The panorama, the peaks,
the power of them, oh my goodness.
I think I went to the Himalayas by mistake.
I was one of the last generations of people
who could do the traditional— what was called the Hippie Trail.
It isn't for the faint hearted.
The mountainous views quickly disappear because you're just clinging on for dear life.
My Himalayan adventure was a trip to Bhutan.
You fly from Delhi over the mountains with Everest on your left.
There was only a handful of pilots who can make that journey.
It's so severe as you drop over the mountains.
When I walked in the mountains,
it was still very, very early days in terms of organised tourism.
But I was guided by Sherpa guides, these incredible people.
Of course the views you're getting going up, coming down,
the valleys, the incredible range of peaks all around you,
it is—to use a cliche quote, it is breathtaking.
There was one particular day where I really got a sense
of the awe and majesty of the Himalayas.
We climbed up the Dochula Pass
for about 3-4 hours of solid climbing.
Finally we reached the top— we were all exhausted—
put down our bikes gasping for air, and then below opened up
what looked like the top of the world.
It was an incredible sight, and all we had left to do
was descend down back to the foothills
and admire these mountains on the way down.
You come across extraordinary sort of saffron-robed monks
quite a lot in the Himalayas which is a wonderful sight in itself,
almost as dramatic as seeing the mountains themselves.
One of the people I met when I was going around the Himalayas
was a guy called Yarib.
He was very big on this thing called Bhutanese Stretchable Time, BST.
It's not about where you're going. It's about what you're seeing as you go,
what you learn about yourself.
He said it was Bhutanese Stretchable Time and there would just be a peace,
that everything would come—matter of fact, everything would come to those who wait.
Nothing really prepared me even then for the first proper, proper view I had of them.
Oh my goodness. The panorama, the peaks,
the power of them, the scale of them.
Of course up at that height, the air was crisper and clearer
which helped to create this very, very vivid memory
and what reaction I have of seeing this incredible mountain range.
I think being in the scale of scenery that you find in the Himalayas,
it goes have a sort of effect on where you see yourself in the world.
You understand that you're perhaps not as important
in the great scheme of things as you might imagine you would be.
What's particularly special about this, it crosses so many different countries,
and each one has a certain reverence for these mountains.
We had a chance to go up to Tiger's Nest, and it's an incredibly spiritual place.
You get a sense of what the people in Bhutan,
how much the mountains mean to them,
how much this Himalayan kingdom is so different from what we're used to.
They have a very simple way of life.
They have a very positive outlook on everything.
And I think we could learn a bit from that.
You'll know this already, but the air is definitely thin in the Himalayas.
And the further you go up, the more steps you have to take
to just gently sort of condition your body to it.
Be aware that you'll get a certain sense of latitude and fatigue
as you go get higher, and it's definitely worth taking things slowly.
Don't try and chew too much off.
Probably the biggest tip I would give people
flying to the Bhutanese side of the Himalayas
is to—you'll be on the flight from Delhi— sit on the left.
If you're on the left, you see on Everest.
If you're on the right, you get to crane your neck around various other people
who are taking all the pictures.
It's an amazing thing to see from the air,
perhaps even better than seeing it from the ground
because you get a sense of its scale.
I was lucky enough to visit Reinhold Messner,
the greatest living mountaineer.
There's a man who really does understand those mountains.
Slightly foolishly and like a lot of people,
I asked him "What was it that drove you to conquer these peaks in the Himalayas?"
And he called me out very quickly and said,
"You do not conquer mountains, you climb them. Mountains are bigger than all of us."
I think that's a lesson to learn too.
And nowhere will you learn it more vividly than in the Himalayas.