616 - ASH DYKES - Extreme Explorer, 5x World Record Holder, Solo Trekking Mongolia, & Surviving Malaria!

29:07Ash Dykes:I was like, you know, it's fair, they've got a point. So I was like, what can I do to make sure that I don't do that? So I focused in on getting scuba diving qualifications in Wales so that when I went overseas, I'd be able to somewhat top up the funds as I go. It turned out a lot more difficult because Thailand doesn't pay you too much money as a dive master. But yeah, effectively, I was working in Australia as a door-to-door salesman. What were you selling? Australia Power and Gas. Right, right, right. I was terrible at it. I was trying to sell and I ended up talking too much about travelling.

29:44Ash Dykes:They would invite me inside, give me coke and talk about, oh, their daughter's travelling. And then I'd be shouted out by my boss and you're not allowed inside legally because they can say that you've done stuff or stole something. That's how you got here today. You just knocked on the door and went and tossed some gas and now he's here talking. I got the water I needed. so so you you're doing different jobs to to try and fund the travel stay afloat yeah yeah and then the am i right in thinking the first proper mission the first proper adventure is that mongolia in that is yeah mongolia was was the big one so what what's the what's the what's the what's the mission statement there what did you do so that one was a world first journey to become the first to hike the entire length of Mongolia solo and unsupported.

30:28Ash Dykes:So that was 78 days at torque. It was 1 ,500 miles. It was three weeks over the Altai mountains, five weeks across the Gobi desert and a further three weeks up through the Mongolian steppe. And in order to do that solo and unsupported, you had to pull a homemade trailer carrying everything that I needed to survive, which was 18 stone, 120 kg. Which is the weight of Anthony Joshua. Yeah, yeah. So unsupported just means you don't have a support vehicle there following you and helping and stuff like that. Yeah, so no one can pull that. No one can drop off supplies. No one can. There's no van hidden like 10, 20, 30 miles away.

31:05Ash Dykes:In fact, there was no insurance for that because there was no insurance company that insures people unsupported in the country of Mongolia. An evacuation, I couldn't, unlike the previous guy who had attempted it three times, He was evacuated on all three occasions via helicopter, but I couldn't afford no helicopter. Where does this idea come from? This came from, so after the Vietnam cycle, I'd done a lot of different adventures that built up the experience. I was in Thailand. I then crossed illegally into Myanmar via the jungle and was taken under the wing of a Burmese hill tribe. And they taught me how to hunt, how to gather, how to survive.

31:45Ash Dykes:and in turn they were looking to illegally migrate from Myanmar into Thailand. So they were like a moving Burmese hill tribe. And that was epic. So I was still 19 and I was like, it had been Vietnam. Now it had been this and they were teaching me how to build rafts and shelter using natural resources. Well, you just bumped into these guys one day. We actually were right up north in a place called Pai, which borders Myanmar. and there was this Rambo looking Thai guy with like a bandana and a machete, spoke very basic English and he had supplies and was saying he's going into the jungle to meet a community, you know, do we want to join him?

32:24Ash Dykes:And I think at that point, you know, Thai guy with a machete, most people would have been like, fuck it, absolutely not. Me and my friend were like, that'd be nice. That'd be a cool experience. And off we went. It was like a three night, four day trip. Uh, and you know, at, at that point we were just like, kept looking at each other. This is insane. Yeah. You know, what are we doing here? You know, and he could speak English. Very basic. Yeah. Very, but enough to understand. Mainly it was just showing stuff. So he was just showing us everything that you can use bamboo out of, um, construct stuff, hunt with it, use it as a knife and fork, as a plate, you know.

33:03He takes you in to meet this hill tribe. Yeah. And so they're living in, in this, what was it?

33:08Ash Dykes:They're living in the jungle. In the jungle. Yeah. So I want to know what matey's aim is there, because he's bringing you in, and he's going to this tribe. I've got this Welsh bloke there, and they're going, we're just here chilling, mate. So he wanted coffee money, and so he wanted, it came to a quid, and I think we worked out, I'm sure it was like five quid. So he would have probably given like two quid to them, three quid to himself, that's it. In exchange for taking you there. In exchange for us going into, yeah. Maybe I'm being dumb, but why do they want you there? What are you offering them?

33:43I don't think they do. I don't think they necessarily want you.

33:46Ash Dykes:He was on the journey anyway. So he just said, pay me a little bit of money and you can join. So we were like, cool. So he knew there was a demand to see this tribe, right? Well, the tribe, they weren't interested. And you could tell because they were too busy surviving. And we were just like, oh, this is cool. But then the tribe have been okay with it Because you're giving them money? The tribe was okay because we were with a person that they trusted. And so they didn't have to have any involvement. It was him that had to do like the communicating with us, which was a very basic community. It was very, very rough and ready.

34:23Ash Dykes:It was like a random opportunity that we passed that area at the right time. He was going in there. He could see us clearly looking at the jungle, wanting to do something. So he was just like, come with me for like four days. We were like, cool. so you mentioned that they took you under their wing yeah that sounds like they hate you so at what point did they take you under the wing so they were showing us really cool, it was those guys that were showing us how to construct shelter and how to hunt, and when I say yeah it's a bit me saying they hate us, but when I say they weren't so interested, they just couldn't communicate, and so because they couldn't communicate, they weren't given a lot of eye contact either because they were just like looking away or looking down so it looked like they were not happy with us being there but we learned a lot from them it's just a language barrier yeah we learned a lot they were showing and you could clearly see that they were taking their time to construct whatever it was they were doing you know chopping the bamboo in half showing us how to use it as a plate it comes in capsules as well like magazines and you know they would hack hack and then like this capsule of the the bamboo shards would have water coming out fresh drinking water so they were very careful normally they would just be like bang bang drink but they were like clearly showing us you know oh that's so yeah so i thought fair do as they see as like a younger brother or probably a couple of sons you know right so there was not and you're with them for like four four five days uh three nights four days do you know if they ever accomplished what they wanted to do i'm pretty they looked pretty good at what they were doing i'm sure they were successful so so so living with them yeah um inspired the mongolia trip is that correct it was all of these so it was that it was then trekking the himalayas and then And, you know, fast forward two years, then being in Thailand, teaching scuba diving, training in Muay Thai and fighting in order to make money and pay rent because scuba diving didn't pay too much money.

36:13Ash Dykes:And then it was during those two years I started to miss all of these previous adventures. And I was like, what can I do? That is epic. That is like, I find that when you're on a road, you're safe. You know, if there's a tarmac road, there's people, there's food, there's water. There's a safety net. it doesn't matter if you're hiking, walking, running, cycling, you're on a tarmac road. So I was like, what can I do? Which takes me far from that. Do you not want to be safe? Yeah, not really. No, I think for me, it was seeing what I'm truly capable of. And I was like, take all of that away. Drop me in a country that is extreme, in a country that I'm familiar with.

36:51Ash Dykes:You know, give me what I need to survive, you know, and do I have what to take? Can I survive it? But I didn't know Mongolia was a world record. oh no idea i and i couldn't care less if it was or not i was i was interested in the adventure you know i was kind of like i'm on this beating track for two years teaching people all over the world and no one's talking about mongolia like the heart of asia this massive country second largest landlocked country all as i knew was it's home to the altai mountains to the gobi desert you have like eagle hunters in the far west you've got the reindeer tribes up north you know was very diverse and i was like can you imagine like walking 100 miles across it or 200 miles across it so then i think it got to a point where as i was scuba diving and i had like students diving for the first time and i would almost find myself not paying attention daydreaming about like the goby desert i was like shit this is getting dangerous now he saved 20 million lives but he hasn't been at fault for three yeah and so it was it was at the point that i could no longer ignore that whole sort of Mongolia sort of fascination in a way.

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39:33Ash Dykes:Yeah, it was more, I was looking at doing 100 or 200, 300. It kept growing and expanding. Then I was kind of like, yeah, why not? walked the entire length of Mongolia. You know, how cool would that be? Didn't even know like I was going to be doing it alone. It's mainly because no one wanted to join me. But then I started to look into people who had done it before because I thought, surely someone's done it before, you know, and I need to ask them what the dangers are. And it was the extensive research that then led me on to meeting up with logistics managers and fixers on the ground in Mongolia, who then introduced me to the Royal Geographic Society here in the UK, who then put me in touch with like some exploring club of the US.

40:17Ash Dykes:And they were all excited about this idea. And then we all started actively searching for those people who had done it before. We did extensive research and we could only find one guy who claims to be the first ever to attempt. Like that's important because the Mongolian nomads, they've crossed Mongolia for thousands of years, you know, constant. They still cross it now. They're nomads. It was the solo and unsupported angle here so in order to pull in order to cross the country and make the water wells sometimes the wells are like two weeks apart so you can't take that by rucksack you'd need to pull a trailer back in the day you wouldn't have a good trailer to be able to last those distances you would take a yak or a horse or a family community you know you the safety of the desert you want to move as a team or a family unit yeah and we found this guy ripley who had attempted three times.

41:05Is this the Navy SEAL guy?

41:07Ash Dykes:Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so he was a Navy soldier. He'd attempted three times. He looked like Jason Statham. You know, he had single-handedly crossed the Sahara Desert and I mean like not the roads in the Sahara, like across the entirety of it. And I was like, right, okay. It was only when I realised he'd attempted it three times and failed all three times that that put me off, you know. I got the world map. I was like, Italy looks nice. start looking at these safer, more populated countries. Because that did terrify, that scared me. I was just like, yeah, this is getting silly now. Did he say that he thought you could do it?

41:43Ash Dykes:Well, I wrote to him, I sent like a very amateur email off to him, pretty much asking about the dangers and, you know, decent guy, he did actually respond. And he said, you know, you need to look out for the drunken nomadic drifters, the steep ravines, the grey wolves, the snow blizzards, the sandstorms, the dry wells, the stagnant water, and the list went on and on. And that was the second time I was put off that journey. Just as I built up that motivation, he gets back. And then he said, which taunted me, it was this quote on the bottom of his email saying, incredible is the ability to continue no matter what.

42:18Ash Dykes:I was like, what does he mean? I remember training, fighting in Muay Thai and that quote was constant. Is he telling me to suck eggs? Is he saying it's impossible? What does it mean? Is that part of motivation? I had no idea. But it was only at that point I realized, you know, just because no one's found a way to do it, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done. With the right planning and the training, you know, up to this point, I had faced starvation. I had faced sleep deprivation, dehydration. So my body had experienced stuff, but I was still a bit wet behind the ears. And a lot of it was based on naivety and overconfidence.

42:54Ash Dykes:You know, I'd never been to a desert before and I was living on an island in Thailand, you know. so I was just like how can I do this can we break down the numbers again so how long did it take you to do this so it took 78 days 78 days and on average how far are you trekking each day I would say a bad day I was doing maybe 10 miles right and that was mainly in the Alti mountains what's a good day on a good day I was doing like one and a half marathons with this trailer on sand that's a good day that sounds like that's a great day yeah so you've got the trailer you've got the you got your water on there got the water got everything that i need like six weeks worth of ration packs worth of food did you ever so you didn't run out of water then yeah i did yeah right i ran out yeah when do you run out how far in so what we had to map so we down we legally downloaded russian maps russian military maps and they actually had confirmed and unconfirmed water sources across mongolia mapped and so the confirmed water sources is fine you know that there's water there but there might be like two weeks from the confirmed water source to the unconfirmed water source now if there's another two weeks from the unconfirmed to the confirmed you're talking about a month without water so you always try to plan not for the unconfirmed but for the confirmed if that makes yeah yeah that makes sense the guarantee yeah exactly and so you'd never rely on the water sources that might not have water but when you're in 40 plus degrees celsius and there's no breeze or shelter or natural shade and the trailers now sinking in the soft sand because it's wheels and it feels like 500 kilograms now at this point you tend to drink a lot more water than you want to drink for sure yeah you know yeah um and there was a stint in the goby i feel i already did dehydrate myself in the altai mountains because it was minus 15 i would say i was out sleeping in a tent i wasn't i didn't feel the need to take much water because it was cold um in which i was still becoming more dehydrated but by the time i hit the gobi desert i think it all hit at once and probably two two and a half weeks into the gobi desert that's when you know everything just hit and i started to become a little bit more dilly nothing too serious right now but i was delirious and i was very fixated on this next water source because I'd gone further down south in the Gobi Desert.

45:18Ash Dykes:And effectively, by the time I got to the water source, it was a dry water source. And I had three litres maybe, two to three litres of water. To last you how long? To last four days to the next confirmed water source. But at this point, it had already hit me for a good week and a half prior. But at this point, that's when things started to turn really nasty. my body started to face all sorts from what we're talking we're talking at that point i was hallucinating i was and it wasn't hallucinating in a way of people kind of think oh well you're seeing mirages i wasn't necessarily seeing anything specifically it was just that the world around me was moving you know it was just that there were twists and there was turns and there were things that i thought i was seeing and i wasn't and i couldn't identify which was scary because i had a map and a compass because my gps failed me on like week one so it was a map it was compass and i was now following this little track which was kind of like a lifeline to the next confirmed water source right whilst my head was spinning and it got to a point where i could feel my organs drying up because i was taking dribbles of water from the last remaining bit of water that i had which was now hot water and each time i had to you know physically pull it away from my mouth because of course I just wanted to down the water, but I had to ration it.

46:41Ash Dykes:Can you be that disciplined to pull that away when you want it the most? I think at that point I didn't admit to myself, but I think internally I knew that, you know, if I don't stay disciplined, I could die out in the Gobi. I had missed the point of pickup at this stage too. So the only pickup that I could have was via my agent in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. and I would need to allow at least four to five days for him to get to me and then maybe another day or two for him to get me out of that scenario. And I just did not believe I could survive six days. How did that feel the moment when you got to this water source and you realised it was dry?

47:23Ash Dykes:Shit scared. Very scary. At that point, I kind of was thinking about Ripley, the gas the the last guy that had attempted it um i'm thinking how great it would have been now to have some sort of get out clause you know helicopter coming in now yeah yeah um and really you know because i've had a good upbringing my parents are very close i'm very close with my siblings there's no dark story or dark past a lot of people who do crazy things like this have like some sort of dog yeah so i don't have that so it felt at that point unnecessary to be doing this and i felt that i had let down my family my friends but i wasn't telling myself just yet yeah that that this might be it it was when i was hiding under my trailer that it really hit i would hide under my trailer and an hour would go by and i was even i was too scared to get up my legs were were melting because they couldn't i couldn't fit my whole body under the trailer it was just my upper half what are you hiding from the sun from the sun yeah there was just no there was nothing no shade nothing and i had to just get away from that sun it was just so i couldn't even look up towards it you know does it look like desert am i meant to be picturing black pure desert yeah so it's just yellow around you yeah it's sort of desert and it's a mix between soft sand and gravel so sometimes you're on the gravel which was always still very difficult but having to pull the trailer through compared to the soft sand yeah it was the soft sand that would really halt you um i remember covering one to 200 meters and that was it that's all as i could manage and then i would have to hide i would keep seeking shade i'd just be like quivering underneath my trailer would you be desperate for nightfall then it wouldn't necessarily matter because i knew that i couldn't walk at nightfall either because the track that i told you about if i lose that track if i'm heading in one direction to the water source via the track and at night time I tried to follow it and often the paths would, you'd see five different tracks and they could be goat tracks, camel tracks.

49:26Ash Dykes:If you take the wrong one, you could now be 10 days away from a water source. So it had to be daytime. The night would be a lot cooler but it wouldn't necessarily bring me any satisfaction because it's water that I needed, you know. How would you know what the right track was in the daytime? Was it these maps? It was the map and the compass, yeah. So you'd be looking for any kinds of feature points in the distance and you'd be making sure that the bearings are bang on as well. And so you would map the track with the map and the compass. And you could see the tracks in the distance. Some you could see veer off in a different direction.

50:01Ash Dykes:It looks like it's going straight, but some would do it. I remember following one track and it just stopped or it did a U-turn back onto itself. I'm like, fuck. So sometimes you would have to venture off track, just follow the map and compass. When you're there and you're going through those real deep moments of sort of like torment when you get to the um the water source it's dry or you can only do 100 yards when you're deep in thought and you're trying you're you're you're lowest what where does your brain go what are you when you think back to home what's that one thing that you're missing it's it's a great question actually it's the boring stuff it's what i found on all of these expeditions but speaking of the goby it was the typical stuff that in the moment it's just like Like it's you and your family under the same roof, having a cup of tea, not necessarily talking or doing anything interesting.

50:57Ash Dykes:But that stood out for me because I was dry. I had water. I had a belly full of food. You know, your loved ones are there. So there's that sense of comfort and that there's no more, there's no vulnerability. So it was actually the typical boring stuff that when you're back at home, you're frustrated with because there's nothing to do. that actually stood out when I was underneath that trailer in the desert. And I went through, go on. So this just proves that we need to be grateful for what we have. 100%, yeah. It is that. And each time I've faced vulnerability, it has gone back to the most mundane stuff.

51:34Ash Dykes:And it's that mundane stuff that makes you realise just how good you have actually got it. As if you are sheltered and you're warm and you're dry and you've got access to water, to food. I remember being under the trailer and looking up. It had been ages since I'd seen any planes because you're so remote. But I remember looking up and seeing a plane like 35 ,000 feet high, you know, just cruising and thinking, fuck, what I would give to be there, having someone bring a cup of water, food. You just sat that down doing nothing, being entertained by a screen. You're just watching a movie. and here I am no one knows on that plane that I'm just down here slowly slowly dying and I knew that if I didn't keep getting up and pushing on from underneath that trailer I was gonna die out here in the Gobi Desert.

52:23Did you did you come across any other dangers whilst you were out there like the nomads or anything like that?

52:27Ash Dykes:Yeah I was told by the nomads that there were wolves hunting up ahead and that I would be eaten alive by them and they were just sort of galloping off on on horseback. is this in the desert as well this was in the altai mountains right yeah yeah so we i would say that that in the gobi desert was the the most excruciating the time that and i went through different feelings as well i kind of speaking of mindset i went through feeling sorry for myself you know and thinking of loved ones and i'm nearly writing myself off and like why did i do this how could I fuck up so bad? What was the point? To then, I think that's when I accepted, you know, what was going on with me and that if I don't keep getting up, I'm going to die.

53:12Ash Dykes:I think when, when that hit me, I stopped, I stopped thinking about home and the comforts and my family. And I focused on that only option that I had, which was to, you know, get up, keep walking. And that's when I started to break down the goals. I've always been like a big believer in visualization, you know the law of attraction if you can see it you know all of that sort of stuff but yeah four days like trying to visualize that next water point was just too difficult but what i could visualize is 100 meters because i could i could see 100 meters you know so i was like if i can do 100 meters and then hide under my trailer for five minutes and not 45 minutes or an hour right and do another 100 and then hide it's slow and painful progress but i will be making progress you know i will be getting closer you're chipping away at it chipping away and that's all as i was doing desert floor 100 meters and then resting 100 meters resting what was that moment like when you found the next water source insane insane oh the best like not in the moment it wasn't necessarily because at that point there was no energy there was just no i don't even think my body was sweating at that point that's because there was nothing to yeah it was severely into heat stroke past past the point where you can drink your own urine as well you know i was urinated dead blood cells.

54:27Ash Dykes:So my urine was like a dark brown color. Nasty stuff. Yeah. And I remember arriving and practically collapsing. Um, and there were locals. It was like a little, a little nomadic community based around this water source in the form of a well. And I, I said I would stay at that water source no matter how long it takes me until I fully recovered and feel good enough to to push on because in my mind i felt i had done the hardest i didn't have the red button to call for evacuation it was do or die and i've i've gone through that bit now so surely i've got the rest of this journey you know how long did you stay at the water source eight days did you eight days yeah i was just like i have to stay here for until i'm 100 and i left when i was about 95 right um but at that point i i knew i i was not i've never touch wood I've never been dehydrated since that was a harsh lesson and I was like okay lesson learnt and then I pushed on but with a lot of fear you know I was scared of the sun how quick it can it can take you how much further was there to go after this there was another I think there was another month.

55:38Ash Dykes:Fucking hell. Basically there then. Yeah, I think there was another month or so. Can you imagine the strength and the metal that it takes to be at that water source and have that moment where you go, right, I'm off again. Yeah, back to it. Because sometimes if I go around a mate's and it's like pissing down outside, I'll just sit. I'm that person who stays too long. Do you know what I mean? That's a bit wet. So to pluck up the courage to go, right, I'm going to go outside in the rain. but you've done it you've done it to the extreme yeah it was brutal it was brutal probably a weird question but are you almost glad you didn't have that button for the helicopter looking back now because do you think you would have pushed it it's a good question isn't it I don't know yeah but you're right yeah I will I will never know part of me says no you know I wouldn't push the red button but you almost like being here now even I almost forget the pain I was in you know That's why you go and do new ones, right?

56:35Ash Dykes:Yeah, I remind myself of that. Yeah. You forget about the negative side of it. Yeah. Yeah. So what was that like when you realised you were finally going to complete this mission? Immense. Huge. Like it took a while to kick in. And I remember the last week in the Mongolian step, the first week was pretty brutal of the step because there was fork lightning hitting the ground. And of course, I'm pulling a trailer made of metal behind me, you know, and I'm fucking out. The storms were big there. and there were ammo pit vipers as well which are like the vipers out in mongolia and it was longer grass so i was nervous i didn't want to obviously stand on the back end of one of them because i still don't have that evac button either right so but i do remember the last week the temperature got cooler it was kinder to me and yeah i could almost enjoy ish the last week of uh and so i was getting each day i was like six days left five days left three days left you know and it was exciting seeing humans as well i went over eight days without seeing a single did you yeah eight days and i was at a point where my logistics manager warned me previously because i said can imagine how silent it's going to be in some parts of the gobi desert it's going to be nothing and he said there's no such thing as silence i was like i mean there's no such thing of course there is he was like i'm not going to tell you you'll know if you get to the right spot and experience it and i did and i know what he means i was at such a point there was no sand dunes there was no shifting sands there was no insects no wind no noise pollution nothing yet i could hear this humming noise this slight humming never heard it since and i'd never heard it before and i thought maybe it's coming from the trailer so i left my trailer behind a couple of hundred meters thinking maybe it could be air or water or something and i could still hear it and i was like fuck that's what he means as long as you're alive and you're in the most silent place on earth there's no such thing as silence because you'll hear your body functioning is that what it was yeah your body just ticking over what like the blood in your veins yeah yeah so as long as you're alive there is no such thing as silence that's quite creepy isn't it yeah and i've never looked into it but but don't they have silence rooms as torture yeah yeah isn't that the thing they're faced with their own noise of their body ticking over it's like your own mortality yeah yeah wow were there people at the finish line waiting for you?

58:54Did you have anyone being like,

58:57Ash Dykes:here he is? No, there was the logistics manager and his driver and two little kids that took a liking to the flags on the trailer. Four people. Wow. So what do you do? I want to know the boring stuff. You get in the car, you go to a hotel, what happens? Yeah, and we have a little toast at that point. It was just me, the logistics manager and the driver in the hotel. I was like, cheers, toast. What's the first thing you drank? eat um well we were still in mongolia so the food wasn't great but it would have been something meaty yeah yeah and did it take because a lot of people who say they they go a long period without food they they get like the salt the salt is like a big thing is that yeah yeah i i experienced the protein i was really craving like peanut butter chickens my favorite cheese on toast yeah like these things actually genuinely really stood out and of course when i was dehydrated i was facing starvation as well because the ration packs that i took out with me yeah you need to hydrate them with with water right and i couldn't waste water on food so and then when you get back to the to the uk after something like this yeah what's the first thing you you do what do you what do you miss um i think i missed banter i think i missed being around friends family yeah you know and the conveniences i remember being obsessed with like the term snack because i faced starvation like often you know when you're just walking like i'm feeling a bit peckish yeah you know you want by and you're like i don't need it so you don't i'm like i'm never doing that again whenever i'm slightly hungry or want a snack i'm getting that pastry or whatever it is you know yeah so it's the conveniences right did your friends or family find your personality was different after that again these fucking great questions these are great because not a lot of people talk about that exactly and my mum and dad it was after it was after mission yangtze which we'll get on to it was after that year-long trip when i leave they get a bit upset not because obviously what could happen because they do of course but they're more thinking when he comes back based on what he sees and what he goes through his spirit's going to be a little bit darkened or dampened yeah you you know, maybe potentially PTSD, all of that.

1:01:13Ash Dykes:And they said, each time that I return, I've managed to protect that spirit or that energy or that inner child, whatever you want to call it. And I think each time that I come back, yeah, I am able to put away the dark shit that's happened. Not tuck it away so one day it's just going to burst out. You know, but I'm able to address it logically. But I found, yeah, it's never really affected me. and I've seen some, you know, some awful, awful things as well. And I've experienced some really, really harsh things, but each time I've come back, I kind of like malaria, perfect example. I knew going in that catching malaria is likely do my best to avoid it and take the anti-malaria, but I'm out there for, you know, five months.

1:02:01Ash Dykes:I might, I might get it. So when I, when those things that you hope don't happen do happen doesn't take you as shock or by or as surprise you know it takes you it gets you as in a way that you expected it so you know what can you do apart from crack on meeting you today though you you sort of exude like positivity and like like you're you have a lot of energy like you're you're you're a very nice person i can tell that straight away but so is how's that person how's those personality traits come from facing these adversities or did you always have it, which lends itself well to doing these tasks.

1:02:37Ash Dykes:Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's the latter. Right. Yeah. I think that I've always been quite bubbly, high energy. Yeah. Always very smiley as well, you know, and I think that has really helped because, and it's potentially a downfall as well, because I remember my, my agent speaking went just before I did my UK theatre tour, which was after the Mongolia trip. I remember him saying that, no, it wasn't, sorry, UK theatre tour, which was after Madagascar, because that's when I started putting stuff on social media. And he's like, the stuff that you put on social media is too upbeat. You're too happy.

1:03:07Ash Dykes:We're not going to sell tickets for the show. We need you to, we need you to, to play on it a little bit. And I've never played on it because what he didn't realize is it's that high positivity that's getting me through it. It's like, yes, I caught malaria. And when I'm doing this video talking about it, it's almost internal. I'm, I'm listening to, to the voice that I'm putting out there. And if I'm negative, I think that's going to affect me. I have to be positive to be able to push on. So I think it is this, the whole, and I've noticed it with teams as well. I found that if I'm doing team expeditions, it's not necessarily the most skilled person that is the most popular on the trip.

1:03:45Ash Dykes:It's the kindest and the one that is, that offers the last bit of water or offers the last bit of food. It's those that I would always choose to stand by my side, no matter what we're facing, you know, deserts or mountains, jungle. That's a great way to put it. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. But when did you become this guy that was traveling around going on these adventures to this known personality that we know as an adventurer? You talk about having an agent and stuff, but when you first go to Thailand, you were just a kid with a dream, right? So when did that crossover happen? Yeah, it happened after the Yangtze, I would say.

1:04:22Ash Dykes:So after Mongolia, and I can admit now because it's in the past, but I think I made in 12 months, I made about£3 ,000. pounds. So I had to, and that was the thing when I left, when I gave up my life in Thailand, I moved back to the UK and I had to move in with my parents and I couldn't afford no gym membership. So I had my uncle drop me off a tractor tire. So all of the training for that world first record was done in my parents' back garden. And then after Mongolia, I still couldn't move on. So I was living still with my parents thinking, fuck, you know, maybe I messed up here with this sort a career line uh so that's when i pursued madagascar after madagascar it was a fucking struggle again and that's two world first records you know what's how what am i doing wrong what am i meant you know are you getting media attention after doing these things yeah media attention yeah but it didn't necessarily bring any any opportunities yeah you know i was trying to get mongolia on tv didn't happen i tried to get a book off the ground you document you documented all this yourself yeah yeah just took like a camera out there with me yeah which meant yeah a lot of people like oh you say you're alone but how do you get these shots oftentimes it meant i'd have to run ahead set up the camera on the tripod run back for my trailer makes it even harder yeah so it's like 1 500 miles it's like 1500 what 1 600 miles an extra hundred miles just for camera yeah yeah and so mongolia madagascar was tricky but i would say it was the yangtze the yangtze reached 1.1 billion people worldwide um i got more traction with the media so i was pulled in on the the one show on the couch you know there was bbc world news i was then pulled on to the joe rogan podcast yeah and it was after that podcast that i was then managed temporarily by duane johnson's agent at wme in los angeles right and they were making good intros to like national geographic and big production teams out there.

1:06:16Ash Dykes:Yeah. And that's when COVID hit. So we were building, you know, everything was doing good. COVID hit and then I had to kind of like pick myself up again and go again. And it was after that that we then secured like a big multimillion dollar TV show following the Great War of China with like 21 ,000 kilometers. And that was the first big international TV show. So it took like eight years, I would say. Eight years of pure struggle. How did the Joe Rogan podcast come about? because you say that's before you sort of had the agent and that. Yeah. How did he get, how did you get onto his radar? I sent 14 emails from different accounts, from 14 different accounts.

1:06:54Ash Dykes:I knew if he hid the stories of like Mongolia, Madagascar, you know, held up at gunpoint, catching malaria, avoiding the bandits, stalked by wolves, losing 10 members due to evacuation. You know, if he knew all of these and hiding from bears, he's going to want me on the podcast i was like so i kept the middle like fleshed out with all the details i just cropped the start and the the end of each email asked like friends and family for their email addresses sent directly from them um and then his agent reached out saying ash i've run this by joe rogan he fucking loves it he wants you on the show can you make it two weeks today wow it's like done and then you just sort the flights and go over there yeah so yeah and it was when he was based in LA because he's in Texas now.

1:07:41Ash Dykes:So I rocked up to this big sort of man cave. Did you sign up on your own? It was me and my friend from Wales. Just the two of us. He was a huge fan as well. Rocked up, two big bouncers sort of answered the door and they're like, ah, they looked super intimidated, but they're like, ah, she just walked in and then Joe came out with Joey Diaz. Right. Okay. Yeah. And I didn't know who that was at the time. My friend was like, that was the world's most wasted handshake but i don't know like he's a big character only like a gangster and then yeah me and joe we were talking for nearly nearly three hours that was wow episode did it fly by flew by yeah yeah yeah so after that that's when um i'd say that i'd say it was him that put my name on the radar really right really sort of helped me yeah so many new opportunities i just wasn't getting before that really right and then right now geo picked up the tv show and aired it across uh asia africa middle east and then we were like okay we're on to something now well i've got bad news for you because you do joe rogan on the way up and you do happier on the way down let's talk about um so so we've touched on madagascar um you crossed the length of madagascar 155 days yes 1500 miles yeah uh summiting the eight highest peaks so i don't know how you can do all this i've never you've done the three peaks in the uk yeah well i don't want to brag about it i don't want you to kind of feel worse than me so was that in 2018 that was 2016 i finished that 26 so that's two years after you do mongolia yeah one year after i start i started in 2015 finished at 2016 so i think it came to like 11 months after mongolia i was already in madagascar fucking hell so it was like straight onto there how did that idea come onto your radar when you're back in Wales.

1:09:28Did you just watch the film? Yeah.

1:09:32Ash Dykes:It was actually in Mongolia. I remember I said like I went eight days without seeing like any people. I was like, and every time I did come across the people, they were just amazing. Always so hospitable. That was on the next adventure. I want to come across more people. And Madagascar again, just popped to mind because I think it features in a lot of people's mind because they're like the Madagascar movie, what they know about that. but not actually a lot of people go there so i was like what is in madagascar you know and so i know it's the fourth largest island in the world it's one of the most unique countries on the planet because 90 of all wildlife and plant life found on the island it's found nowhere else in the world oh really yeah so it's like incredibly unique yeah and other than that i i also knew that it does have desert it does have like tzingi which is like stone forest you have got the mountains you have got the savannah so i knew that it would offer like a real challenge as well um but i didn't know it was going to be more brutal than mongolia was it if you had to compare the two i think yeah do another one yeah do one of them again i'm putting a gun to your head you have to relive the experience which one are you picking are you doing mongolia or you doing madagascar um i'm doing mongolia again i think which means i take more water this time yeah madagascar was just too many days where it's just brutal i mean i was almost taken out by the military a drunken officer held at gunpoint with his ak-47 and his strap was slipping off his shoulder because he was drunk so he was catching the gun by the trigger with a barrel pointing up at me and my guide we're like avoiding the barrel you know looking for the safe are you wearing drunk at this point wearing are you aware that he's drunk at this point yeah yeah he because he's growling at me.

1:11:18Ash Dykes:Speaking no words, he's just like, like really aggressively looking at me with the gun pointing. He wanted, he wanted money. It's very, so Madagascar, I shouldn't be, I'm ambassador for the country, so it always like pains me to talk about it this way, but down South, it's fucking corrupt. Right. It's brutal. And I was warned against it by all of the locals in the capital and Tananarivo, do not go down South. It's corrupt. And the bandits get into conflict with the military. The military drink a lot. The bandits, they don't drink. They're very switched on, very focused. So they overpower the military.

1:11:51Ash Dykes:So they've got better artillery now than the military have. And so we're hiding in the bush because we get wind from a local sheriff. It's like proper old school sort of West Indy cowboy shit, right? We get wind from the sheriff in town that the bandits and the military are nearby. So me and my guide, we scramble into the forest, like stay hidden. But then we realise that the bandits are utilising the forest to hide from the military. So we're like, choose your poison. do you want to face the bandits or the military? And in my mind, it was safer to face the military if we are going to face anyone.

1:12:23Ash Dykes:And so we exited the forest and yeah, that's when we came across a drunken military officer. And he had a problem with you being there? Had an issue with just seeing a white person down there because the French used to rule over 60 years ago. And they used to be quite brutal in the outbacks, in the bush especially. and so they just don't like foreigners in some areas of Madagascar. How did you get out of that situation? Fall has never looked or tasted this good. Sweet Greens Fall Harvest Menu is back with seasonal favourites dressed to impress and made to be devoured. Warm roasted sweet potatoes, crisp apples, maple glazed Brussels and crave worthy flavours in the autumn harvest bowl, maple glazed salmon plate and roasted bacon Brussels side.

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1:14:16Ash Dykes:Well, he had us there for probably about 10 minutes, and then a crowd started to form. Most of the crowd felt bad for us, but there were two members trying to break through the crowd to fist fight me, you know, because again, they thought I was French, so they were drunk, people were holding them back. An intense 10, 15 minutes, and then two sober officers walked down. they asked for money and then they like tried to control the aggressive drunken one um took his gun away and slapped him over the head do you remember how much money they asked for it wasn't a lot it was probably about like a 10 or 15 pounds something like that probably a lot to them in that yeah yeah down south yeah but like down south you see all that you see villages that have been set on fire you've seen um bush taxis which kind of like yeah just roman um mini vans if you like that had been shot up you know people die every day down down south and so it was reckless of me going there really but it the world first was to start from the most southern tip go to the most northern tip via the interior and i tell you what it was it was insane it was beautiful but some of the experiences like where i caught malaria to give you a little bit more context on that i was at a community that was suffering with the bubonic plague such an ancient disease and i actually caught malaria because i stayed in the tent because they said we've got the plague you can stay here but stay in your tents we'll bring the food to you because there was the dogs and there were the rats and we we needed water we needed food yeah so we relied on them to bring food to the tent and they brought rice and eel and the eel smelt a bit funky bit dodgy but you know we were starving yeah we wolfed it down pretty tough stomach i was kind of like yeah it'll be fine but for the next three four days we were both suffering from food poisoning right so the anti-malaria pills i was taking they only cover you about 80 anyway but they were now going in one way out the other or out the same way oh and so i probably had about 30 40 protecting me i caught malaria but that's probably the reason i survived five days when it usually kills you within a day.

1:16:25Ash Dykes:It's because there was still that dose. Cause I was still, I was still taking them, of course, but the eel, the food poisoning just wasn't helping. Was it from a mosquito bite still? Yeah. From a mosquito bite. Yeah. And then eventually it just got to me. So there was that, we came across communities that had never seen a white person before, like in this day and age, in the 21st century, I was warned about it by my logistics manager and the logistics manager there, he's led like David Attenborough shows, discovery shows, you know, he's the guy to go to if you do anything on the island. And he did give me a heads up that where I'm going, you know, I will come across the bubonic plague.

1:17:00Ash Dykes:I will come across villages that will flee at the sight of you. But it's one thing hearing that and another thing experiencing it. And we did, yeah, the community right in the distance, you know, we climb a tree, we can see it. Oh, you know, we can get food, water, we can ask them for directions. We climbed back down the tree. We head over. They had obviously clocked us before we'd clocked them and they had abandoned the whole whole village they're hiding in the bush just terrified of you terrified were you ever seen as a positive um not really they just weren't interested it was like yeah they they were fearing for their lives there were people that we came across that were walking down a similar track as we were walking up they would see us drop everything in their hands and they would just run down a pretty steep cliff Even if you're trying to visually show.

1:17:49Yeah, we're like, look, yeah.

1:17:50Ash Dykes:And we've got the guide with me who's shouting in Malagasy. So they know he's Malagasy. You've even got that. Yeah. That's quite sad. Yeah, it is. That must come from like previous experience. Yeah. Or even stories. Yeah. And there was one guy that didn't run. But you could tell he was pretty nerve wracking at the sight of us, you know, because when the French ruled, apparently they used to rule with one French guy and a guy from mainland Africa. so although they're seeing now one westerner and one malagasy that he could be he could be from mainland africa and a lot of these communities don't realize that things have moved on they prefer to stay disconnected they don't even like uh mixing and mingling with villages further down from them you know and there was this one guy who stayed and we we asked him you know why they're running and he did explain and it was translated back um that the younger generation have been told that the white man is here to take your organs and sell them.

1:18:45Ash Dykes:Oh, wow. You're almost like an urban legend. Exactly, yeah. And if you touch the white man, you burst into a ball of smoke. So there's all of these, and now these are grown adults and like grandparents, so they still believe that. Well, you are quite literally an urban legend, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. And you'll probably be the first white person they've ever seen. Yeah. It's like you're a ghost to them, aren't you? That's what you are. You're an alien. Yeah, exactly, yeah. If you suddenly saw Slender Man, you're running, aren't you? Yeah. And just the fear on that. I personally never liked it.

1:19:15Ash Dykes:And I know that there's some backlash or often saying, why were you in those remote places? Genuinely, although I received warning, did not expect it to be that. They're kind of risking their lives to get away from you. And we would take it and we would avoid. Once we knew, we would just look like, let's push on. Because of course it could turn, right? And they could attack us. For sure. and there's like a whole community against two yeah so and if they're willing to drop everything and run them even though your guide's telling them otherwise you might get someone who's willing to just attack attack attack exactly yeah yeah you mentioned um madagascar having like 90 of the animals that never leave or just stay remotely there yeah what was some of the i'm going to go into the most dangerous wildlife you've ever encountered across all of your trip but in that madagascar trip what was some of the weirdest sort of and most unusual wildlife i think i think it was the different species of lemur that we were coming across.

1:20:09Ash Dykes:I think there's over 80 different species of lemur. That's too many lemurs. You do need that many. And they were just amazing because they would like hide up in the jungle canopy and they would also be bothered by the mosquitoes. So they would be using the smoke from your fire and that's why they'd be above. Because the smoke clears up. So they'd be happy that you're there. Yeah, they would be chilling right above us making all sorts of noise. Sometimes scary noises as well. I don't know if you've heard the noise of it. I think it's a safakalima. It's like this just lady screaming in the jungle.

1:20:40I've heard him go, I like to move.

1:20:43Ash Dykes:Didn't hear that, unfortunately. I was listening to that. But it sounds like a woman screaming, does it? Yeah, it just sounds like a high pitch, like someone being murdered. You're like, fucking hell. Yeah, some scary noises. Wow. So let's go on to the dangerous animals and stuff. It says on my sheet here, crocodile infested rivers. Yes. Would you see them or are you just aware there's some in there? You would see them and you'd be aware that they're there and you would hear the stories. Very mixed with the locals as well. You know, a lot of the time they're kind of like, oh, we've done a deal with the Crocs.

1:21:18Ash Dykes:You know, we can cross this part of the river as long as we leave the Crocs alone. You've done a deal with the Crocs. Right. What does that, what do you mean? Yeah, you can go here because we've got an agreement with the Crocs. So how are you crossing? like on a well I wouldn't cross with them saying that I would be like let me see that contract I'd be like when does the last person die here and they were like six years ago I'm like well there's a death from that croc that was pre-deal that was pre-deal he breached the contract and so we would we would always try to cross with local knowledge but if the local knowledge was that we would cross where there's white water or rapids because crocs don't really have their territory where there's fast flowing water failing that if there's none of those we'd cross by building a raft using natural resources which would take three to four hours mainly bamboo and bamboo leaves and we would tie it together you know they looked awful we'd be halfway across hoping that we've tied it in because if that all comes apart and you're in the water you just you just don't know what lies beneath you know your life is an actual movie isn't it it's pretty it's been insane yeah lucky lucky to be alive really because i i what i hadn't come across you or your story until obviously your agent reached out yeah so why where can people find more of this stuff where can people follow your journey i mean it's all it's all online i'd say instagram is where i'm most active yeah um and the youtube i've i've literally just dropped the surinam series so the amazon the latest one that we completed last year yeah i've put that out there youtube's a hard one because that's not done so well but it's like really well edited yeah and the clips are all out there little 10 minute clips this is the thing YouTube's so weird now.

1:22:57We found that as well. Yeah, really. It's so strange. I genuinely believe it's because all of the kids are on TikTok. That's what it is. Very few people are loading up. It's mad, isn't it? I love that we're in the age now where you're saying all of the kids. You have these legacy creators or these Mr. Beasts people know to go to and stuff, but you could be creating the best content out there. And I'm a believer that cream always rises to the top, but it just seems like now it's just, if you snip those same bits up that you've got on YouTube and put them on TikTok, you're going to get millions.

1:23:30Ash Dykes:Yeah, got you. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So weird. It is weird, yeah. Back to the animals. Tell us about the, you told us about the crocodiles, you've got the piranhas. Yeah. What other deadly animals are we knocking about with, Ash? Oh, we've got the scorpions. We've got the wolves of Mission Yangtze. That was the big one. We've got the bears as well. Have you seen bears up close? Yeah, the bears were, the bears are probably what I fear the most on all of the travels that I've done. The most dangerous animals here, are they? Yeah, and I just think there's nothing you can do, is there?

1:24:04Ash Dykes:If a bear gets you, it'd just be like fighting your dad as a kid, would you? You'd just be like so useless. I'd have locals gift me a knife and I'm like, look at it, like, what's this going to do to a bear? Well, you say that, what colour was the bear? It was a brown bear. Right. You can't remember it, can you? Yeah. You know it. do you know it yeah i know you fucking know it yeah if it's brown lie down if it's black fight back if it's white good night yeah that's it so brown did you have you ever had to lie down because of a brown bear i haven't right no no just ran away and i think it's different because they're actually called tibetan blue bears and there's no blue in that rhyme yeah we need to throw another another rhyme there somewhere um but they are brown bears but i think they're they probably go by the same wall as black bears.

1:24:52Ash Dykes:They're not attacking you to keep you up there. They're attacking because they're hungry out on the Tibetan plateau. They want food. And we were delayed starting the Yangtze trip. So this was a 4 ,000 mile journey down the Yangtze river across China. And it took 352 days to complete. And so the source of the Yangtze starts at over 5 ,100 meters, which is about the same altitude as Mount Everest base camp. But you're up there with wolves and bears, you know, trying to escape. in altitude where you're out of breath already. And with the bears, what happened was because we were delayed, we were now put into bear hunting season, which is where the mountains are too cold.

1:25:32Ash Dykes:So they're coming off the mountains to actively look for calories and food before they go into torpor, which is their version of hibernation. And I kind of went with my, you know, healthy, healthy Western mentality of, oh, you know, you leave the bears alone The locals are like, you're fucking wrong, mate. That's not the case. Here's a knife, you know, and what else do you have? And I was like, I've got a whistle and they're just like shaking their head. Because I thought if you've got a whistle or air horn and you make the bears aware that you're coming, they won't want any drama with you. They'll leave.

1:26:05Ash Dykes:It's only ever if you like come around the corner of a tree or top of a mountain and you surprise the bear on accident and it attacks you through defense. But they were like, no, no, they'll follow you. they'll see you though and I'm like really? Because you're just walking food are you? Yeah and then they start sharing stories and pictures and videos quite graphic ones yeah and this one guy said that so they have Tibetan mastiffs which are like these big fucking dogs they're like mini bears and they've got these Tibetan mastiffs to protect the livestock and to scare off wolves snow leopards, bears and he said his personal story is he's in a concrete hut so not in a white felt tent like the normal nomads and a bear walked right past his chained up Tibetan mastiff into his courtyard.

1:26:50Ash Dykes:And like for over an hour, it was scratching at his steel door, trying to get in to get to him. And I'm like, I'm in a tent with no Tibetan mastiff. And like these are the sort of lengths that the bears will go to. They were showing me CCTV footage of bears going into villages, killing families. And I just wasn't aware. So I was, I was made aware of this like one, one month into being six months in, in these mountains, you know? So I was shit scared at that point. They was like, pick up your pace. There's with this one video that is also on, I think it was on my Instagram or YouTube where a bear actively runs after a guy.

1:27:28Ash Dykes:He jumps up onto his truck and it runs up onto the truck and like literally almost grabs him. The guy is so agile that he manages to do his acrobatic shit, jump off the truck while some locals are throwing like spades and stuff at the bear and the bear just went back into the wild where did you get this video that was sent to me by a friend i only met two days prior saying that this was taking only a few kilometers away from you pick up your pace and get off the get off the mountains did you have any close calls with animals other than like the stories and stuff do you did you actually come in across any situations where you're like yeah so with the bears we, on two occasions, we woke up to fresh bear footprints.

1:28:07Ash Dykes:And actually it was the morning after I was told about the guy, you know, in the courtyard where he was hiding. The guy that told us that story the next day, setting off down this little track that we were wandering down were fresh bear footprints, maybe three, four o 'clock in the morning. It had passed by. So we were like, and it was heading in our direction too. Like it's ahead somewhere. But I would, I would say with that particular journey, the wolves were, the bears were the bigger threat because the wolves are not really too worried about wolves because it's very rare that they'll attack you.

1:28:38Ash Dykes:However, we were walking down, when I say we, at this point, it was me and a videographer. We were walking down this valley high up in the Tibetan plateau still, and we come across Tibetans and they're advising us of something, but we don't know what they're saying. But But Kyle films it anyway. He films the whole interaction. And they're clearly stressed. You know, you can see that they're a little bit anxious. But we're like, oh, you know, thank you. Bye bye. And we carry on walking. For the next two days, we were actively followed by a pack of wolves. We estimate about five or six wolves. And they're always in close proximity to us, like on the next hill or on the other side of the hill.

1:29:14Ash Dykes:Whereas normally they cover much further distance than humans. We thought nothing of it. You know, it was creepy, but it was also, you know, pretty awe-inspiring as well at nighttime, just hearing them howl. But we're like, they're on our tail, it feels. Fast forward six months, the footage filmed makes it to Mandarin Films, my production team in Beijing. And there's a girl who can speak, obviously, Mandarin and Tibetan. She calls me up and translates back, which was actually in the Nat Geo TV show. They're saying, do not go down that valley because only yesterday a pack of wolves killed a local.

1:29:45Ash Dykes:We had no idea. We were like, oh, thank you. You know, bye-bye. And you went down anyway. And we carried on walking oblivious to what they were trying to communicate to us. Do you fear death? Yeah. You do? I do. So why do you put yourself in situations where it might happen? Because I feel like I have what it takes to be clever enough to try to overcome it. So with the wolves, we know that they don't like fire. So when there's a threat, there's always a remedy, you know, to try to keep that threat at bay. with the wolves. It was the little stuff. Don't eat near the tent. Eat away from where you're going to sleep.

1:30:23Ash Dykes:Set up a fire because they won't come close. You know, and with the wild yak, which were brutal, the wild yak, a yak that roam, they're huge. They're like balls bigger. But they'll often attack anything and everything during mating season. And we were there during mating season and they're just aggressive. They roam in the wild. And occasionally they try to come close to attackers. but we had the Chinese firecrackers, you know, so we would set off the Chinese firecrackers and that they would be terrified. They would run, you know, so every, every challenge I always, because a lot of people see these expeditions and they're like, that's just so reckless.

1:31:00Ash Dykes:But if I was 90 % sure that I could overcome them, I wouldn't do it. I love life. I love living. Genuinely, I have a happy time being alive, you know, and I've got a fiance, I've got good friends. I've got, I always want to come back home for sure. If there's any, so, and I know it's difficult to say because with an adventure you just never know but if there's anything that i'm not sure of if i'm not 100 just delay it be at home another six months make sure i'm 100 kind of like with the gobi desert you know wait till i'm 100 and then i'll get it even if it takes eight days yeah yeah and then i'll get it done oh sorry i was gonna say what does your fiancee think of these that's exactly what i was gonna say how long have you been with your fiance five years five years So you're doing all this shit.

1:31:44That's not a new thing. No. So she's at home and you're just pissing off for a year. Yeah. Yeah.

1:31:52Ash Dykes:No, I think the longest has been four and a half months. Oh, OK. I got together with her after Mission Yangtze, after the Yangtze trip. Right. So that was 2020. How did you meet her? I hope it's a really boring way. I hope you don't say like in the jungle she was off a tree. She was off a tree. Bumble. there you go you got your answer bumble in lockdown your profile must have been incredible she thought i was a fan of nat geo not that i own not that i have my own show she just thought you like that what is your bumble picture because you must have so many amazing ones what one did you i think it was definitely a normal one i think i left all of the crazy adventure stuff because i think that i can probably be off-boarding as well right right so is she supportive of these missions or does she get scared when you go away she does get scared Yeah, but she's part of the team.

1:32:44Ash Dykes:She's a best friend who loves what I do, supports it in any way she can. She also sees that I get really excited about the trips as well. So I think for her, she would never want to be the one to try to stop it because she knows it makes me feel alive. But I think also along the process, she's seen the training. She's seen that with Mongolia, it was just so reckless. Do or die, that's stupid. You have to have certain things put in place logistics it's meticulous planet it's attention to the detail it's making sure that you've got the right insurance the heli evacuation now it's totally different of course still reckless because you know they kind of are getting bigger but i feel the backups much better the budget's there the finances is is there you know so it's not like vietnam where you get non-waterproof tent and try your luck yeah so she sees that and i think she she feels good about me going out on these because she knows i've prepared for them what do you do do you ever have a boring day at home yeah i'm the i'm the worst when i get bored yeah have you seen like sherlock holmes where he starts i don't have a gun but when he gets his gun and he starts shooting the walls yeah because he's so bored i'm kind of like i kind of you know when i'm back home i i've got licenses and like land air and sea yeah the past six seven years i've been focusing on that so you know now i do skydiving, paramotoring, paragliding with a scuba diving.

1:34:11Do you ever just sofa deliveroo? Yeah, I do actually.

1:34:14Ash Dykes:Yeah, yeah. And especially after the Amazon, I became a bit of a fat fucker after the Amazon actually. I came back and I was eating anything you can think of. One of my favourites was Mars balls in a bowl with custard. Put them in the microwave. Have you ever tried that? No. Oh my God, it's the best. I feel like we need to try it. Melted Mars ball with hot custard. It's like, wow. I can't tell if I like the sound of that. Should we try it on the Christmas fard? Yeah? Let's try it on the Christmas fard. Okay. Oh, you got to, yeah. So how long have you been in the UK for, just chilling out?

1:34:51Ash Dykes:A few months. Right, right. But even when I'm back in the UK, it's not really chilling. But didn't you say to me when I met Dan says you'd just got off a flight, like two days ago? Yeah, four days ago, yeah. Oh, that's what I meant, yeah. How long have you been here? Oh, four days. so where have you just come back from china i just so i've just finished have a day up traveling three and a half thousand miles the entire length of the yellow river which is slightly smaller and slightly further north of the yangtze river uh by land air and sea so i was like paragliding kayaking cycling rock climbing um all land air and water-based activities and where's this going to go where where can people so this will be so this is filmed for international tv right this will probably be in every every country we hope it will be three episodes one hour per episode and you know we are hoping touch wood that we finally secure the uk so i've had put you in the picture i've had all of my shows air practically in nearly every country in the world but not one has ever aired in my own home why is that no idea no idea have they ever given a reason like is it i think there's been certain issues i think one of them is they don't want to take risk on new faces so they stick to you know the older older name joanna lumley the bear grills they'll milk them dry you know um but you're so different to them though yeah for sure yeah exactly it's really frustrating because it's almost like saying there's only one place for a boxer you You know, it's only ever Anthony Joshua, you know, but it's not Tyson Fury in music.

1:36:32They're complete polar opposites and they do the same thing. Yeah, yeah.

1:36:35Ash Dykes:And so I've never really understood, but I really hope that this show or the Amazon is finally the one to crack UK. Because, you know, the following, they want to see these shows and they've not been able to see. We've had the Yangtze River. We've had the Great Wall of China. We've had the Amazon rainforest, the Suriname record. And now the Yellow River, that's four shows and the fourth is being produced. And the Amazon is dropped across mainland Europe next month. That airs primetime TV, 8pm and 9pm across Europe, but not Britain. Wow. Really, really frustrating. Yeah. I bet. Because like, as I said, I didn't know about your story until Simon got in contact.

1:37:19Yeah. I think you're gripping. I love listening to you. Oh, I appreciate that, man. Like we, there's a joke on the podcast that we don't do our research. Of course we do. So it's literally all our lives that are doing that. But with you, when Simon was kind enough to send over your bullet points, I saw that you was on Joe Rogan and stuff. I didn't want to listen because I wanted to hear it. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't believe how good, I'm not trying to patronise either because obviously this is what you do, but you're such a great storyteller. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, it means a lot.

1:37:46I'm going to go away from here and watch everything that I can. Yeah, legend. What's good about it as well like the the uk not taking it it's weird because the content itself is obviously going to be incredible because we're going to see things we've probably never been able to see on tv before other than things like bear grills you're restricted these people yeah but you clearly have the personality for it as well it's not like they there's no way they're watching it and then going nah he's not for us yeah you could have someone who's got this endurance is able to do all this endurance stuff but doesn't have the personality that translates to the media yeah you clearly you

1:38:19Ash Dykes:clearly yeah no appreciate that lads yeah you know i hope we i hope we crack it it's a matter of time right it's that it's that perseverance and consistency i guess yeah i think maybe they'll see that it's growing in america or china and they'll be like right you know we want him back maybe maybe it will take me to crack a different country before the uk right but um hopefully not hopefully they're just like because we we try to make it really diverse as well and there's always really unique ties you know with these adventures i've not been just doing it for adventure sake There's been, you know, from the Malaria No More UK to raise an awareness about climate change and the effects that it has on the nomads in Mongolia to the Lima Network Conservation in Madagascar that has like 60 organizations on the ground doing everything they can to protect and preserve the unique biodiversity.

1:39:02Ash Dykes:It's like working with the WWF in China and UNESCO. So there's all like unique, unique ties and different angles. So it's never about one man and his journey. You know, we try to look at the bigger picture and we captured all of that. So we don't know what it is, but, you know, I hope it changes. I hope it really do. I'm sure it will, mate. I'm sure it will. Have you ever drank your own piss? I haven't. I have not. That's a great question. That's because it's just blood cells. He doesn't want to touch that. Yeah. But that's all matey goes on about. Bear Grylls, yeah. Bear Grylls, yeah. I think if you're drinking your own wee, you're not really dehydrated.

1:39:45Ash Dykes:Right. You know? Yeah. If you're drinking your own way, it's because you've drunk like a few bottles of water and you're able to drink it because there's no toxins. Whereas I think if you're really dehydrated, your urine's not good to drink. You know? Yeah. I just want to quickly ask, we've focused a lot on all the negatives from your trips. Obviously you've done it in a happy way as you do, but we've focused so much on the negatives. If you could relive one day from any of your trips, what day would it be? Oh God, that's such a hard one. there's been there's just been too many you know there's been so many i think sometimes it's been these local encounters where i felt where i've feared for my life or felt lonely or isolated or vulnerable and then you come across like a small community or sometimes just a hut in the middle of nowhere that's not on the map you're not expecting anything like this for like another week and they're warm and welcome and they invite you inside and you're just sat there in warmth with like a Kazakh, Mongolian chai.

1:40:53Ash Dykes:I think those little encounters and the sun is setting and you're surrounded by the Altai mountains, the trees are covered in snow, the sky, there's zero light pollution. I think those moments really, really pop, really stand. Or it could be in the middle of the Amazon witnessing, you know, a jaguar in the wild seeing a human being for the first and probably last time ever you know i think it's it's so many different things i would love to just pull from from each i remember this one time in mongolia as well so it was quite intimidating to begin with it's just in the middle of nowhere and this this guy on horseback just chasing me down or you know coming and you can see like almost this almost animation you know this dust of smoke and sand coming behind him and you're like okay now and he approaches took about 20 minutes you know the land is vast yeah and it was all just to give me some some hot chai to take away on my journey no word said yeah he looked like genghis khan or something you know big beard traditional fancy wear no smiles just on his horse chucks at me wishes me well gallops off and you just how do you know in that moment to trust it i think i've got a lot of trust in humans in general really humanity yeah so you seeing the world more than more than someone like stevie and i have has led you to have more of a positive opinion of humans rather than a negative one it has yeah for sure i think that's reassuring yeah the locals on all of these journeys they can always make or break a journey yeah down south of madagascar they almost broke it you know but nine times out of ten they it's those guys that have made the journey you know extra special and i know that there's a lot of people family friends that are so dangerous though anyone could just randomly shoot you or attack you there is that but there's so many more people out there who are kind who want to give like i was in mongolia and they would take me in give me everything and they wouldn't want anything in return no cash no gift mad they're just like on your way you know is that that is it uh is that because like westerners we always that's our our relationships are quite transactional aren't like what can we gain and what and what can like well more what can we gain than what can we give but yeah you see over over in countries like that they're not like that yeah yeah it is that and it's always very humbling as well because i'm only ever a visitor you know surviving this really hardcore stuff but i go home they live it they're out there every day whether it's in the amazon whether it's you know in in mongolia in the gobi desert and i think for them they see themselves as the ones that are doing it right right i think it's easy for me to go there and think oh god this is a difficult life for them i think they see it reverse they're like look at this freedom that we have there's no fences we're not told what to do we can get on horseback and ride for a thousand miles still be in our country say hi to the neighbors this is this is true richness of life yeah you know and it always leaves me like fuck yeah and then you come back here and i'm always like flabbergasted by the luxuries as you say i can just place an order and deliver yeah they knock on the door and there it is hot it's heated i don't need to catch piranha yeah you know or stingray or whatever it might be and yet we still find ways to complain yeah yeah we've got it so comfortable you know we don't doesn't we don't even need to look at the weather no it doesn't matter to us we'll always be inside where it's train car you know where we're working whereas these guys they're just um the nomads or in the in in the amazon they just feel whilst i wouldn't want to live that life they've kept hold of some stuff that we've lost they feel so so much more connected in a world that is forever becoming more disconnected so when i'm back there it's always really humbling and opens my eyes it almost was almost like reconnects me yeah as well so when I come back here.

1:44:47Ash Dykes:I love the luxuries. Do you ever moan now? Will you ever have a grumble about anything? If I do, I need to go back to the jungle. It's time to get back out into the wilderness. Because, yeah, I do. I'm also very impatient. Are you? Yeah, very impatient. You can't be pulling that trailer in the sand. Right, yeah. If I'm having to stand in a queue to get somewhere, I'd prefer to just leave and not do that thing wherever I'm doing. Really? Yeah, my fiancé notices it as well. If there's like an ice cream and we're queuing for an ice cream, I'm just like, come on. yeah is it silly it's because there's adventure waiting out there in it yeah i think it's also falls back on the just loving life and appreciating time time just goes by so quick doesn't it and it's not in a dark way but from the age of 16 when i was hashing out you know how do i want to live this life i always knew that it would go fast before we know it we're going to be at the end of our days and how do i want to look back you know so i've always been like yeah you know it's going to be hard face adversity and i think that's what we're missing younger generation as well we don't know adversity no yeah you know and it i think we're growing to become more soft i think it's fine to face challenges i think it's fine to face brutality and difficulty and make mistakes and learn from your mistakes you know initiation tests in school drop them in the jungle for two days they'll be safe there'll be evacuation there'll be food there'll be water but guaranteed they'll come back a lot wiser and a lot more appreciative of the little things that they have having faced that adversity and that difficulty for sure you mentioned their um life going quick which kind of leads me on to my last sort of two two questions really but um imagine this like you're an old man you you're on you're on your deathbed you look back on your life you look back on your adventures what who's one local that you think will spring to mind i i know you've met millions and they've all impacted you in different ways but i'm gonna ask for just one out on these adventures yeah

1:46:45Ash Dykes:um I think it's got to be the lady in Madagascar the doctor who saved my life from malaria yeah right yeah I think when she was like you got three hours left and I'm like well can I survive and she was like you can because you're here with me did she tell you you got three hours left did she yeah like three hours before slipping into a coma and then from there we need to get you out of this into into a hospital i know stevie you mentioned the last thing um coming back seeing your parents have has does the do these trips have any mental impacts do you have any physical long-lasting differences from these i mean luckily i don't and that's another good one i but i exercise a lot and i eat healthy you know and when i'm back here i kind of know the damage that i've put on my body so i give myself this like major detox and like i get the the health in i train um and i think everything that's happened to me with my organs i was young enough so that they've made a full recovery with madagascar it was the deadliest so i was able to eradicate it fully out of my system and in terms of um bones i don't feel anything right now with my with my joints and i've never broke any bones on the expeditions and so i guess only my future self will really know like any impacts but i think because i look after myself so well hopefully hopefully i'm okay yeah yeah well let's see there we go ash this is um it's been a pleasure honestly it's been great our podcast story is always open to you whenever you're back in the uk you want to come back in let's run it again but more so than a set apart too i'd love to see you on British telly so love that there's anything we can do to help um we'd love to push that out there and let's push people over to something right now what we're going for we're going for the YouTube we're going for the Instagram yeah either or Instagram more active yeah but the YouTube if someone wants to see like the Amazon show that's on the YouTube as well perfect there we go guys this has been Jack makes happy hour podcast with me Jack makes Stevie White and the brilliant Ash Dykes Ash we always finish on the same question and we like to spring on our guests what's the meaning of life the meaning of life is to be present the meaning meaning of life is through difficulty and hardship for the best things for the worst things is to be in it in the moment because they'll all just be a story a memory an experience that we once wish we were more present during the process how do you stay present in the moment yeah when you're seeing that jaguar there for the first time what how do you do you catch yourself thinking this is the moment yeah i almost see it in the moment and i almost see it from the outside as well i'm almost looking at it and and trying to catch before taking the cameras before thinking about you know what stories this is going to be i'm just just looking thinking just there's nothing other than me and that thing that's going on right now.

1:49:48Ash Dykes:Doesn't matter what happened or what's going to happen. Get my camera out, I'm going to share this. Just be present, be there with it now. There we go. Because it's going to like, boof, disappear. Perfect. Love it. Thank you so much, mate. Appreciate it. Cheers. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming in. Yeah. You loved hearing it. Really good. Such great questions as well. Thank you, mate.

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