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Where to watch "Wonders of the Monsoon"
5. People of the Monsoon
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In the paddies of Assam, India, farmers battle a herd of hungry elephants over the rice crop. Conflicts like this have played out for thousands of years. Both Hinduism and Buddhism have deeply influenced the relationship – teaching a deep respect for nature. We meet a group of the Bishnoi sect who believe that all life is sacred and have been known to lay down their lives for nature, even to protect trees. Whatever the future holds for the lands of the monsoon, all of us are now connected and surely have a part to play.
4. Strange Castaways
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On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi the combination of monsoon and volcanoes has created a paradise. The towering peaks help to precipitate even more rain and volcanic ash fertilizes the plants. In thanks for this, in Java, locals climb the volcano to offer goats and chickens as a live sacrifice to its god. But in rain swept Borneo, there are no active volcanoes. Over thousands of years, the frequent and heavy rains of the tropical monsoon, have destroyed the soils. The ensuing cut-throat competition for scarce nutrients has driven evolution to produce some curious characters….
3. The Drought
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During the part of the year that the monsoon doesn’t bring rain, the winds reverse, bringing instead, dry air and even drought to large parts of the region. Fed by the previous rains, budgerigars swarm in the Australian desert. In the Rajasthan Desert, Pushkar hosts the world’s largest camel fair early in the dry season. In Sri Lanka, Asia’s largest gathering of elephants is seen at an ancient man-made lake, where mugger crocodiles stalk the prey that is forced there to drink. Finally, the monsoon winds reverse, they will soon bring rain again, but only after the mother of all sandstorms.
2. Deluge
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With a whisper on the wind, pre-monsoon showers come to Thailand. Assamese macaque monkeys play in the waters and gorge themselves on a monsoon delicacy of water snails. To the west, in India, huge banks of cloud roll in, heralding four months of incessant rain. Finally, monsoon rainwater flows back, through the great rivers of Asia, to the Indian Ocean. It brings with it a vast lode of nutrients. Year round, blue whales congregate off the coast of Sri Lanka, in search of the bounty that the monsoon brings.
1. Waiting for the Rains
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From India to Australia, all life awaits the transforming power of the monsoon rains. Our story begins in the southern extreme of the monsoon region, northern Australia. It’s the end of the dry season and 300,000 little red flying foxes gather to drink and run the gauntlet of Australian freshwater crocodiles. On Christmas Island, the rains trigger an amazing spectacle – millions of red crabs migrate from the forest to the coast, to spawn. Finally when will the Indian monsoon arrive? In the Delhi stock exchange, the price of rice escalates every day the rains fail to materialize.
