Excuse me, mate . Could you help me it will make a similar change. Now its time for a look put my sim card in my phone . I use a at the weather with louise lear. Website called couch surfing. I find local people on the website. They have profiles, i have a profile. I contact them. Hello, this is tony. Can you tell me how to get to your place, please . Ill take a taxi. Rain across the country today, where do i need to tell him to go. Accompanied by petty gusty winds. 0k. The strongest of the winds to the where do i need to tell him to go. Ok. Ill see you in about half an south of the rain, heaviest of the hour. Thanks but i. Rain moving its layout of the midlands into the north of england and across to the scottish borders. Taxi . Bright and breezy with a scattering where are you going . Hello. Of showers to the north west of i go to gotera. Scotla nd of showers to the north west of scotland and northern ireland. For gotera . The rest of england and wales, south yeah, gotera, yeah. 200 birr. 200 150 . Of that rain, if you scattered showers. It will not be a particular 0k, go on. Warm out there, particularly for the middle part of gin. Top temperatures i lost my dad when i was 15, 16. Underneath the cloud and rain i lost my best friend when i was 16, setting a 12 or 13 degrees. Highest i dont really talk about. It was a big loss for me. Values are maximum of 18 celsius. Thats low pressure will move away it sent me off into alcoholism and sunday looks like a drier day for a good six to seven years. With a little more sunshine and just by the age of 2a i was aafew with a little more sunshine and just a a few scattered showers, again not almost an alcoholic. Particularly warm. Once i got my head out of the bottle, i could see that there was a different road to go down. Hello this is bbc news. The headlines. Michael gove one of the frontrunners for the conservative leadership i was hung up about being says he deeply regrets taking blind for a long time, cocaine in the past. Especially as a teenager, early 20s. Us President Donald Trump lifts the threat of tariffs on imports and then i suddenly realised the more people i met, from mexico after its government i realised they wanted to be promises to act over migrants, around me not because i was blind Asylum Seekers and border security. Or different but because of who i was, my personality. Health officials launch an investigation into the deaths driving along a straight road, a bit of wind. Of three hospital patients in manchester and liverpool who ate still smell the car fumes, pre packed sandwiches linked to an outbreak of listeria. Theyre everywhere. Academy award winner Olivia Colman leads the names in the queens birthday honours, alongside hundreds of campaigners and volunteers. And the fifa womens world cup kicked off last night, with hosts france easing to a dominant 4 0 win over south korea. Hello, mr happy, its tony. I think im at your street, at your place. Im opposite a restaurant. I can smell the food, but i am not sure how to get to you. More news at the top of the hour. Apparently im by the gates, someones told me. Hey hey, tony now its time for the travel show. Hello guess whos here. Mr happy. Yeah, im glad, im glad to see you. Good to meet you. How are you . My my name is tony and i am totally thank you very much for coming. You found it already. Blind and severely dive in both welcome to addis, my place already. Thank you. Ears. Now were moving, ifeel they hes a really nice guy. Very friendly, as his went in my hair. I have spent the name would say, happy. Full of energy and was really happy to meet me, last 21 years visited so many i was really excited to meet him. Take a step. Yes, there you go. Countries. Every continent in the you have it all easy. Welcome to your couchsurfing place. World, including antarctica. My mission is to visit every country in thank you. The world. I started of planning a your happy home. My space, thank you. Take off the load. Trip and decided i should start in this will be your sleeping spot. 0k, just a mattress . Yeah, its a mattress. Egypts. I mostly even sleep here. 0k. I like to sleep on the floor. 0k, great. It is good, quite sweet. It is my 00 04 19,422 2147483051 38 54,978 passion, the biggest challenge i can 2147483051 38 54,978 4294966103 13 29,430 get. One of the main components about my travelling is food. Eating food, talking about food, sometimes buying food and cooking. Hello, id like to buy shiro, please. I was very fortunate that mr happy very kindly offered to cook for me some local ethiopian food. How much is that altogether . 70 . I bought some shiro, and also a kilo of tomatoes and a kilo of chilli. People are lovely, very, very helpful, very kind. Some people speak a little bit of english. I asked a guy to help me to find shiro, and he took right me to the shop. And then the shopkeepers helped me buy the food. It was a lovely experience. Sometimes it can be confusing, especially if theres a lot of people pushing each other, all shouting for the same thing. Even when you can see, you dont quite know what youre buying. Sometimes it is a bit more confusing but you just be patient and keep going, keep asking. Most people will help you. What is shiro exactly . Shiro is like a powder made of chickpeas. It is like one of the staple foods that we have here. So we call this dancing shiro time, because the shiro kind of bubbles out and then dances. And you just cook it here, where the heat is coming from . Yeah, where the heat, we have a charcoal here, so natural fire making. Do you want to have a try of that . Give me your hand. You just put it here and then you can just put it to your mouth and taste it. Nice. Its good, its quite sweet. Yeah, right . That is from that of tomato. I hope it tastes as good as it smells. Of course, ready for it . Lunch is here. What a nice smell, lunch thank you very much. Hungry . Very hungry. Great, so we have our shiro in the centre, which is like the focal element of the food. And then we have a couple of vegetables. Do you like kale . Yep. Kale is like our green vegetable. Then we have some tomatoes by the side, and some chilis. Mostly we take time to bless the food, in a way. We kind of give it a good vibration in a way so just take a few seconds to be just grateful and thankful for having this food. Thank you very much. Great. The other thing cultural in ethiopia as we eat together, is something called gursha. Gursha is basically feeding each other. It is like, i made a bit like a bite and then i just give that to you. Beside the content of feeding a person, it is also a sign of respect and care. Its like a mother feeding a child so theres some care into it. It is a culture we do here. So, im going to give you one of that now. Are you ready . This will be interesting. Open your mouth and you have yourfirst gursha. Wow. Nice. This is incredible food. People, you have to come to ethiopia and eat this food. You like it . It is delicious, its tasty, its a little spicy, its a little. So rich. At least four or five different textures in this one dish i can taste on my tongue. Now is your turn to give me a bite of that. See how you do the gursha. Here it comes. You are like a pro. Having this little ceremony, eating traditional ethiopian food with a lovely person, who i now consider my friend, is a wonderful experience. Its very humbling. To be able to share and Exchange Cultures is so wonderful. It is hard to describe, really. Very emotional. I cant pick up a book and think, lets go to this place or lets go to that place. So, i had to have the research, i had to have the knowledge beforehand and i have a very, very good memory so i plan my route before i travel. I dont know who im going to meet, i dont know whats going to happen and to me that is all an adventure, it is exciting. Many people say i could not do that, i couldnt imagine it. But ive never really seen so me, i dont worry about it because i dont know. It is all the unknown and that is what i love and enjoy. Trying to find people that i can hook up with online. I found this guy called mike, a local guy, who seemed really interesting, good fun. I says i was coming to addis, want to meet up . Have a coffee or have a chat about ethiopian life and culture . Tony . Mike, hi, good to meet you. Thanks for coming. Welcome to ethiopia. Have a seat. Ijust really wanted to meet you and find out a bit more about ethiopia and what is going on in addis. Likewise, i really wanted to meet you, when we contacted. We recently had change in government so it was not an election but by popular demand a new government has come up to power. It is a new government, a young leader, a kind of visionary. The peoples man. The first time most people would have heard about ethiopia would have been 1985, the band aid and live aid, the famine. But there is more than that, whats more to ethiopia . That image stayed in peoples minds and shuttered everything else. When the famine was over and we were back to safe times, nobody was reporting on that. Like, if you take the farming side, ethiopia is the fifth largest country in the world with the number of livestock. It is not as depicted. Ok, mike, where are we going . Now we are going to the headquarters of the african union. So there, we are going to see a statue, a new statute that was just inaugurated and it is a statue of Haile Selassie, our last emperor. Ive heard of him. If you do this, you are getting a nice picture, and if you turn the camera sideways, because its. Vertical, yeah. Tony, youre a nice photographer. Thanks. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. You have a talent for pictures. Yeah, just shoot and point, hopefully something comes out. How important is Haile Selassie to ethiopian people . For some, he was a hero, for others he was a villain. Because whenever you occupy a throne, those are the things, the two balls you juggle. He tried to modernise the country. So he did work a lot on education, that was one of his main interests. My grandfather was a big fan of him. He said, he used to come to their school, randomly, just to check on what the students were being fed. Every time he would come, he would bring them grapes, apples, oranges. And how was he viewed by young ethiopian people today . Haile selassie is immortalised, he is iconic. If you bring your hand, and interlace it here, and you do this. Yeah, yeah. It goes back to unity. Yeah, yeah, of course. So, we are heading into north addis. We are going to see an art gallery, an art gallery for blind and visually impaired people. Im assuming some kind of tactile art exhibition. Different textures to make a picture or pictures. Thats what im assuming. Well find out when we get there. Thank you. The entrance . Hi, tony. Welcome. Hi. Welcome to my studio. Thank you, im really looking forward to it. Let me show you one of the art pieces. Wow. So, were touching a piece of art. These are people, who are laughing. This is their mouths. 0k. This is their nose. This is their eyes. These are like buttons, are they . Yes. So, it is a face. You can see their hands, they are screaming, happy, expressing themselves. Do you like it . Its really good, its really interesting. It really gives a blind person a better understanding of expression of people. Its amazing. Its really inspiring. So many times you go to Art Galleries with your friends, and you, sort of, feel excluded. Touching this made me feel included. A christian cross. Actually art i can appreciate. I felt equal. It was really nice, really positive. I feel just like anyone else looking at art. Radio ethiopias number one station for news, music and entertainment . Thats us, 105. 3 afro fm driving through addis one afternoon, got a bit hungry, so got a taxi to stop at a food stall on the street. I went in and talked to the guy there. I was talking to him and telling him my story, i travel around the world and im blind. Were about to go live on aire. Are you ready . He said, do you want to come on my Breakfast Show . I said, yeah, that would be cool. Talk to the people, share my story, maybe inspire a few people. Good morning, good morning, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Howre you doing . Its the best breakfast in town, your voice of motivation and inspiration every single day. Im sitting here with an amazing person, tony giles is here in the studio. He is a blind person, but also partially deaf, but he has managed to travel to 138 countries around the world. Good morning, everyone. The question i have for you right now, im sure a lot of our listeners are wondering as well, what are the main challenges you face doing this project youve been doing . One of the most difficult ones is getting money out of atm machines, cash machines. I have to find somebody i can trust. I have to check them out, listen to their story, how theyre sounding, figure out that i can trust them and go to the cash machine with them. They help me to read the screen, i can press the buttons and put my information in, and once i get the money, i have to ask them, what denomination are these . I cant read a menu in a restaurant, so i have to have an idea of the National Dish of each country i visit. In ethiopia its quite easy, injera. Probably one of the other Biggest Challenges for me is crossing borders. I have to hand my passport over to someone, and i dont know where that passport goes, and i have to hope its going to get back to me. What keeps you going, when you are faced with challenges . How do you keep your chin up . When i get tired and i think i cant do it anymore, i think about my best friend. He died when i was young. He had a serious disability, and he couldnt move most of his body. I always think of him, he inspired me. Ive got it easy compared to what he has. Just keep going, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, here you have it. The one and only tony giles here in the studio. It was such an amazing, inspirational story. Yeah, i have dark days. Not so many now. One of the main reasons i started travelling was escapism, escapism from my emotions. I can do things physically, thats easy. I run away from my emotions. I couldnt deal with relationships for a long time. Because i thought an everyday relationship would end the same way as my relationship with my friend, i thought. People would go away. I thought thats what would happen with a relationship. And for a long time, it did. I realised that theres more to life. I could stop grieving. I still occasionally gets dark days. But the way you overcome them, the way i overcome them, is, i think, when i get up tomorrow, i think, whats the next challenge . I know people love me. So thats enough. Some people might say im on the extreme edge of travel, and the extreme edge of disabled people. I do worry sometimes, when im giving talks, doing interviews, am i going to put people off . Am i going to make people think, wow, thats incredible, thats so out there, i couldnt do that, i couldnt possibly. I wonder if in a weird way, maybe i discourage people. I guess ijust thought id have to tell it and let people take from it what they will. Without people, i wouldnt be able to travel. I think its a two way thing. People help me, and im given something back. I show them theres an alternative way. They say, how do you travel, how can you see . Why have you come to my country, youre blind. I tell them, well, i come to eat the food and meet the people and hear the music and walk on the terrain up and down the mountains. I can feel it all through my skin and my feet and thats how i see a country. The terrain around the churches on the outside is up there with some of the toughest places and terrain i have visited. I just want to be normal. Its just so frustrating. Got to be strong all the time. Its the only way i can travel, the only way i can cope. A pretty soggy start to our saturday morning and i suspect youll be able to put the hosepipes away, the sun is here to stay through much of next week. The reason for the rain is this area of low pressure to the southern flank of that we had some unusually gusty winds. Dusting in excess of 50 to 60 miles an hour across channel coasts. The rain continues to push its way steadily north and the east. We will see an improvement in the midlands as the rain moves into southern scotland. Behind it is a case of sunny spells and scattered showers. Some of the showers could be quite sharp, hopefully they will be hit and mess. To the north and west some sunshine into scotland and a few scattered showers through northern ireland. Wendy for all of us and underneath the cloud and rain will be disappointingly cool. Top temperatures of around 13 degrees in the rain and highest values of 18 further south. Moving out of saturday evening that area of low pressure pushes off and behind we will see skies clear and wins for light. Temperatures for many include single figures. A chillier start to oui single figures. A chillier start to our sunday morning, but a dry one. Hopefully, some sunshine around early on and many of us will keep some sunshine for the second tab of the weekend. More frequent showers in scotland and northern ireland. One or two spells of sharp showers pushing their way in from the south west. Highest values of 12 to 19 degrees. Moving out of sunday into monday, more wet weather forecast. You will need to keep abreast of the forecast because that front the system is going to be an issue from monday to tuesday. The exact location of that rain is still subject to change. Somewhere to weather across much of eastern england, further north and west it isa england, further north and west it is a case of sunny spells and scattered showers. Temperatures struggling for this time of year, 12 to 17 degrees. By the end of tuesday it could feel cold spell as they north swings round to a north easterly direction. That it. Take care. This is bbc news. Im shaun ley. The headlines at eleven. Michael gove, one of the front runners for the conservative leadership, says he deeply regrets his past use of cocaine. Us President Donald Trump lifts the threat of tariffs on imports from mexico after its government promises to act over migrants, Asylum Seekers and border security. Health officials launch an investigation into the deaths of three hospital patients in manchester and liverpool who ate pre packed sandwiches linked to an outbreak of listeria. The queen has arrived at the annual trooping the colour parade to mark her majestys official birthday. The fifa womens world cup kicked off last night, with hosts france easing to a dominant 4 0 win over south korea. A new law to protect Service Animals comes into force today, nicknamed finns law after a police dog who was stabbed