I love a good productive trip. It's always good to read about an expediition with a real purpose rather than a thinly disguised climbing holiday. The ability to say which peak is slightly higher completely counteracts any so called "arguments" from bleeding heart idealists who spouts gibberish about the legitimacy of military dictatorships. Bravo! In any case if they are OK with the fine chaps at BAE system then they are OK by me!

How deep would you like the sugar coating and gloss on that?

Hush! Anyone who tells you that it is quite possible to determine the altitude of hills from orbit without climbing them is a dirty rotten stinking liar!

Beautifully filmed, as you'd expect from National Geographic, but this trip comes across as a self-regarding and imperialistic venture. We see lots of seductive imagery of people and places encountered on the way to the mountain but we hear nothing about or from these people and places. The burmese people who help the westerners by transporting and carrying their stuff over difficult terrain, interpreting for them and helping them navigate state bureaucracy are given no credit during the film - and indeed are criticized at various points. There is no acknowledgement that the expedition is taking place in a country that is emerging from decades of political oppression, which explains many of the difficulties. We get no sense that the climbers understand that the obstacles they encounter are those faced every day by people who have to live there: "there is literally no food here!" , "it's remote!", "the transportation is terrible!" And why, in a country with millions living below the poverty line and little formal employment, was it so hard for the team to recruit enough porters to carry their stuff? What is the story of the villagers' lack of interest in helping? I'm not judging the expedition members as individuals - I'm willing to believe they are sensitive and aware, had great working relationships with the people they met and were hugely grateful for the help they did get in a difficult context. However if they want us to care about their story, the film-makers could have put this visit by privileged adventurers to a poor country into some kind of perspective. Without this, complaints about food theft, intransigent bureaucracy, uncooperative natives and inadequate local infrastructure make the climbers sound self-regarding. There is no need to turn a climbing/expedition film into a social documentary but surely it is not too hard to include a quick comment from one of the climbers showing some understanding of the people who accompanied them and/or thwarted them on their recreational adventure? Or perhaps even a comment from a Burmese person on what they thought of the whole thing? Instead we hear only the climbers' complaints. The first positive thing said in the film is that the view from one of the high camps was nice. Is it too much to ask that films of this type either stay focused on the mountain climbing part of the adventure, or, if they decide the difficult approach and country-context is an integral part of the story, then at least tell that story in a 21st century way? Intrepid westerners battling heroically to achieve noble and lofty aims under primitive conditions feels like a trope that has had its day. It is disappointing that National Geographic continues to portray the world in these terms. Myanmar/Burma looks amazing, though. Eddie