Simon Reeve's travel 'muppet list' (From Asian Image)

Simon Reeve's travel 'muppet list'

12:57am Sunday 22nd April 2012 in National Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Simon Reeve has joked that he's becoming Basil Fawlty as he gets older.

The 39-year-old adventurer has already travelled around the Equator and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn for the BBC and revealed there is a lot of red tape, or "officialdom", as he likes to call it, in order to travel from border to border.

"I confess I've started compiling a muppet list of the most ridiculous encounters," said the star.

"I've been doing these journeys for a while now, and my muppet list is a way of channelling the increasing travel rage I feel as I get older and slowly turn into Basil Fawlty!"

But he added that the journeys are an "amazing adventure" despite any travel troubles.

Reeve's new six-part series sees him touring the edge of the Indian Ocean.

"It was fascinating to explore this incredible region on a journey that showed me there's so much more to the Indian Ocean than just gorgeous holiday islands," he said.

Filming a series like this is always a mammoth task but Reeve revealed it was even trickier this time because his wife Anya, a camerawoman who's joined him on past trips, was heavily pregnant when it started.

"I filmed the first two programmes and then had a break for a few months while my baby son was born. There was no way I was going to miss that," he said. "I stayed at home and learnt to change nappies and placate a screaming baby, and then I had to go back and finish the journey."

:: Indian Ocean With Simon Reeve begins tonight (April 22) on BBC Two.