Altitude sickness is just one of the delights awaiting Ben Anderson on the Amazon, Ganges and Congo rivers. Starting in the Andes, he trains with elite police and joins a group of peasants who mount a takeover from rich farmers. In India, Ben visits the holy city of Varanasi, where the volume of burials has turned the Ganges into a health hazard. At the Congo river, Ben meets passengers waiting for a ferry that has never left and soldiers extorting taxes under the nose of the UN.