Ash Dykes Had Problems with Chinese Police | Joe Rogan

Okay. So that's that. But in China, no, I had difficult situations with the authorities, with the police. They were trying to get bribes? No, they were just, I was in a sensitive area, you know, to get to the source. The planning, it took over two years. So I needed government support. I needed national park access. I needed a green development foundation, which is like an organisation to make me ambassador. To make me doctor for a year, to be able to get all of this access. But when I went through the motions of getting these different organisations on board, that would give me access to the authorities and allow me to get to the source. It was, it was my, it was, blows my mind now. It was really, really difficult to get off the, off the ground. But we did that, but still we were so close to Tibet, that the Tibetan police would come over and threaten to, you know, get rid of us, deport us and whatnot. So that came as a worry. Then I carried 13 different documents or stamped or official or signed. So I had to show them that I had to use the satellite phone, call into the Beijing team, use as translation. I think that one time they made me delete all of the information, all of the tracked information I needed for Guinness World Record. They made me delete that, but luckily it was backed up because they didn't want to have me seen walk in this region. It was quite sensitive there. But I was definitely in China and definitely in Qinghai province. But it was a bit of how so. Just because you've got Tibet and you've got China and they're very close to each other. So I needed to make sure that I was always in, in China. Sometimes you'd get the police come over to. They think that you were a spy or something? What did they say? Yeah, no idea what they thought, but it came as a shock to them. They were also very worried for my safety. So there was that angle as well that they were saying once they found out it was official, it was legit and they'd apologize. They'd actually follow me on the Chinese social media, you know, follow the journey. So that was great. But after that, they did say we are just, you know, bringing you in for your protection. There's bears, there's wolves. We've not seen a Westerner out here in a long. So that got tricky. And there was one stage where they, they said you need to be on the other side of the river. So they drove us 40 miles back on ourself to a bridge, dropped us off on the other side. And we had to do those 40 miles all over again. That was day six into the journey. And we were desperately trying to get off the mountains. Now we're just dropped back 40. We had to walk those four miles again. No way around it. Nightmare. Fuck dude. Fuck. So yeah, it was really tricky. The source around that area really sensitive and it was just, and then we found that the locals would call the police as well. They would radio to the next girl, to the next girl, to the next girl until eventually there was so phone signal and they would call the police and the police would often rock up at two, three o'clock in the morning, just at our tent at the location bang on, they rocked up like, what are you doing here? So we found out that the locals were amazing, very hospitable, but they were worried and they didn't know if they'd seen a Westerner do, did they report it? Would they be in trouble if they don't report it? So they did. So it came, it pretty much went from mission, yanksy to almost mission escape and evade. We had to escape the sensitive region that we were in, but we had to evade the locals because we realized that it was them calling the police. That went on for about three weeks. I would think that it made me think that you were an escaped fugitive, right? Yeah, yeah. Because if you think of a fugitive from America or the UK is trying to get away, what better way to just jump into the middle of nowhere in China and walk? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, potentially or just again, threat from... You look like a fugitive. Yeah. Maybe some sort of bank robber type character. That's a Guy Ritchie movie. There we go. So you are avoiding the sensitive area. So the sensitive area that's close to the Tibet and the Chinese border. Did you anticipate any of these things beforehand? Did you guys sit down with the team? When you were... And did you say, okay, this could go wrong. This could go wrong. How many things did you figure could go wrong that didn't? So many things that could have gone wrong that luckily didn't. This was really sketchy. Just the yanksy is just known. It cuts through a lot of diversity. It's a beautiful, stunning part, one of the beautiful places that I've been. But they're all sensitivities. There's the elevation. There is the wildlife. There's the temperatures as well.