WITHOUT LIMITS: VIETNAM, BBC1, 8pm
SIX people have gathered for a three-week journey across Vietnam, but this “unique bunch of strangers are no ordinary travellers”.
Each has a disability and so the expedition will test them, and society’s attitudes, but don’t worry that this new series will be delicate and politically correct.
It seems very honest, and one participant even laughs: “We must look like the circus has come to town!”
Vicky lost her leg in an accident at Alton Towers. Lou is almost completely deaf, even when she uses hearing aids. Mary was born with dwarfism, Steve is paraplegic and Andy only has one arm – but that won’t stop him tackling the journey by motorbike.
With specially adapted vehicles, the team sets off on the 900-mile trip. This is partly a travel show but mostly a heart-warming and funny documentary about dealing with adversity.
TRIBES, PREDATORS AND ME, BBC2, 9pm
AS BBC1 gives us a team of adventurous folk tackling a wild landscape, BBC2 zooms in on one man’s interaction with wild animals.
Tonight, Gordon Buchanan is in vast, dusty, empty Western Mongolia where the land seems to stretch off into eternity. He visits a Kazakh tribe who use golden eagles to help them hunt.
We might think of these huge eagles as massive, solitary creatures but the tribes have formed a unique relationship with them.
They begin training the birds when they’re still young – and they only work with the female birds, which are far larger and tougher than the males.
Buchanan tries to work with a young eagle, training her and building a bond, but just when he thinks he might have mastered it, more difficulties arise – when he goes hunting with the eagle he has to do it on horseback.
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