Episode 3: Ancient Mariners turned out to be a high point of the production: Palin himself remarks that he and his crew felt warmly welcomed by the crew of the dhow, Al Sham, like they were family and that he thought he might never see any of them again. Twenty years later Palin retraced part of his journey through the Middle East in Around the World in 20 Years (2008) and inquired with the original company that booked his passage on the dhow. His investigation led him to be reunited with the dhow's captain at his home in the Indian province of Gujarat along with several of the surviving crew. Palin reported that the Al Sham had sunk after catching fire while being towed for repairs on the Indian Ocean.
Episode 3. During the dhow journey across the Arabian Sea, well off Iran, Palin spots what he claims to be a gull. It is in fact a houbara bustard - which is not remotely like a gull, nor even a marine bird at all - and quite a remarkable record so far out to sea.
Michael Palin has revealed that Alan Whicker, Miles Kington, Noel Edmonds and Clive James all turned down the chance to present the series.
In the same year of this series' release, Palin's colleague and fellow Monty Python alumnus, Eric Idle, appeared as the character, Passpartout, in a television adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days (1989).
Despite the 'excuses' given in episode 1 about why he couldn't do the show before changing his mind, in reality Michael Palin had to delay the start of production until he had got his publicity duties for the U.S. launch of 'A Fish Called Wanda' (1988) out of the way. The film was released in the U.S. at the end of July 1988 so he had to spend most of that month and some of August on talk shows and giving interviews about the movie. Due to MGM's worldwide staggered release of A Fish Called Wanda he was unable to commit to anymore publicity tours as by the time the movie was premiered in most territories (which was the fall of 1988), Michael was already abroad filming this series.