THE TEAM

Meet the plucky band of adventurers from all over the world who make up The Last Overland team

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Alex Bescoby

Alex studied politics and history at Cambridge University, and has spent much of the last decade working, exploring and living in South East Asia. He received the single largest UK film grant for his debut documentary about Burma’s lost royal family, We Were Kings and is currently presenting a six-part adventure/travel series - The Incredible Journey - for Canal+ International.

Alex has a passion for Land Rovers stretching back to childhood, having long idolised The First Overland Expedition. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Tim Slessor

Tim is an award-winning British presenter, traveller and author. Graduating from Cambridge University, he joined the BBC in 1957 and for more than 30 years worked with the BBC making documentaries all over the world, receiving a Peabody award.

Tim ended his BBC career as deputy head of its features documentary department and subsequently turned to freelance work – writing for various magazines and producing for Channel Four and National Geographic. Tim’s book about the 1955 Oxford & Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition The First Overland became a bestseller and is still in print 62 years on.

Marcus Allender

Marcus is a travel and tourism entrepreneur who has vast experience throughout Myanmar, China and Southeast Asia. Setting up the online travel business Go-Myanmar.com in 2012, Marcus lived in Yangon and oversaw its establishment as the most popular and trusted travel website for the country.

He has been interviewed on the BBC Travel Show and CNN’s On The Road, and has featured as an expert panellist at the Pacific Asia Travel Association’s Adventure Travel Conference. Marcus is always looking to plan his next adventure, getting early inspiration from his parents in a converted Land Rover 110 with trips to north Africa in the 1980s. He was a proud owner of a Land Rover Series 3 and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

On the road for the entire journey, Marcus is responsible for route-planning and the security of the team.

Larry Leong

Larry has over 30 years experience in IT Technical and Business Development, including IT security. He also served as an infantry combat medic and signaller during his national service with the Singapore Armed Forces, of which a lot of time was spent in the back on a MOD Land Rover 110.

Larry has driven over 200,000km in his cherished Land Rover Defender 90. In 2007 he took his car from the factory in Solihull, England to Singapore via Europe, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal and China. And in 2015 he undertook an extraordinary journey with his wife and young daughter from Singapore to London, through Southeast Asia and northwards through the Stans, Russia and Scandinavia.

Working closely with Marcus, Larry will focus on security and emergency response in the field.

Adam Bennett

Adam is a lifelong Land Rover fanatic who started with a Series 2 almost 40 years ago, and has since owned most Land & Range Rover models. However he’s found his ultimate vehicle in the Series 1 ‘Oxford’.

An expert in restoring accident and flood damaged vehicles (including the famous ‘Oxford’), Adam ran his own restoration garage from 1981-95. Described by his friends as ‘an eccentric Yorkshireman’, he admits that this description fits his style of vehicle acquisition and restoration. Adam has built up a global network of Land Rover enthusiasts, together with a reputation for doing what he says he’s going to do, no matter how big the challenge.

Splitting his time between UK and the road, Adam will oversee the smooth running of ‘Oxford’ throughout the journey.

Léopold Belanger

Léopold (Léo) is a French photographer, based in South East Asia for many years. Combining adventure and film is his passion - from crossing the entire width of Canada, to directing the first film crew crossing Myanmar north to south, or photographing Indonesia’s volcanoes and the vanishing tribes of Borneo.

Most recently he produced and directed two original documentary series for Canal+ Myanmar. Joining the expedition for the whole journey, Léo is in charge of documenting the team’s adventures from the road.

Doctor Sil

Doctor Silverius Purba (Doc Sil to his friends) was born in 1972 in Sumatra, Indonesia. He completed medical school in 1999 and has worked with local and international companies on field expeditions, including being Expedition Doctor for the BBC Natural History Unit. Doc Sil began his love affair with Land Rovers in 2005, when he bought his first model – and then began his growing collection in 2010 when he purchased an Ambulance Series 3 1976, Forward Control 1967, Series 2 1958 Australian Military, as well as other Series cars from 1969-1983. Joining the Land Rover Club of Indonesia 2007 and Indonesia Land Rover United in 2012, Doc Sil loves adventure more than anything and his been in charge of many Land Rover expeditions across Indonesia and beyond. Doc Sil will be joining for the entire journey to take care of the health and welfare of the whole crew.

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Thérèse-Marie Becker

Thérèse-Marie (Tibie) is a Belgian currently living in France - at least when she’s not travelling between her favourite climbing and paragliding spots in her beloved camper van.

She is a Digital Marketing Consultant, whose clients include ELLE Belgium, Select Aperitivo, FFCAM, Expedition Studios and Renault. She’ll be joining the team on the road and leading all online communications and strategy for the Expedition.

David Israeli

Born in Queens and raised in New York, he trained in Film & Television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. This city boy has made a career out of traveling the world, scouring for spicy bowls of noodles and stories to tell. In 2017, David landed in Myanmar where as freelance filmmaker he worked closely with Alex and Leo. David has since packed to join them on this expedition, where he will be the expedition’s resident cinematographer/writer/sous-chef. He’ll be working with Leo to capturing this trans-global voyage. Usefully, David knows next to nothing about cars and cannot drive.

Nat George

Nat was born and raised in South London, and grew up steeped in his Grandpa Tim's stories of the historic First Overland. Nat has just graduated with a degree in Economics from Newcastle University, although geography has always been his passion (he could at one point name every country on earth!) As a fresh graduate, he now finds himself at the same stage in life as his Grandpa was in 1955, when he decided to head out on his historic journey. When he's not pretending to study, he enjoys music and sport - and all things Arsenal. Despite being Tim’s grandson, he's never driven a Land Rover - that’s about to change…