You actually believe that CMH sleeped in those tents on those trips. That is so cute.
Point me at a five-star hotel in the Bolivian jungle or near the North Pole please. Or maybe they dragged a huge, luxurious camper van behind on their way through the wilderness, hm? Is that what you're insinuating?
Seriously, saying they didn't go there, that everything is faked and only made to look that way on TV, is a bit too much conspiracy theory for me. What's next? Americans weren't really on the moon?
Surely not everything on Top Gear was exactly the way it was later edited for TV -- and noboday is denying that -- but they
did drive on Death Road, they
did drive to the North Pole, they
did drive through Burma and feasted with rebels, they
did drive through Botswana and got the dust in their lungs, they really
were threatened in Argentina for the ill-fated Porsche number plate, James May really
did hurt his head in the Syrian desert, Richard Hammond really
did rollover in a jet-propelled dragster and Clarkson really
did hurt his arm when falling from his scooter in Vietnam. I'm sure I could come up with a dozen more examples, if I put my mind to it.
Some may call that reckless and childish, I call it dedication and spirit. They have a sense for adventure. And that's what makes them special and thankfully we will see more of that on amazon Prime. It's true, though, that CHM had grown out of the Top Gear format, no doubt about that, they turned a former car review program into an entertainment adventure that featured cars. Currently the BBC is turning the knob back to "Car Review Show" again, with some small remnants of the former adventure spirit sprinkled on it but not enough to make it convincingly entertaining.