Gordon's Great Escape

Gordon's odyssey begins in the north, home of our curry house classics. He boards an express train and cooks for its many passengers before meeting his match working for a cantankerous royal chef, preparing a biryani for a huge wedding feast. He later ventures into the jungle, where he gets eaten alive by ants when he scales a 40-foot tree in search of the local tribe's favorite delicacy.

Gordon's got a taste for adventure and heads off the beaten path into impenetrable Northeast India, home of the country's best-kept culinary secrets. He immerses himself in the life of a local meat-loving tribe in Nagaland, once better known for head-hunting than their curries. Then he's off to Assam before finally setting up shop among the street food stalls of Calcutta.

Gordon heads to the coasts of Kerala for the ultimate seafood curry. In Tamil Nadu, he hits a meat-free zone and faces a culinary nightmare: living in an ashram where the only food on the menu is vegetarian. Any tranquility soon evaporates when Gordon tries bullock racing before making his final stop in Mumbai. There, he cooks alongside one of India's top chefs for a dinner at the Taj Hotel.