When you go in the forest and see a stag, a real wild animal, he has a certain pride, a certain feeling, you know?

And you see that same animal caged in a zoo: different animal!

That wild thing gives you this feeling he has never been tamed.

He is king: "Come and get me man!"

It's the same with fish you know - only I don't live underwater!

Being born as a Bhutanese, we should feel very proud of what we have in the country.

Untouched forest coverage, virgin rivers, and especially our environment as a whole.

Bhutan's parks and rivers are in danger.

Main source of income for Bhutan is hydropower.

And now we're losing most of our river stretches because they are now damming up for hydropower.

'Haathi' in Hindi is elephant.

This is one of the last huts in the line before our cottage.

No electricity, of course.

A lovely view of the river.

And this was our home, before our mud house, because I took a stance at some point and said until you make me a house, I'm not moving out of this cottage!

It's taken a long time to get this house and it's finally here - in its own little quirky no-roof way.

For me, I love it.

I see this as a dance studio.

What do you see, Misty?

Fly tying desk.

There you go.

Long years back, while Misty was training to be a river guide, I first met Misty then.

And he was as crazy then as he is today about fishing.

Aikta on the other hand, balances really well, because she's a great host at camp and she also relates very well to the local area, which is equally important when you come and live here.

One of my all-time favorite quotes: "If you're coming here to save me, you're wasting your time.

"If you're coming here because your liberation is tied to mine, "then let us work together."

We can't do it without them.

The Drangme Chhu (River) is a great river of the East and we'd have to have permission from the King to fish it.

We want to fish the un-fished rivers always.

Rivers are usually neglected, you know.

People look at the ecosystems around them, but the veins itself, that support these watersheds are often ignored, I think.

The first time I saw the Drangme River was in a documentary.

It's just a river that I always wanted to fish in, or be close to, not even to fish!

An ecosystem which is rich just all throughout, from beginning to end.

I don't know how you got permission to fish it, because if it was left to me you'd have to pay a hefty price!

Doing great.

Good.

Pause.

That's it.

Very nice.

That's perfect timing.

I'm drawn to the excitement and adventure of traveling abroad.

Not just to places that I find in brochures, but places that have never been brochured.

When my friend made me aware of the Drangme River, I thought: "Wow!

What if we were to show the world this place?"

Maybe there'll be more attention given to saving than to damming.

And maybe that balance, that middle ground will be reached.

Modern-day Bhutan's at a crossroads.

They value their wilderness.

They have to be realists though.

They have to take care of themselves.

And hydroelectric power is one way they can do it.

So which direction do they want to go?

I never thought in my life that one day I would take my clients traveling across my country and raft down this Drangme River.

Until last year I didn't know whether I know how to swim.

If I get - fallen into the water what should I do?

Yeah.

That was my question all the time, but I got thrown off from the raft into a big rapid and managed to come out of the water by myself.

I was doing dog-style swimming.

That is always a joke among friends in Bhutan: dog-style swimming managed me to pull out of the water, yeah?

Bhutanese kids, we are not advised to go to the river, because parents say you'll get carried away by river current.

So that's why we are not good swimmers.

Alright.

Love you.

Boo-yah!

Where did that come from?

Who is it at school saying that stuff?

Nessa, I think, is at an age where she's finally starting to grasp the idea of what I do.

When I was her age there was 4 billion people on the planet.

We're at 7-plus now.

I'm scared to death for her.

And I'm sad at what humanity as a whole is going to leave this next gen- eration and the generation after He must be very tired, yeah?

I lost my father when I was small and we all grown up by one mother, single mother.

So - Myself I didn't get best education.

I want to give my two kids best education and make them - Make their life happy.

Make their life happies.

He's already happy.

Happy.

He's got a lot of pokers in the fire, as I like to say, which makes life a little challenging sometimes.

He's got - Never one thing at a time.

Everyone's like: "Oh cool, your husband's a flyfishing guide."

It's kind of tough sometimes.

He's going to Bhutan to do a film, and it's just sometimes it's a little overwhelming, but for the most part I'm very supportive.

I'm a little sad to lose my husband for a month.

I think I can handle it.

With a little help from my friends.

I bet he calls once a week.

I bet.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

If you look really closely ... so where's India?

There you go.

So Bhutan is right up on the far end of India, on the east side.

Nope, more to the east.

Keep going over here.

You see Bhutan in there anywhere?

Yep, right there, that little tiny one.

I know, that little tiny place, right?

Okay, so that's where we're going.

Where do we live?

Actually that doesn't look as far away as I thought it would.

Ladies and gentlemen, remain seated with seatbelts fastened.

It's fun.

It's going to be fun!

Yes it is.

This is one of my longest trips, ever.

I can't stay back because this is, like, our job here, which makes my family happy when I come back.

I sometimes feel that she's not comfortable of my life.

Because I don't stay at home all the time, yeah?

I tell her not to worry about it, because I have come through from that background that my mom had that same experience, yeah?

Our father left us and my mom had to look after 7 children.

If I would do the same, I'd be following my dad, not my mother.

So I said: "OK, don't worry.

You are safe.

"Wherever I go I'll come back to you," you know?

So she's happy.

Gotta say your goodbyes.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

So Karma, what about the other deities or spirits that we have in the country, like mountain, river, water ... What are they?

Water, valley - So, while we are on the river, for safety reasons before we would go into the river we make wishes, prayers.

And we make offerings to all these deities.

And is there one for fishing?

One for fishing?

Not really.

Homemade butter: this is basically - churning the milk, you get butter, yeah?

And that's actually yak cheese, hardened yak cheese.

Nice to meet you.

Photo bomb!

I love it.

The kids all want to learn how to fish.

They want to know everything, anything.

Whatever will connect these children to their rivers, whatever will make them interested in their surroundings is really, really important.

Flyfishing can do that.

It can do it in a way that doesn't impose on the environment or local resources.

We only catch and release fish.

We don't keep fish.

Gorgeous fish ...

Tiny fish.

One of the exciting parts of being here is sharing flyfishing It's good to work with community and the people, the young kids, to show them how you can catch and release these fish back, and a live fish is worth much more than a dead fish.

It's totally a philosophy; the less we can handle them - and keep them in the water - the better.

Don't drag this thing up on the beach.

Step out into water that's deep enough to land it so that you can keep it submerged and not have to be on your knees to do it.

I was just amazed, even back in India, how quickly catch and release caught on.

It started from the old British style of fishing, you know, the hand in the gill plate, holding the fish up.

And now even the people who are 65, 70 years of age fishing for 35-40 years are practicing catch and release.

What's your feeling about the Bhutanese in general: Do you think that, were one to catch a fish on a flyrod and release it, that that would be acceptable?

I suppose so, you're not killing, you know?

So I suppose they would tolerate you much better than me, who would not release it.

I would eat it!

Much of Bhutan has entered the modern world.

There are satellite dishes, people with cell phones - Yeah.

Amazing, yeah.

and there is a great demand for electricity - Yeah, absolutely.

- which fuels a modern lifestyle.

If Bhutan was to build a dam on every single river in this country, they would maximize that revenue source, and the accessibility to electricity.

Do you think that's a good idea?

No.

I'll be very honest.

No.

We shouldn't be greedy.

We do need power and we do have a neighbor who's ready to buy it but, we can always talk about a more equitable deal.

If there's an environmental disaster tomorrow because of one of these projects who's going to pay?

Nobody knows.

And everybody's going to say: "Oh, we're not responsible."

They're all going to wash their hands of it.

To a lot of politicians our money and economic wellbeing is more important than nature.

But what we're trying to tell them is: "Please!

... "I know you find it difficult to believe, "but nature one day will probably be more important."

I'm of the firm belief that one day the biodiversity held in these beautiful natural forests in Bhutan will be worth more than all the hydropower projects.

There, I saw one.

I know I saw one.

They're like ghosts.

We must save some of our rivers for the future.

The Bhutanese people should speak out.

We must speak out.

So, we have this issue when you're driving around at the elevation of the cloud layer, it can hamper visibility.

So we're down to about 15 feet of visibility.

I notice our driver Hari is acc- elerating at every opportunity.

This is yak milk.

Yak butter.

We don't slaughter or kill here in Bhutan.

The Tibetan ethnic people, those people come over and kill, yeah?

Otherwise we as Bhutanese, no we don't want to kill them.

All the meat comes from India.

You never know this.

It comes across the border.

Across our mountains they all have solar panels.

The solar panels must be subsidized?

Yeah, no, it's free to those people here.

You know about Gross National Happiness?

G.N.H.

You have people who have option of driving in a city bus, or take a cab, or have electricity.

Or a nice hot shower?

No.

For these people here, GNH, if they would relate this to their life with our life, I don't think they would say: "It's GNH for us."

But now, having set up electricity for them, this little light, also helps make them smile more.

Big boy, that.

At the age of 15, very soon after an article in one of my magazines, India Today I dreamt of mahseer.

Standing in the water and having a connection with the water and catching beautiful golden fish.

I believe in the power of manifestation.

That dream has led me to these amazing ecosystems.

One's got big scales: probably a mahseer.

One's got small scales, it's probably a snowtrout.

They live together in the same river.

They coexist in the same habitat and do so successfully, in a healthy river system, like the Drangme River.

This is the Drangme River.

This is our first chance to see it with our own eyes.

This is pretty big water.

If you fell in the wrong place it could cost you everything.

But this river's going to get a lot bigger before we're done.

Yep.

It looks like an amazing river, incredible whitewater, even here It makes me a little nervous about the whitewater.

The rapids are going to be one of my favorite parts, Misty: especially with you white-knuckling in front.

What am I looking for?

You're looking for big pockets of oxygenated water, current on either side, lovely holding water in the middle.

Where fish - because it's so fast, they spend so much energy staying in the faster water.

I'm excited about it.

I am too.

Hope you guys get your first mahseer today.

Tell me about the mahseer.

When you catch the first mahseer your heart goes gong-gong-gong!

And after that, you can't fish anything else.

It's better than sex.

I thought I was reeling in a 15, 20 pound fish.

My rod bent in half, got it in - it was still a decent size fish.

But nothing compared to the fight I was getting.

Andre hooked and landed an abs- olutely beautiful golden mahseer First one of our trip.

Nice!

Good fish.

Arrgh.

That was a good fish.

It's a heavier version of Atlantic salmon fly, called a sunray shadow, just dressed on a slightly heavier tube.

We gonna get him.

... Or her.

Damn.

Every cast is one cast closer to your next fish.

And every day that you don't land one is a day closer, too.

Sometimes it takes many days.

But that's mahseer fishing.

That's why I love it.

If a species is considered endangered, should you be pursuing it at all?

It falls into that category of loving things to death.

You have to strike a balance between bringing attention to a fish, or anything for that matter, just enough to get people to really care about it and not completely overwhelm it.

It's really hard.

Tomorrow we're going down to the Drangme River in a lower section and we're going to float for about 8 days looking for mahseer There's a lot of life in this river, it's amazing.

This is our investment.

People love to put money into their banks, but this is our investment for us, traveling.

It's funny, my dad asked me a question before we left: "What is it that you expect to get out of this?"

Man I struggled with that.

I'm leaving Natalie and Nessa for a month.

I'm leaving my business for a month.

I'm supposed to be coaching Nessa's soccer team this month.

What am I getting out of this?

They're aware that this is not just an easy trip to Hawaii to sit on the beach and throw a few flies.

This is the real deal and there is danger involved in this.

Let's say we don't make it home - what would you want to say to your loved ones?

Our quest, I think, is so strong, and our belief - my belief is so strong that the universe needs us.

And we're going to be around for a while.

It's not an option.

I'm not saying goodbye to anybody because I'm going home.

So are you.

I'd like to believe that.

Then it's going to happen.

Yeah, I don't know that we're necessarily always in control of our destinies.

That's kind of the - problem with it.

I would disagree with that.

We are.

We're not.

We are.

We're in a car.

Other people are in cars.

We drive towards each other - But there's something beyond of that.

That's not our control, right?

It is.

- It's not.

- It is.

No it's not!

I'm gonna pardon the German here and just say it is so effing not It's a tennis match!

- Not.

- Yes.

[rooster crowing] Bryant was looking for his passport.

A little bit of panic.

Unpacked that entire - contents of his bag looking for it.

He found them along with his betel nut stash.

We're about to go down into the river; it's 7 days on the water, so now we're going to be without our passports going through foreign countries and hopefully the driver's going to pass them through the checkpoint and people somehow understand that it's been verified.

We hiked down about a Bhutanese hour and a half, so that's 3 hours to the rest of us.

Hiked down like this, just feeling blisters building up on the tops of my feet - Yeah!

If you're next to the raft, make sure you hold the 'chicken' line your body stretched far away, and pull yourself in.

There will be somebody on the raft who would help you pull up.

Pull here, yeah?

These things are really buoyant.

Give them a dunk and use that buoyancy to get momentum and help them into the boat.

Are we waiting till after rapids to pull people in?

Sometimes we just pull you right in.

We also have families up there beyond some mountains.

For that reason we follow accor- dingly, with team coordination and we're all going to make it through, yeah?

Lha gyalo!

Being a Bhutanese people, we always respect the river, since it's one of the goddesses, as we believe.

That was fun.

Looks like a fantastic spot for fishing.

I've rafted about 16 rivers along the Himalayan foothills - I have not seen such a pristine ecosystem.

There's a set of younger leopard tracks - actually moving up the beach.

And they're very fresh tracks.

It looks to me like within the last day, probably.

Maybe last night.

It is something to be aware of, but it wouldn't keep you from moving down river, certainly - not that we have a choice!

Bryant!

Oars!

And all of a sudden I was caught.

I couldn't get back.

Yeah, exactly.

I was thinking ahead to go to where I thought we were going - I actually enjoyed that happening today, because it gave us a better picture - because tomorrow apparently the whitewater is more difficult Before we start bringing the boats down, we're going to have to have some guys stationed right here - Yes.

- to be very attentive to grabbing those boats quickly before something gets stuck right in there.

The portage from the Gates of Manas, it's a hell of a job.

If something goes wrong in that area, it ruins the whole trip.

Oh yeah, Gateway to Manas?

It's a scary way!

What I'm saying is if we get a longer rope we can pull you from over there.

I can't hold on.

There we go.

You got the rope?

Thank you.

As we're roping boats through a Class 4 or 5 piece of whitewater there is hydrologists' markings on rocks.

I just can't fathom flooding what we floated through.

There's other options in this place.

A gift for my friend Sir Misty Dhillon!

We're a go.

I'm going to get upriver of you so I can swing her into shore here right in front of you.

Right here.

Keep her mouth in there.

Yep.

Spot on, sir!

Spot on.

So who's - are you fishing next?

I'm not fishing.

I'm trying to catch a fish.

- You're what?

- Trying to catch a fish.

Desperately!

It's called fishing.

That's the definition of fishing: desperately trying to catch a fish.

Looks like we're gonna scout some whitewater.

There's a big wave, yeah?

Big wave.

Not on the left hand side.

Right in the middle.

Yeah.

This is like a Class Two.

- Class One!

- Easy.

Good one!

He's walking the shore.

He's OK. Hari's hit one of the biggest holes we've had so far, and it just rolled his boat straight over backwards.

I can tow it over if you guys can help push it a little bit.

Yeah.

Unless you want to try to flip it right here.

OK, let's flip it then.

Do you have another rope?

Yep.

Take that - Here's one right here.

There's no way they're going to turn that, with just 2 of them.

Hari!

It's going to take 3 of them to flip that.

Get on there.

1, 2, 3!

This is a train wreck!

I got a kayak in the form of a water anchor attached to my - boat.

Renders me pretty well useless right now.

You're going to need to put the camera away, unfortunately, because that thing's gonna have to sit up there with you.

Pull.

Arjun, pull on this rope.

Arjun!

Arjun!

Pull on this rope right in the middle-Pull on this rope!

There you go.

Get out of there, get out of there.

Anything worth struggling for is worth it.

You take a trip, it's the rainy days, it's the days when everything went wrong, from a flat tire to a broken rod to a twisted ankle to the zillion flies in your tent.

Those are the memories!

That's what sort of gets ya.

Headed to India.

We're actually going to float across an international border.

Never done that before.

Floating to India today which I'm very excited about, but at the same time I'm very sad to leave Bhutan.

It's a country very close to my heart: I always tell everyone it's like India 50 years ago.

And I feel like I'm home.

New baby's like a month, 2 days old.

I'm excited to see him.

He was small, like a caterpillar Maybe he turned into - I don't know, he may look different!

I'm going to shave.

And I'm going to pick my daughter up from school at 3.

And then I think I've got date night.

This is my daughter's first spey rod.

She's going to learn to fish it when we get back.

I put the first fish on it, a golden mahseer from Bhutan, so next goal is her first fish on it, when we get home.

We'll see what it is.

Maybe a steelhead with me and her gramps By keeping track of that first fish and having it be in a place like this, it means she'll re- member I did everything I could to explore this incredible planet we live on ... and inspire her to go do the same in her life.

When I bring my sons and daugh- ters here many years from now, am I going to be standing on a road, pointing at a tailwater below a dam saying: "I floated there when it was wild and free" Or am I going to say: "Kids, let's rig to flip ... "we're floating today ... "I'm going to show you the most beautiful place in the world."

I don't know.

I'm just going to say it: There were sections of this river that were the most beautiful riverscapes I've ever floated through, anywhere.

I try to be a realist as often as I can, which means that at times I sound a lot like a pessimist, but with regards to this issue in particular, I'm hopeful.

It's been very enriching, this whole experience for us.

We left our families, came here and put ourselves in your hands.

You all have done an amazing job.

Thank you for looking after us so well.

As we depart from Bhutan into India, this river is in your hands.

We just crossed into India, baby.

Lha gyalo!

You are the role models.

Take photos and leave footprints they'll also do the same thing.

All your fish are caught and released back, they'll also do the same thing.

You guys are here to take it forward and enrich these people, the local people.

Lha gyalo!

♪ What'cha gonna do, what'cha gonna do?

... ♪ ♪ ... when the land goes under the water?

♪ ♪ Can't go east, can't go west.

What'cha gonna do ... ♪ ♪ Black tide's comin' here to do the rest, ♪ ♪ when the land goes under the water.

♪