Race Across The World’s, Jo and Kush

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3:01Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. I'm your host Holly Rubinstein and here each week I uncover the seven chapters of my guest's travel diaries from the first place that they fell in love with, to their hidden gem, their all-time favourite destination and what's at the top of their travel bucket list. If you are enjoying the podcast, please remember to hit subscribe or follow on your podcast app. It means a new dose of Wanderlust lands in your podcast library each week and it's free. Before we get started, a quick warning, this episode contains spoilers. So if you haven't finished watching the latest series of Race Across the World on the BBC, I'd suggest turning off now and coming back once you have what are you doing or haven't you finished it yet now I have to say I was so excited to record this one like so many of you I was completely hooked on this season of Race Across the World it's one of those shows that it's just such a lovely watch it gets under your skin you start off thinking that you're watching a travel program and then by the end you're so emotionally invested in these people who are trying to get across a border or find a hostel for three pounds a night or make it onto a 29-hour train with no phone and barely anybody.

4:12This season saw the contestants travel over 1 ,200 kilometers from Palermo in Sicily all the way to Hatgal in Mongolia. And we watched five pairs travel without smartphones, internet access, flights or bank cards, relying instead on instinct, kindness, grit and a lot of very long bus, car and train journeys. Of course, at the heart of it all were today's guests, best friends, Joe and Kush from Liverpool, who not only won the series, but completely won over viewers along the way. Their friendship was just such a joy to watch. And there was just something so lovely about watching these two young men support each other in these incredible environments through the highs and lows of an incredible journey.

4:56It was really great in this episode to get a little glimpse behind the scenes of how Race Across the World works. It's such a huge operation. We talk about the audition process, the secrecy around winning, the budget, the homestays, the loos, obviously the loos, the long distance journeys, and what it's really like traveling without any tech. And of course, we talk about the places too, from Sorrento and Naples to Dbilisi and Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and the wild beauty of Mongolia. So let's buckle up and get started here's joe and kush

5:38joe kush welcome to the travel diaries it is amazing to see you how's it going doing good thank you so much for having us thank you appreciate being on the podcast this is our favorite podcast you've ever been on you know really oh my god i am so so honored well listen my listeners have been so excited about this season of the race across the world i mean i get so many messages about it when are the winners going to be coming on so we're absolutely thrilled and congratulations how are you feeling oh my god we've had such a good week um if it doesn't feel real kind of like a fever dream yeah it's been it's been proper sick just like especially because we won as well i feel like we're like the face of season six you know of course yeah yeah i I mean, how long ago did you know that you won?

6:24How long has it been, the wait? How many months since November? So is that six? Yeah, a little while. Six, yeah. Oh my God, what a long time to have to sit on that news. I know. I mean, you start to get to the point where because you don't say it, you sort of forget it yourself. And so literally when we were watching it back at the finale, I started to have doubts going, did we win? Because obviously no, I couldn't speak about it at all for the past few months. And so to me, it doesn't exist. You know what I mean? Where were you when you were watching the final, both of you? Were you together?

6:55Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got all our friends and family and we went to this venue called Box Park in town and it was amazing. When everyone found out we won it, it was like we won the World Cup. It was actually insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And did absolutely nobody know? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, well, my mum, I said to everyone when they'd ask, the exact first thing everyone asked us, they go, I won't ask, I won't ask, but did you win? and I said until my mom knows no one's allowed to know and my mom isn't getting to know until she watches it live so it was complete oh my god push oh my god that must have been such an emotional moment with your moms how lovely uh would you say that winning was the best bit for you or was it actually a little bit bittersweet because that meant that the whole adventure was coming to an end 100 % yeah oh man I was so sad like I would have done it again like over and over like I enjoyed so much of it obviously like a lot of the race was like very stressful and like you did have to lost a bit of sleep lost a bit of like a bit hungry here and there but overall I loved it I was very upset come to an end I guess it's like you're in your own bubble especially as you don't have your phones with you I mean how on earth did you adjust to that just first and foremost I can't imagine having my phone being taken away from me what was it like kish well it's it's one of those things where when because everyone said to themselves they're going today i'm just not gonna go on my phone and you always and you always end up being on your phone i think when we got there and they took off their like took them off us at the start like you know before we started they took them off i think that was all the cues are gone now you don't really think about it because it's not even an option and so since not an option i like i really didn't miss it i waited until I got back to Liverpool to didn't even turn it on because I was just like stay off it as long as I can and it was quite funny when I opened it back up I was expecting to have loads of messages I think I had like a couple like emails from Uber and like one or two of me mates being like where have you gone?

9:00So you didn't actually miss it that much? No. Did you actually feel like because you know people always say it's you know ideally a digital detox is really good for like your mental health and for being present did did you actually feel that then when you came back into the real world then you had your phone again like oh actually it was so nice just being free of that i think it benefited us in two ways one it helped us focus on the race because in sometimes if we did use our phone in the race it would have been more of a distraction yeah although when when you're on them long long journeys you do kind of crave there's going on reels or you know chatting to a mate on FaceTime or something.

9:41So how do you pass the time on the long journeys? Anywhere you can. Just chatting? Yeah I mean well I started reading this one book and it started I think not having the phones like I don't think I've read a full book for an embarrassingly long amount of time but then obviously I brought one with me so I read that and since then not having a phone has definitely got me back into like doing a bit more reading and slowing down. What book did you read? So it was The Mind Control Method by Jose Silva. Oh, interesting. So good. Do you recommend? I do, I do. At the end it gets a little bit science-y and tech-y, but I think the first bit absolutely had me hooked.

10:26Whose idea was it to audition, to try out to go on the show in the first place? It was Gushens. Yeah. Yeah. it was just seeing it online whilst on social media and it was just a bit of like a I'd never watched the series but I recognized it because my mum and my younger brothers did and so I was like oh it'd be quite funny to apply to this and when we saw it was just like a fill out this form and make a little video I called Joe and I was like let's just let's just do this because I was leaving for my own travels about less less than a week later it was actually like a few days before and so I was like let's get this done it'd be funny story but then it sort of yeah one thing led to another snowballed and we're in Sicily.

11:07So what did you do on your audition? On the little video? Was it just you guys chatting together? It was so funny. Yeah, honestly, I kind of think Kush being in Thailand kind of benefited the whole interview because we hadn't seen each other in the past, what, month maybe? Something like that. So when we're on the court and we're like, oh, we're almost having a little catch up as well. And Kush being in Thailand on his own, like i missed them a little bit that's just that bit more you know so when when they're talking about these deep questions on what the other person means to each other i think it was slightly emphasized because because we've been separated for quite a bit of time and obviously we i don't think we'd had the time to debrief like we're the type of people to not just call for five minutes and say hello like we need the minimum of an hour to catch up do you know what i mean so i think um yeah the auditions every audition i think we absolutely smashed like i don't think there was one audition where we were unhappy about it yeah and the video was great because it was just before we left and it was like a minute and we couldn't stop laughing it was i think we took about four or five takes to keep a straight face it was only one minute but it goes so slowly when you have to start like well it's the first time we've done it we don't really do vlogging on cameras and so we go hey it's joe and kush from liverpool and then we no no one more time i'm saying hey it's kush and joe no no no and it just took ages it was hilarious don't we love it it was funny yeah and was it then like completely surreal when you got did you get a call to say right you're on the show it's you guys i was funny yesterday yesterday was the year um the year to the date that we found without we going on it we got the call oh my god me little brother reminded me um well you was at home joe yeah i was at home it reminded me about like the process and how and like the calls we'd have and i'd be a lot of the calls i had from from a race across the world i was walking home from college a lot of the time and it just reminded me of all the moments where i'd be speaking to some people from production and i'll be telling them about my day in college but um yeah fast forward fast forward to the end and we did find out i was i was actually in home so i did i was in a space to kind of like celebrate and when i tell you i screamed i ran down the stairs i was like mom mom mom mom i made it and then mom was like screaming it was so good but i think yeah i think coach was in different circumstances.

13:46Yeah. Well, just for a bit of context, Holly, we applied in January. And so it had been, maybe I sat there four months later. And so finding out was such a relief to have done all the interview stages. But I was in work. And so I had to have a very much more mellow reaction to the... You at work at the time. Because you're like, I'm not going to be here much longer. Oh, and because I picked up the phone, I sort of thought, because we'd had so many that were just like checking in and sort of just checking in us. and so this one when they were like congratulations you made the show I was like like suck it up and then me friend he asked me he was like oh what's up with you you're happy and I went oh lovely day guys just a beautiful day just loving life and so then before you set off on the journey I wanted to think about what you guys bring in that big backpack of yours what did you pack that was genius and what did you pack that was completely pointless like what was the biggest win and the biggest fail i think one packing cubes they helped a lot with just with organizing my clothes i'd have like four outfits for example in each one that i could just unzip and then i think they come in insanely handy um i was sleeping with it it was very like simple stuff like proper basic just like needs for survival in general like did you stock up along the way like did you have to go and you know buy stuff as you went or because there was no money like you couldn't really know exactly like the budget the budget was such a big factor the race like we even struggled to like buy souvenirs for the family and fridge magnets and i think at one point we did we found some like 50p translated into fast 50p fridge magnets we managed to buy at some point but um i think the most i think the thing that i i realized that i that's kind of the most useless thing i brought was um i brought this roll up uh backgammon and chess checkers set it was only like it wrapped up into like a small little cylinder and i just put it in a front of me bag but when I tell you we didn't use it once did you not?

15:59nah not on all those best journeys not even at the checkpoints where we were just bored I think at one point we actually did get it out but we didn't even play a game no and how about you Kej? I think one of the the best things I think I bought was the we had this filter water bottle and so we could drink the tap water and that made that was so liberating to be able to to just get a glass of water like you do at home but from anywhere it was it made such the difference and i do highly recommend anyone who goes traveling to bring one of these um they filter straw water bottles and maybe one of the things that was least used i can't like the i think i brought my head torch didn't get much use i'm surprised i thought it would get a lot more but yeah i mean when we got to bed we didn't really get a chance to stay up it was sort of bed and down to go sleep and so there wasn't much time in the dark we were out all day and then sleep through the night but I think one thing I forgot to bring was a hoodie and I wish I did a hoodie yeah yeah well oh my god it looks so cold at the end in Mongolia it looked it was was minus 25 they said was it oh well we I mean I don't know the statistics we didn't have any way to find out yeah they said it on the reunion show when they did a little bit behind the scenes and they said i think that it was minus 25 and so they were all like worried about you guys being oh felt like yeah yeah it was it was so cold especially the night time is ridiculous and then yeah we're yet to actually watch the reunion properly like once we watched the finale it was just celebrating so let's be honest if you have a cat you've probably wondered what your house smells like before guests walk in thankfully arm and hammer cat litter helps take that worry off your plate because not all litters are the same arm and hammer hardball cat litter gives you long lasting odor control plus strong clumps that make scooping quick and easy with low dust too it's a five-in-one litter made for busy people helping your home stay fresher every day so you can feel confident opening the door for family and friends candles air fresheners not needed here odor control is arm and hammer cat litter's job not yours.

18:13Be guest ready with Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. Find it now at Walmart or Amazon. Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad, and I want to let you know that if you want the newest and hottest beauty products, you have to go to Sephora. I'm obsessed with the One Size Liquid Blotting Paper Spray. It's the first of its kind blotting spray that mattifies for up to eight hours. It's unreal. There's also the Summer Friday Shade Drops SPF 50, which basically lives in my bag at this point oh and the k-ally eden plush pear smells so good it's sweet warm and addictive like people literally stop me and ask what perfume i'm wearing which you know i love so if you want the makeup skincare hair and fragrance products everyone's about to be obsessed with shop only at sephora so on the travel diaries we go on a journey normally through the seven chapters of my guests life travel diaries but I'd like to do a little abbreviated format for you guys which is on the show your six travel chapters and we start with chapter one and that is the first place you fell in love with on the race Kush where was the first place that really made you think oh my god I love this place okay okay call me like a quick to fall in love but I think Sorrento when we were sitting even though it was our first actual stop and we literally this first country we'd started it was unbelievably it was just so beautiful I think watching we were out on the coast and Mount Vesuvius was there and looking out onto that view while the sun was coming down was just one of those it put it into realisation we're here, we've started this is what traveling's about you know yeah I mean such a romantic destination isn't it the food the the even the smell of the air like lemons on the trees yeah and the hosts were absolutely so accommodating it was so lovely yeah was that your favorite too Joe you're the first place you fell in love with yeah definitely the first because I think until that moment we've done a lot of traveling on land like on the floor in the city when trains buses and I think once we made it to our first homestay that was the first time we kind of got to got to relax got to we got a little work we got some work done and on top of that like I said the view was insane like like I kind of wish I could just like stick it the front of my memory and then just watch it all day it's actually is actually amazing the view is insane oh yeah such a beautiful place I mean when you're saying you know you got there your first homestay and you did a bit of work and stuff one thing I I've always wondered when I've watched the show is when you make the decision to stop and do some work because you need to earn the money to keep going do you have like a constant underlying feeling of kind of agitation that by stopping you're actually not moving forward is it like do you feel like or can you actually then just relax and be like right now we're working and then we'll move forward I think personally it was a case of it was quite upsetting because once you arrive somewhere you're already thinking of how you can leave and for me you never really got to settle because it's like yeah like honestly on your way in you're you're looking around the train or the or the bus through the windows to be like what can i see to help me leave or you're thinking you know how did we get here and what it's it is kind of unstopped because you are obviously there to race and i think me and joe agreed that if there's anywhere particularly we loved we could always just go back to it and so even while we stopped it was a case of we're here to race not here to enjoy and we can come back and enjoy whenever we want what was the place on the race that you had that conversation about where would you want to come back definitely oh so much and oh that's a very good question i think i think most of the countries you visited we we were happy to come back to but for me um we only spent a short amount of time in this country but georgia in uh tbilisi i think i think like just like the environment the the fact that It had a lot of youth.

22:43It had a lot of young people in, which I really liked. It was like a city. It was like a sunny city. It was just really nice, peaceful. And I think there's one standout of why I want to go back so bad. There was this one burger shop. Oh, my God. The best burgers I've ever had in my life. Every single burger on the menu was 10-10-10s. Oh, my God. so I think typically see is a somewhere I'd definitely go back to what about you Kush I was literally funnily enough I was I think same place I think it's one of those we didn't get much time to him to go around but Georgia was so beautiful for what we did see what's the landscape like there oh my god it's like it's like half city half mountains like it's it's like it's like a city like enclosed within a mountain range and then the weather's always beautiful like blue skies like oh man i just love the journey in uh when we drove because we got the um we got a bus to the border from um from cars i stay in northern turkey and then when we drove through into into tbilisi from the border it was a it was that time of year when all the leaves orange there's so it's orangey yellow couple green like leaves and like joe saying it's sort of etched on the hills and it was just the most phenomenal view and once you get to tbilisi it's got the old town and the new town and we spent most of our time in the old town and so it genuinely felt like even though i think it's on the side of asia it's got the most european like romantic feel to it it's phenomenal and i've got the wine of course and the culture and the burger yeah Yeah, and the burger shop.

24:31And the burger shop. And now there are some, you know, there are a lot more direct flights from the UK. They kind of launched in the last couple of years. I think BA go direct there now, so it's easier to visit as well. So interesting, yeah. I'd be myself, I'd love to go. You should. Well, let's move on to chapter two, guys. And that is the place where you learnt the most about yourselves. Kush, maybe we start with you on this one. okay i think one place was probably kyrgyzstan uh i think i struggled really tough well kind of uzbekistan and kyrgyzstan i really struggled on like six to kind of get not so overwhelmed by the race as a concept and things sort of on the day we left checkpoint his arm and they weren't really going to plan and i really had a tough time i think it was one of the hardest days for me on the journey as a whole and from then I think I definitely learned that this is this is probably when Joe being there made like the biggest impact of on my on my sort of like mental state but it also did that sort of hard times will teach you how to sort of deal with times I think a little bit differently and for me well it helped afterwards a little bit to just kind of I don't I wasn't as I don't think after that point I got as worked up because I sort of tried to be like this is getting silly now yeah Joe what was it like being beside Kush when he was feeling like that I feel like it wasn't much like it felt quite natural and normal like like we we all experience emotions in such extreme ways and obviously in the race is slightly emphasized but because we've been in each other's lives for so long we've we've literally witnessed and and experienced our like our highest highs and our lowest lows so yeah it's it's kind of no surprise like especially like when we are in a very negative state and we're not feeling too good it's not really too much of a surprise it's just like it's not a new for us do you know what so I guess do you know what that do you know what I took away from watching that is like how lucky you guys are to have your friendship you know and I really feel as though you know a lot of people don't have a best friend like that where you you where you're just so at ease with each other to share the highs and the lows and be completely open and it I have a lot of people kind of commented on that about how lovely it is to see that kind of level of closeness between you guys yeah loads i mean we're the new ants in deck apparently i mean yeah that's probably one of the biggest things that we've both been reached out about is the fact that i guess it's um our i guess emotional interactions we have with each other and we're so i mean to us it's quite funny because this is like joe's saying this is the normal it has been since we've been friends god over a decade ago and so for us it was just like we just started being ourselves but obviously to everyone else it kind of is is i guess it's a different outlook compared to you know the manosphere ideas and and relationships that two friends can have with each other and sort of like i said we're just so fortunate to be able to to show that off that we are such good friends yeah that brotherhood exactly yeah and and I found one of the moments of the season that kind of really got to me was when you were in Mongolia watching the the throat singing and that that was a really like first of all I thought that you guys found it kind of funny and then I realized that actually you found it really like moving I think I think uh the stands originally shocked us when we got to mongolia i i it just blown us away even more i don't think we could uh we didn't know what to expect when it comes to mongolia but it's like a different planet but like in the best way i think when we heard the throat singing we did not expect it at all we didn't like there wasn't planned it wasn't staged the guy literally got that got on the mic just singing normally and then just come out with the throat singing and we were both like oh oh like like it was it was mad like how do i say i can't really put into words like you just have to sit and just genuinely appreciate the moment and i've never actually heard mongolian throat singing how do they do it like what actually how do they make like do you know i had to go and like try and figure out how to do it when i got back when i finally got google again so apparently you use your tongue to like you block off the top that could connect your tongue to the back of your upper level of teeth and it creates a sort of like pocket and the sound resonates between that pocket from your tongue and the back of your mouth back and forth and then escapes through the sides of your tongue back here in your cheeks and that's what makes the resonation in the high whistle oh whoa have you did you have any success trying to do it yourself Okay, it's very, listen, I can't depend on the day.

29:55It's nice. It's actually very good. You know, you can hear, like, you can hear both of the notes at the same time. And like I said, on a good day, you can control both tones simultaneously. It's insane. So cool. It's impressive. You could control it, Kesh. Yes. I don't want to put you on the spot. Can you give it a go? Oh, my God. I don't know now. Wait. If it doesn't work, then don't worry. no i got it it's too funny i'm gonna be coming back to you and see if you can do it yeah give me a few give me a few weeks and i'll come back to you with a bit of practice i imagine a lot of people are going online now and they're going to be looking up how to do it themselves so maybe you'll create like a tiktok trend who knows i'll put it in my next song yeah that's actually a show so you're musicians both of you as well right so i guess you had quite did you have some really alongside that some other like powerful kind of cultural moments where the where your love for music uh kind of shone through oh oh yeah you've just sparked a memory then when we were in a valentina's um lemon farm in italy there was um i think it's the first time we actually heard live music but Valentina if you didn't know is an amazing cello player and because she hosts this hostel like slash shop slash farm she has like multiple businesses we loads of the people from the hostel um after after our dinner we all sat down and she rips up the cello and starts just like making this like beautiful music and um it was so amazing to hear and i think that was the first time we heard like music like live that was great it was really like nice to appreciate what i thought kind of throughout watching um not just with you guys but with with all the contestants is that a lot of them had these experiences where their hosts or were like very uninhibited with their performing whether that was you know like just suddenly like breaking out into song you know and like we're quite a repressed culture aren't we our spritz like we don't you know that's just not our vibe just break out into something i thought it was quite nice how everyone seemed to be especially as a journey went on like very free and like kind of you get you get into it very liberating i imagine it was so nice yeah i agree i mean when we were staying in kazakhstan in kazalda with the wrestling family they were showing us their wrestling their son actually played a it was a sort of Kazakhstan like regional instruments and so that was another musical moment where we got to see it but I think it was so it was it was so fun and I think it's definitely more appreciated than I would think I mean if someone came to my house and I started playing music I don't think in my head I'd be a bit too like oh no they don't want to hear that but maybe after that we'll be a bit more open to it showing off our you know a bit of entertainment for the guests yeah exactly yeah yeah you know um kazakhstan has come up a couple of times on the podcast recently i had niall rogers and eve eve on as guests both musicians obviously and both of them chose kazakhstan as their hidden gems wow um and and it hadn't come up ever before so like it was really interesting to see you guys there um what did you what did you think of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan oh my god it's just it's like Mars it's just like flat desert honestly I think the people make the country like the kindness of these people like is like like insane especially with them and we stayed with them I forgot his name Bexat yeah we stayed with Bexat and his family he was so welcoming he was so like hospitable and as he just made us feel very welcome not not just to his home but i think to the country in general and he set a very good example of kazakhstan people so when we got arrived in kazakhstan we took that train that was you know it was how many i can't remember it was like 29 hours or something silly on that train journey we were going oh i can't wait to look out the window get all the views the entire time it had stayed dead pan flat it was insane it's kind of like a recurring joke where we'd be like let's check let's check the window see if anything's changed no keep going um just pure wilderness just insane but i think as we did get towards uh like when we got to almati um on the next leg we saw there was a lot more um sort of variation to the landscape it was absolutely stunning uh the surrounding of this of the city all right so yeah it was the train journey in particular that was like a bit monotonous yeah yes was it was it fun though even Even though there wasn't that much to the outside.

34:49Oh, I enjoyed every moment of it. I think it was honestly one of the highlights of the race. One, continuing to move. So a lot of the stresses of the race was lifted off our shoulders and recovering so much distance. But also, just the fact that we were never bored. And again, go back to your first question about travelling without our phones. it almost felt like the journeys and the whole trip in general felt a lot quicker if that makes sense yeah which doesn't really make sense because surely you think oh like i'm bored let me kill some time to make it seem like this journey's quicker if that makes sense yeah yeah it actually doesn't like the whole journey i didn't the whole especially the the the train i didn't crave going on my phone once and I think I just enjoyed every moment of it.

35:42And the people there, it was like a little village, wasn't it? The whole train, it was almost like, because obviously everyone's there for so long, people really do start to sort of socialise and have a laugh and you saw like Mark and Margot, they had an absolute blast, at least Margot did get into the local drinks. But it was like that the whole time, we stayed in, we had to switch rooms halfway through and the first pair we had in our little cabin was the board game player that Joe, went against and it's a lovely gentleman and then we switched and it had this older man and the old woman who was who was feeding us and I think those experiences were like that that was such a nice insight into the people and getting to know the people of Kazakhstan yeah yeah when you go on these like long journeys I mean you know I always say I'd love to go to australia but you know the flight is like 20 hours like i just don't 22 hours don't think i could could hack it and then when you watch race across the world it's like back right getting on an 11 hour bus then we're getting on a 15 hour train like when you see how long the journeys are did you ever get like a feeling or something like oh my god how are we gonna do that now do you just kind of get into a different frame of mind would you say the i the longer the better really like like the longer you're traveling for, the less stress it causes you on the race to find a new transport.

37:09But also, I don't know, it's just, you've got a lot of time to chill. And I think any motor, like once you get on a motor transport, so much of, like there's such a relief you feel. Like once you get that ticket, once you get on the motor transport, it's like you can relax. And the longer, the better. So honestly, we couldn't complain. Isn't it? however I'm gonna contest that slightly which is I think that was a very really that was a really nice bit of long travel and it was so lovely to to be on that train but I've also personally done I did a 13-hour train in Thailand and that was like a bench and it was full to the brim and it was freezing at night and boiling in the day and that was not an enjoyable length of travel so I think it does depend maybe on on how you're getting about 100 % 100 % well our next chapter guys is chapter three and this is the big question your all-time favorite destination from the route I'll start with you Kush where is the the big one it's it's such a hard one because each there's so many like favorable things you can take off from each place like for example I think the best food was probably in Naples when we we had the Napoli pizza and it was unreal Neapolitan pizza from the source but then I think when we stayed in the walnut farm in Kyrgyzstan that had the best views and we really felt like we were out in the sticks like the it was sort of it was a difference to all the other places obviously the landscape changes loads but we were in the forests and there was like just just the wildlife was so different to what we'd seen and so that was also one of the uh the highlights I think and how about you Jay I'm just saying there's like there's there's so many different like qualities of a country that stands out but if i could if i could name one i think kirk is on again like but i'm gonna go uh back to the the taxi ride before we got to the oh the the border not far from bishkek yeah that it was about a seven hour taxi journey right from where to where it was uh we are walnut farm it was that jalalabad and then oh in kirkustan yeah yeah well i remembered and um that like you just couldn't stop looking out the window like you just had to take in everything you could the view like it was just mountains with like it wasn't fully oh yeah and then it's just like green mountains right and then at one point you instantly snow like snow everywhere and i think i think we really appreciated the drive because the taxi taxi driver kept stopping every couple hours and we'd stop we'd take some pictures taking the views but once we made it to the snow we just having snowball fights and it was just so fun and the guy was very kind and we actually had signal and he let us uh he let us play some music on the orcs so we introduced him some scouse raps some um some i'm a piano we were like dancing at one point we were trying to get him to dance with us like I think that like the whole journey I can't like like you just what you just didn't want to sleep you wanted to take in everything you could yeah and it's also like not a destination that's on the tourist trail really for us in the UK is it so like to get to see those kind of wild landscapes you know that you're like one of very very few people that get to see them too yeah I mean as the show pointed out to 80 % mountains apparently and that it shows and we don't have I guess there's not I don't think there's too many well there's not many countries in the world that are quite built in that that way and so like you're saying to be able to experience that was such a nice experience it was phenomenal yeah yeah well I mean talk about hidden gems chapter four is your hidden gem so a place that you love that my listeners wouldn't know that much about maybe if we were kind of to hone in a little bit more on a specific city or even like a home say is there one that stands out maybe collectively for you both what do you think joe um for me a standout moment was a when we made it to mongolia and we stayed with the family in the gear i mean that was definitely i think it's like like just experiencing how people live on a day to day inside of a girl was quite it's quite inspiring absolutely that was definitely a for people who haven't watched that episode what is it like what's a girl and what's it like inside it's like it is like a whole house in one uh i think there's definitely pros and cons to living in a girl compared to a conventional western house that we live in i loved the the sense of like it was very communal space um everything was so well organized and in a way that was useful they didn't obviously you can't really waste much space and I also just love the decoration it looks so cute and it's it's really warm surprisingly warm when they've got that little fire going but obviously the other side of it is that um you know there's not anywhere to to have I guess like a bit of privacy uh the toilets uh sort of them squat drop uh ones and I thought that I think the one that we stayed didn't actually have like running water and so that was something else I think I'd struggle with what was your most challenging toilet situation that's such a tough one i think i think i think when we realized um what what we what we applied for when we went to turkey a lot of the turkeys were essentially i don't know the name of them like but imagine a toilet but flat so it still had like the the marble like but it was just flat so you did have to literally squat and drop type thing but well what i think what i did appreciate with all of the countries that did have like just a hole in the ground they always had a bucket of water which i do appreciate so but yeah i think yeah turkish when we first got introduced to it and mongolia was like like the thick of it oh my god it was literally like two wooden planks and then like a slit down the middle.

43:33Do you know what's the worst part about the Mongolian though? It was so cold that when you'd have to pull your pants down, you were genuinely against the clock not to freeze. It was so cold. Pea-freeing visit. I'm telling you, it was genuinely like, yeah. I suppose. In and out. You know, I was chatting to somebody at Booking.com a couple of days ago, had a meeting with them and they said um that i said well what are your kind of travel trends at the moment and she said well because of race across the world our searches for mongola have gone through the roof oh wow oh really that was amazing yeah oh that's amazing i'm not surprised i'm not surprised honestly ula mbatar it's it's a heavy place it's so it's like if you look at for like more of the city side i think ula mbatar is like definitely a place for you like you've got a bit of everything the bar that we worked in like it is it was pretty much the same as any other bar you can think of in the uk except it's mongolian you know it's phenomenal yeah surrounded by broader like complete wilderness and i thought it was amazing how many of the scenes there where behind you were just like massive peaks like oh my god like wherever you were i think the maddest thing for me i found of the landscape was how So when you image like a desert, you think there's beaming sun, it's hot.

44:56And it was, it was dry, it was arid, and it was sunny, but it was also icy cold. And so my man was in kind of two going, why is it so cold? But I'm imagining a hot, like I'm seeing a hot place, but it's freezing cold. Yeah. It was really weird. Let's be honest. If you have a cat, you've probably wondered what your house smells like before guests walk in. Thankfully, Arm & Hammer Cat Litter helps take that worry off your plate. Because not all litters are the same. Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter gives you long-lasting odor control, plus strong clumps that make scooping quick and easy with low dust too.

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46:33Yeah. Well, our penultimate chapter, guys, is chapter five. And that was your worst travel experience. which was the bit that you would never want to repeat oh i know i would not want to drink i do i did not like the i okay the whatever milk fermented fizzy milk we drank at that circumcision party in kazakhstan listen i loved i love everyone about kazakhstan except for the milk i think it's it's horrendous it didn't my stomach was not the same for the for the next few days i can understand that yeah do you know what i mean but you were brave to drink it you know i was just curious because everyone was drinking it like there was no tomorrow like joe joe was serving all the drinks and everyone had wine glasses and we're pouring this mug and i was like i'm curious and so i asked for a little sip and it was it was fizzy it was fizzy um i think it was probably unpasteurized because it was bitter and just oh it was just horrendous i can't even explain it without feeling nauseous it was mad it was mad how about you jay i think it's more of a lighter lighter scenario but i think we were stuck at a border and i this was the first time we hadn't eaten in over 24 hours oh and we didn't have we couldn't access any food or any shops because we were like in the middle we wasn't even in the country so yeah there was there was no possibility of us getting food or drinks um that's really that is really yeah people don't think about that like the amount because i guess like there's not that much airtime given to it like you trying to like work out how to spend your money on food like how much to eat or what not to eat like like were you hungry a lot of the time yeah yeah i mean i've got a big appetite as well so it just didn't it just didn't work well i i realized that when you said that you tried multiple burgers at the burger place bread got us through bread i was gonna say like what is the thing that like you're just trying to and you just keep it in your bags yeah like the longer journeys a lot of dry biscuits oh my god I can't so much biscuit and did either of you get sick at all or were you alright no actually not too bad no I think at one point I think at one point we were in we were in one of the checkpoints and it said in the checkpoint oh enjoy your spring water or something like that oh sick next minute no no don't Tbilisi said it's such a reservoir rich reservoir rich country that the country of Georgia and it was like and Tbilisi has fresh drinking water so I think they said like enjoy your tap water and me and Joe were like oh Simon so we put our water bottles down and grabbed a regular glass and I think we both learned the mistakes of drinking tap water thank god we're in checkpoint though oh my god so you can recover yeah what was your favorite checkpoint hotel because they were all so cool.

49:42Such a tough question. Oh, my God. Oh, no, this is a very tough question. I think checkpoints were definitely a highlight. One of my favourites was definitely actually in Foscado because obviously it was new to us. And so being treated in that sort of like being in a bed and the shower and everything after obviously being on leg, it was the first time. The scale had really been outlined to us. But then post the excitement of the first checkpoints, there was in uh clarkerin we had a this girl type our own little room but as you went downstairs it had like a hot tub and it had this lovely shower it was like we let felt like royalty it was amazing such a contrast on leg as well from squat drop toilets to jacuzzi can you imagine like our brains were like where are we amazing um and have you stayed in touch with any of the other competitors all of them yeah have you literally got back from um pbc big weekend and all of us got together bless andrew is working but all nine of us managed to make it out which is it was probably sick oh that's so so nice and uh what are you going to be spending your winnings on do you do you think or have you spent it yet not yet well for me i put it all straight into savings until I have a better idea of how to manage it but I'm definitely gonna buy my little brother and myself some new basketball shoes spend I think me and my mum are spending next weekend together so I'm definitely gonna spend a load of money on her I think the rest I'm gonna put into an ISA towards a house I think it'll definitely give us a head start for getting on a property uh forget it yeah get a property yeah that's so nice and how about you kish for now actually i haven't really dipped into it yet but i definitely owe some younger brothers burger and milkshake um how many brothers you have i've got three brothers no sisters so it's my poor mum and she's she says her girlies are the dog and so yeah um but yeah they definitely all deserve a meal and then like joe said i mean i'm looking to hopefully invest into my future i need to get a i need to get one of those ssd cards so i can do more recording and get some more storage because i want to try and make a bit of content but it's also expensive or technology yeah it's true yeah um that's a really good idea guys i mean i have no doubt that you're going to both have amazing features in travel if you want them on tv if you want them so thank you we'll watch this space well our final chapter guys is chapter six and that is the destination that's at the top of your travel bucket list now where do you want to travel next yeah for me south america um we landed in costa rica in just over three weeks now and uh oh i can't wait we're going oh wow that's so exciting i think rio is definitely going to be a highlight of brazil the that oh man colombia so you're traveling around south america coming up yeah epic yeah i cannot always and are you going with kush or no no actually i'm going with my colombian friends so we won't have to worry about um language barriers which would be very very handy how about you kush so i've i'm half indian but i've not actually been well i went to sort of with punjab's the region i went there when i was like two so i can't remember it that's my one of my um travel destinations is i would like to take my brother we're thinking of flying into Kathmandu in Nepal and then um doing Nepal traveling down through Punjab seeing central India and then finishing down in Sri Lanka but we need to actually get around to booking it because he's in college at the moment um and so we need to find a time where we've got a few months to uh to do this together but that's that's like in my sights well i hope you get there very soon no doubt that you will and that sounds like an incredible itinerary both of you guys how amazing that you've got this cool travel coming up well listen thank you so much for sharing your race across the world travel diaries with us it's been such a pleasure thank you so much for having us we've had a blast oh thank you yes i love podcasts so cool

54:08oh what lovely guys thank you so much joe and kush for joining me on the podcast wishing you guys all the best and of course go and follow them on Instagram and TikTok I'll be back next week with my season finale really looking forward to that one to find out who's joining me next week come and follow me on Instagram I'm at Holly Rubenstein you'll also find me on TikTok at Holly Rubenstein as well in the meantime have a fabulous week and safe travels

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55:21Be guest ready with Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. Find it now at Walmart or Amazon.