Synopsis: The long-awaited “Christmas” special arrives and the producers send the boys to Myanmar [Burma] in an attempt to loosely recreate the “Bridge Over The River Kwai” scenario.
Details: The sixth episode in Series 21 is the annual “Christmas” special which has become somewhat of an acknowledged joke by now since it almost always never happens on Christmas week, nor even in Christmas month or – in this case – within two months of Christmas month. Nevertheless, the producers have decided to send the boys to Myanmar [Burma] in an attempt to recreate the scenario shown in the classic film “Bridge Over the River Kwai” in which a collection of mostly British POW’s captured by the Japanese during World War II are tasked with helping the Japanese by building a bridge over the aforementioned river.
To begin this task, similar to the Bolivia Special, the boys are challenged to find local “lorries” [trucks] and the results are, well, less than satisfying in all three cases. Jeremy purchases a large what he deems as a “sports truck” that is either an Isuzu or a Mitsubishi, James purchase a small truck [Jeremy refers to it as a van] with a crane that creates all manner of problems and Richard buys a truck sporting a large overhead bin which he finds to be cumbersome in narrow Myanmar streets or any road with a tree next to it.
They begin the journey in the former capital of Rangoon by generally causing chaos with their large lorries – knocking over fruit bins, running into overhead wires and colliding with sidewalk café chairs. Once out of Rangoon, they embark on a long – 12 hour – journey northward toward their ultimate River Kwai destination [near the Thailand border] and then discover that they took the wrong road when departing from Rangoon. This means they will have to take a detour over a smaller mountain road to get back on track and that creates several problems. One of them is that Jeremy’s truck is too light and causing a rough ride that hurts his back, so at a stopover in a small village, he decides to use James’ crane to load bricks into the bed of his truck and follows that up with bags of “heroin” [rice] and a large tree trunk. This all seems to work marvelously until they encounter a steep road and the added weight causes Jeremy’s truck to falter. Unable to reverse to “get a run” at the hill, Jeremy dumps his load in the middle of the road – effectively blocking James and Richard – and takes off scampering down the road in his newly lightened lorry. James and Richard are not amused – and James makes matters worse by getting his “van” stuck while trying to ford a river after they have finally caught up with Jeremy.
The boys eventually get to their lodging destination and the producers allow them to modify their trucks and this means James adds an air conditioner, Jeremy makes his into a convertible and adds Shelby-style paint job and striping while Richard turns his bed into a small studio apartment with many amenities.
Before the boys are off the main road, there is a lack of service stations and they eventually run out of gas. The decision is made [by Jeremy] that they should ride horses to the next nearest village where they have diesel fuel and in doing so, Richard breaks his wrist after he gets tossed off his male horse when it tries to mate with James’ female horse. They eventually retrieve some fuel and camp for the night but James’ snoring is so loud that Jeremy uses his crane to hoist his tent in midair to alleviate the decibel level.
Part Two will have the boys crossing the border into Thailand to get to the actual River Kwai location.
The Poop and Skinny: Top thing to remember from this episode…
Myanmar is not a place to travel with large exhaust pipes – such as Hammond put on his truck – as there is a propensity for many overhead wire and sign collisions.
The coveted ASN Best Line of the Episode Award goes to Jeremy who wears a tie and dress shirt to be a proper lorry driver unlike Hammond with… – “Pornography in his seat and egg on his shirt.”
Courtesy of the BBC, here is Top Gear Series 21, Episode 6.