signs and pointing.
Compare that to their later "Long way up" where they rode up through South America - at that point they both had mobile phones with maps and instant translators - they were never lost, and even in the middle of absolute nowhere they would walk up to a local and just use their phone to translate. They had video calls with their families practically every night. Even though they were in some places no less remote than Syberian roads, it didn't feel remote in the same way.
And yes, I know there are YT travellers who try to artificially follow the same kind of philosophy - no translators, no maps, just going in raw so to speak. But the world has changed. Even if they don't use phones, the locals do even in the middle of the amazonian jungle. And it is amazing how connected humanity is, but there is certainly an era that has ended for all of us.
I really recommend this video, whether you have seen Charlie's and Ewan's adventures or not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjV3tkrCYIY
The Long Way Round (2004) - a British television series documenting the 19,000-mile (31,000 km) journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York via Eurasia on motorcycles. It is a lot of fun and covers incredible terrain and the trials and triumphs of lesser travelled roads and countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Way_Round
There are an additional two series, Long Way Down (2007), Scotland to Capetown and Long Way Up (2020) over South and North America, both fantastic follow ons! Enjoy.
Yeah, building the connection is one thing, but it's arguably more work to construct the railway to get to that remote region of Russia.
There's a documentary (Long Way Round) about Ewen McGregor riding a motorcycle from London to NYC by going around the world across Eurasia. They were essentially ferried by a giant off-road truck through rural Russia and even then they had to practically dig a new path for truck to pass in some spots.
That was in 2004, but I doubt the road of bones has gotten any better since then...
I recommend "Long Way Round" on AppleTV. Ewan McGregor and his friend Charlie ride motorcycles from London to Magadan. Episodes 7-8 are on the Road of Bones -- it's insanely difficult, even for military trucks.
In my personal opinion it's the weakest of the three - way too much time is spent on technical problems with the bikes and cars and very very little on culture and people of the countries they go through, it picks up in the last 3 episodes but that's 3 out of....11? I also hate the Americanised editing style where even in perfectly mundane situations there's extremely dramatic music playing, rapid cuts between scenes, and worst of all, episodes ending on cliffhangers like some cheap TV drama. Long way round and long way down had far more soul to them. But hey, that's just my opinion.
And the other thing - I really wish they waited just a year or two with this adventure, the tech they used was literally on the verge of maturing but 90% of their problems were due to driving prototype vehicles. Literally just a year after filming, there are both electric cars and motorcycles that don't run effectively alpha firmware.
Not a true documentary (since it was released as a TV series in episodes), but I'd say The Long Way Round. It documents the real life journey by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman as they attempt to road trip from London to New York on motorcycles (except for a plane from eastern Russia to Alaska).
They come across a number of different cultures and outdoor adventures along the way. It's very entertaining and an interesting look into different countries of the world.
I'm rarely hooked to TV shows, but this one got me.
If you want to get a feel of what Tuva's like have a look at the Mongolia episode of Long Way Round:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5538321375706386968
They drive through the Altay mountains which is next to Tuva and is the mythical home land of the Turkic people.