Braving landslides with Greg Davies

Rhod Gilbert has spoken of how he and Greg Davies risk landslides and dangerous drivers as they negotiated some of the world’s most lethal mountain roads.

The pair drove a Nissan Patrol 4x4 through Nepal for an episode of BBC2’s World’s Most Dangerous Roads, which will air this Sunday.

The broadcaster admitted: ‘It is a journey that is fraught with danger. Besides having one of the world's highest rates of road traffic accidents, floods and landslides are an everyday occurrence, blocking traffic for days on end and claiming dozens of lives every month.’

In an interview with motoring website Autoblog today, Gilbert said abiding memory of the trip was ‘Greg and I running through a landslide, hoping that the entire mountainside didn't disappear 300m down into the river with us on it.’

But despite the terrifying moments, he said he shared plenty of laughs with Davies. ‘We are best mates, so we had a great time,’ he said. ‘Hopefully that relationship will come across on camera. We were laughing pretty much from start to finish, in between landslides.

‘But a lot of the laughs we were having in the car will no doubt be edited out as they weren't really appropriate for a BBC audience.’

He said other dangers included ‘motorbikes with 20 chickens hanging off the sides, pigs, wild dogs, oh and buses with 700 people on board – mostly driven by four-year-olds’ – as well as the food.

‘In the day we could not really eat anything other than packet snacks as the roadside fried stuff looked like it would have caused severe stomach problems,’ he said. ‘So all we had for 10 days was bottles of Coke, sweets, weird Indian chocolate versions of things like Dairy Milk and crisps.

‘I don't really eat any of those things so by the end my man tits were enormous. I looked like Greg by the end of it, while he looked like he'd eaten a really overweight hippo.’

Published: 6 Sep 2011