Dallas Campbell
Scuba diving in a Mexico City Sewer? Hanging off the very top of the Burj Kalifa in Dubai? My travel hit list generally involves being somewhere I probably shouldn’t be, with a TV crew, lugging heavy boxes of camera gear in a state of nervous exhaustion. There is one place that stands out — watching astronauts blast off to the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in remote Kazakhstan. This Russian-leased enclave is truly a land that time forgot. From here cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first left the planet in 1961, and this once top-secret Soviet facility is now the only bus stop for humans to go to space. It’s where politics, history, science and exploration all roll into one.
The dilapidated infrastructure and wild-looking Soviet military buildings litter the vast expanse of the Kazakh steppe. Blistering heat in the summer, freezing in the winter, camels slowly trudging along a distant railway track oblivious to this offworld human activity. Seeing the Soyuz rocket lift off, punching through the sky to the other side is a moving experience. It’s not something you watch. It’s something you feel. And carry with you forever.
Filming for a BBC series a few years ago, the crew and I found ourselves lost somewhere in Hubei province in rural China in the middle of winter. Exhausted and having spent many hours on the road, we eventually found our destination sometime in the early hours. Less of a town (the name escapes me), more a construction site. Our hotel at least was finished. A welcoming bright neon sign outside. As we entered, the hotel manager behind the front desk was wearing a huge military overcoat to protect him from the damp, penetrating cold. When we went to our freezing rooms I opened the curtains to shut the window, only to realise there were no windows. The neon sign had obviously taken priority over the cost of installing glass. Curled up in the bed wearing my arctic down jacket under a threadbare sheet, with the sound of barking feral dogs all night, I realised travel doesn’t get more “authentic” than this.
Dallas Campbell hosts
City in the Sky — a look at the inner workings of airports around the world — premiering on BBC Knowledge, Saturdays from August 4, 8.30pm