When actor Charley Boorman made a stopover in Singapore to film his new travel series By Any Means last week, he decided to enter in style - on a wakeboard.
"I'm told I might be the first person to ever wakeboard into Singapore," says the adventurer and author best known for his television travel series with his best friend, Hollywood star Ewan McGregor.
Boorman took off from the Malaysian coast in Johor last Friday around sunset and wakeboarded for 20 minutes all the way to Raffles Marina in Tuas, where Customs officers boarded the speedboat that pulled him across the Straits to clear his entry into Singapore.
Though this is the first time he is here, he has friends who live in Singapore and he bunked in at their house in Sandwich Road.
Having spent a lot of time in the rural areas of countries such as Iran, India and Laos over the last few months, he says he is fascinated by Singapore's bustling modern city life, clean streets and national service, which he thinks is a very good idea.
"When you hit 17, 18 years old, the time when you have the most energy, it's put to good use in the army where
you learn many new skills," he explains. "By the time you come out, you're set to carry on with life."
Speaking to Life! at the Raffles Marina the day after he reached here, the 41-year-old was chatty and gregarious despite nursing a salmon-red sunburn and a stiff body from falling into the water several times during his wakeboarding stunt.
The Englishman, whose father is famed film director John Boorman, began acting from a young age and has appeared in several of his father's movies, such as the critically acclaimed drama Deliverance (1972) and, more recently, in the anti-apartheid flick In My Country (2004).
But it is his TV series with McGregor that has turned him into a familiar face. The motorcycle fanatics first filmed their travel adventures for 2004's Long Way Round, riding overland from London to Mongolia, flying over to Alaska and continuing their ride to New York.
Then Boorman went solo for the 2006 TV series Race To Dakar, about an off-road motorcyle rally.
He reunited with McGregor for another two-wheeled expedition in Long Way Down last year, this time riding from Scotland all the way to South Africa.
For his current series By Any Means, Boorman is attempting to travel across 24 countries starting from his hometown in Ireland to Australia without resorting to air travel. So he is taking every form of transport from trucks and tuk-tuks to elephants and motorcycles.
"The idea is try to go the old-fashioned way, to see as much as possible," he explains. He also notes that with fuel prices going up, "the time of cheap air travel is coming to a close. People are going to have to start to look at other forms of travel".
On going solo without his best mate McGregor, Boorman admits: "I miss
him. He's off in the States making some movies, but I saw him just before I left and he was definitely looking very envious that I was doing this and that he couldn't."
The hardest thing about going on his adventures is being away from his wife of 20 years, Olivia, and two daughters, Doone, 11, and Kinvara, 12. He calls them often to chat, though. And there's a plus side to his absence
too.
"When I'm home, my wife has to take care of three children - our daughters and me," he jokes. "Even my daughter
said after I left, 'Daddy, the house is so much cleaner when you're not around'."
Long Way Down is now airing on National Geographic Adventure (StarHub Channel 73) every Tuesday at 6.30pm. By Any Means is set to be aired at the end of the year.
This article was first published in Life!, The Straits Times on June 27, 2008.
