The Travels of 'Pong' Barley It quickly turns into a comic adventure, though it all started off seriously enough - nothing less than an ethnographic survey of a distant corner of the Indonesian archipelago.
Nigel Barley, author of The Innocent Anthropologist, debunks the myths surrounding the sacred rites of fieldwork, that
'respectable licence to pry'. As Pong (a local nickname meaning Prince) wanders through the Torajan highlands of Sulawesi, luck leads him to Nenek, master carver and high priest of a remote mountain village ... an insane idea begins to take shape. Why not bring Nenek and some helpers to London, along with over two tons of timber, rattan and bamboo, to build an elaborately carved rice-barn halfway down Piccadilly?
Film cameraman JOHN HOWARTH Film editor DAVID THOMAS Producer CLEM VALLANCE Series editor TIM SLESSOR