The Hairy Bikers - From the archives

0:05Hello and welcome back to the Travel Diaries podcast. I'm your host Holly Rubenstein and here each week I'll be speaking to a very special guest about the seven chapters in their life's travel diaries. From the first place that they fell in love with to their all-time favourite destination, their worst travel experience to what's at the top of their travel bucket list, we'll be uncovering their adventures around the world and the travel experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives. So while I am on a little bit of maternity leave, I thought this would be a great opportunity to go back through the podcast archive and resurface some of my favourite conversations.

0:50And this one today is with the brilliant hairy bikers, Psy King and the late Dave Myers. we actually recorded this episode while Dave was in the middle of undergoing cancer treatment and even then his warmth and humor and zest for life really you'll hear just shone through and it was an episode where it was everything you'd hoped for full of laughter full of amazing stories they're so well traveled and that kind of warmth and friendship that made them such a beloved duo and I just feel like it is really special to share this chat again and is such a joyful reminder of their adventures and the huge heart that they brought to the world as a duo and I hope you enjoy revisiting it as much as I have.

1:46sigh dave the hairy bikers welcome to the travel diaries podcast it is amazing to see you both oh it's lovely to be here yeah thank you for having us holly thank you it's my my pleasure i'm so happy that we're going to be going on a journey today through the seven chapters of your life's travel diaries my first duo on the podcast so we'll start off with chapter one with your earliest childhood travel memory separately but then because there's so much to cover and you guys have covered so much grant collectively as the hairy bikers then we'll kind of get your answers as a as a unit I would say but let's let's go back to the very beginning maybe start with you Si what is the earliest childhood travel memory that comes to mind when you cast your mind back Well, relatively local was for me.

2:37The family spiritual home, much as it is for a lot of people, is Bamboura Beach and Bamboura Castle and that beach. So it was local travel because an hour and a half in a car, or two hours actually it used to take then, in a car from where we lived up to Bamboura was a big trip. And I think I was only about four. and um and it was it was just that that travel up to this expanse of sea and sand and castles and dunes and and my dad would always have this um a gas burner in the back of the boot where we'd make and it didn't matter when holly or what the weather was doing you just we we used to have cowboy breakfasts in the boot and i mean there were some occasions it was actually snowing and we were on Bamboura Beach so that's my that's my very first my very very first travel memory of going somewhere completely different to where we lived and does that still have a special place in your heart now like when you go back to that area oh goodness gracious great yeah yeah very much so very much so it's a very special place very special place I love it there's too many people on on the beach now like there may be about 30 but it's uh yeah it's no it's a very special place very special place and dave have you been there with si oh yeah we've been there we've filmed there but we've been there you know where we met years ago only 30 years ago we used to go up to you know seahouses fishing chips and stop at bamburgh beach on the way back way before the bikers just as mates and it's a wonderful beach amazing you know and it's it's dominated by the most wonderful castle you know it's like it's the castle that a child would draw and we were lucky enough in go north uh last year to actually stay at the castle that looked amazing didn't it well the i think what was funny is because the it was just the two of us staying in there so once the crew's gone home you've got kind of got the leftover food or whatever's in the fridge and uh true on true form kingy escaped from the castle that literally was like an escape over the fence on the bikes and come back with two parcels of absolutely blisteringly fabulous fish and chips and a bottle of whiskey and um so we were the kings of the castle that night um yeah it was it was good we still got that buzz you know yeah and that that show just shows you what's on your doorstep doesn't it you know helps us really appreciate the beauty that we've got around us oh for sure and after half a bottle of whiskey each yeah you're anybody's king of anybody's castle so whoever's castle was close we would have been in it so how about you dave what's your earliest childhood travel memory that that comes to mind well my dad retired he was quite old when he had me so retired when i was eight years old and when you retire you get your pension but you get what they used to call a lumper, which is a body of money.

5:38So he took me off to the TT races in 1966 because he was a biker all his life. He'd always dreamed of going. And my mum came too. She thought she was going to a nice hotel in the Isle of Man. She didn't realise that there was a few motorbikes there. But it was just paradise. We stayed at a nice hotel. It was a Metropole in Douglas, which is no longer there, which was a four-star hotel to a kid from a you know a red brick in barrowing furnace it was a whole new world like the food there was a bear leaf on my braising steak and I told my mum somebody's put privet on me steak um however it was it was delicious you know and we went and watched the bikes and it was a time when the the British bikes were still competing but the Japanese bikes had suddenly started to race and the Yamahas used to scream and make a noise that It was otherworldly.

6:34And I can remember that, the excitement. Did that instill the love of biking as well? I mean, was that one of the main catalysts for you getting involved in it later on? I kind of had that before, really. Yeah, it was in you already. Yeah, it was already there because my dad was one of those people. He'd never, ever had a car. He'd assumed he could never afford one. So he just had a motorbike. And, you know, maybe, you know, he took my mum shopping on the back of the motorbike. She had two shopping bags hanging over the edge. but no for bikes it was astonishing to see these guys race and the whole atmosphere of the Isle of Man and again that's something that Si and I have done privately and relived it you know we've both been back to the Isle of Man quite a lot haven't we Kingy?

7:16Yeah we have look it's a great place great people and you know and the food because over the years we've got to know a few of the residents of the Isle of Man and it's No, it's a great place. And it's exciting. When the TT's on, there is nothing quite like it. I've never been there. What does it look like? I have to say, it's rather like, I don't know whether you would agree with this, Dave, but my assessment is that it's rather like an extension of the Lake District. Yeah, it is. It's like, I was born and brought up in Barrowing Furnace. You know, I'm on the West Coast. And I used to sit on the beach and look over in the distance on a clear day you could see the isle of man it's a bit like the lakes it's it's very old-fashioned uh it's quite quaint um it's small it's got its own customs and quirks um actually quirks because quirks is one of the local names um but it but it really is it's got a lot of folklore and legend and viking heritage um and i say two weeks a year that it goes mad with the bikes but that's my earliest childhood memory really and um you know everything I could possibly want from a holiday and ice cream and a beach yeah exactly perfect perfect British seaside holiday yeah and and then moving on to the formation of the hairy bikers this is just before we get on to chapter two it's just such an amazing story I actually had no idea that you guys had completely different careers for a significant period of your lives before you you became the hairy biker so can you tell me a little bit about that I mean Dave maybe starting with you because actually your previous career was really surprising to me can you tell me a bit about what you were doing beforehand well I was art school then I joined the BBC as a trainee and I was a training makeup artist I joined in 1980 and I was a professional makeup artist in prosthetics you know doing special effects for 23 years um yeah I always say we've been nominated for two RTS awards as the hairy bikers and I got nominated for two RTS awards as a makeup artist I wasn't known but you know I was you know I was doing all right I used to film all over the world and you know I was just working quite hard really and how did you how did you decide that that was your career path was it was it your artistic background that gave you that talent No, I was desperate.

9:50I was working as a car park attendant in Victoria, sitting in my booth, and I saw an advert in the Guardian Creative and Media, and they were advertised for trainee makeup artists. You know, just in the... And so I applied, along with 3 ,000 others, and they took nine of us on. Somebody had the idea at the BBC that they could train fine artists to do makeup and hair, but they couldn't teach hairdressers to be creative, which, of course, was a lot of nonsense. So they took these nine fine artists, which I was one of them. I was the first male makeup artist at Television Centre in London. I didn't know it.

10:24I'd seen Hollywood films and I'd seen the West Moors and all the Hollywood dynasties and the blokes' names come up. I thought, that'd be a hoot, you know, and then you end up on Doctor Who making monsters back in the day. So, yeah, no, it had its perks. And you met on a TV set? Yes, yeah, we did. In 1992 on a Catherine Cookson drama called The Gambling Man. with um uh you know there were big deals in those days you know and and a huge amount of people watched them so you were it certainly in television terms i mean there were other amazing programs but the but the katherine cookson dramas were incredibly popular i mean millions and millions and millions of people tuned into that period drama as soon as it hit the as soon as it hit um uh you know terrestrial tv which in those days really was mostly all we had anyway so it was yeah they were enormously popular so we were we were at the um you know we were at the top end of of making period drama at that point and Dave and I met in a pub over a curry drinking beer um because I was you were one of the directors I was I was one of the assistant directors and and as an ad as and particularly their second ad dave and i our roles were we worked always very closely together so you would work very closely with the heads of department and uh and i remember and i just thought and you always kind of slightly tentative towards the makeup artist because their jobs are it's incredibly difficult that that you know you they really do they're really skilled and you always, because you used to get some that were pretty precious and slightly history on it.

12:11So it's just, and Dave kind of walked up and went, right, Kingy, it's 45 minutes for a woman with a wig. It's 35 minutes. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's an hour and 15 for a woman with a wig. That's typical of an AD. An hour without a wig. And then with facial hair is half an hour. And then without facial hair is 15 minutes. There you go. And this is the role. So I'm trying to shave time off. He's going, no, that's it. Look, that is it. And he was just, and there was never, ever on any of Dave's shows at any point an artist that was late because if you plan for it, you can deliver it. And his timings were always realistic.

12:56So literally we had the calls done in about 45 minutes and then drank beer and made curry for the rest of the time. Went back to the pub, yeah. Went back to the pub, talked about motorcycles, Let's talk about travel and life, the universe and everything else. It was lovely. Yeah, and then you invited me around for Sunday lunch and you did a leg of lamb that was truly fabulous. And I thought, oh, he can cook as well. And he sold me a motorbike the same day. So I went with a full belly, very, very happy. I'd met the family and I bought a motorbike off him. And the motorbike wasn't quite as successful as his leg of lamb.

13:27In fact, I was kind of robbed blind, really. Gloss over that, maybe. And then so from there, you guys became great friends. But, you know, how did you suddenly become TV stars? Well, we're still trying to work that out, Holly, if we're honest. We, yeah, it took us about three years to get the idea off the ground, really. And we, you know, between the two of us, we kind of knocked ideas backwards and forwards. but I mean Dave's way better at explaining the first title that we had for the Hairy Bikers which was because you forgot it yeah yeah it was it was called Motorcycles Food and the Search for Nirvana which is not the snappiest title yeah which is probably why I forgot it but it sums up exactly kind of what you achieving from then all the way through to now yeah it it does it it does pretty much yeah because the you know we didn't we never set out to make it make a a food program at all no the the most the the drive and the narrative was always about dave and i just being conduits of of of people's stories which again as you say holly has continued through the bikers whatever we do and we we we likened it to a washing line so the journey would be the washing line and your washing would be the bits that you'd hang on that line that you couldn't ride past during the times that Dave and I were out there recceeing and researching and we came up with some mad things in the beginning because we did it all, didn't we Dave?

15:13We did it all. Well, Portugal was the first programme. Nobody ever seemed to go to Portugal but we found two facts that were either end of the washing line. One was there's a man called Igas Moniz outside of Lisbon. in 1938 or somewhere like that. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for perfecting the art of the lobotomy. But he used to do it with an ice pick. Oh, my gosh. His home is this museum that's a shrine to primitive neurosurgery. And there's a chair there full of bullet holes where one of his patients came back and shot him. So I thought, we'll go there. And then we found these web-footed poodles down in the Algarve that the Romans introduced.

15:49And the fishermen used them like sheepdogs to shepherd fish into the nets. so with those two facts we kind of we were off but that program went out and then we got offered basically two series and we went wherever we wanted in the world we picked a thousand mile motorbike ride somewhere in the world we'd always wanted to go and we did it how cool is that the world was your oyster it literally was yes and he ate a few yes it did and i think that's it just exactly touched on that that that we we always wanted to go to places that were not ordinarily just because of the characters and personalities dave and i are that was kind of on the edge of people's radar that kind of knew about them but didn't really know that much about them and wouldn't kind of think about holiday i mean you know do you know what i mean holly i do because we talk about hidden gems later on and i guess these are kind of like hidden gems or yeah places that are slightly off the beaten track yeah and it's it's just it's just that really that was And that's never left us either.

16:51So let's pause there and begin with chapter two. And that is the first place that you guys both fell in love with. So many. Wow. Do you think it would be Namibia? I think it has to be, mate. Yeah, I was just thinking that. Yeah, that was just mind-blowing, wasn't it? Yeah, because Namibia wouldn't be... If we were going to do a food programme, we wouldn't go to Namibia, would we? No, there was nobody there. You know, because it's the most deserted place on the planet. but it is the most spectacular spectacular country i'd filmed in south africa and i i loved it you know it was it was great out of cape town and up in the great karu and everybody said if you like this you should go to namibia and so when we were doing our list you fancy namibia we go in the kalahari desert and in those days i used to fly microlights so we flew ourselves as well across the kalahari desert we soon realized though after about three days that we're going to die if we carry on so we dropped the flying and stuck to the bikes but but we set out on this trip going north up the skeleton coast in in namibia cross-country almost to the angolan border it was the most ridiculously ambitious trip but as two fellas you know to have let off the leash in mess and crater Kingy that night we were 100 miles from the nearest living person the crater was 35 miles across we were camped in the middle of that and just literally you know with our heads outside the tent looking at the stars and listening to big you know listening to the movement of the wildlife and and and what moves in Namibia at that time of night and then you'd have like you'd have long-eared desert fox and you'd have you could hear rhino going and munching on on myr bushes and and then it was literally as you were lying there you had the brandtburg mountain that was the only really massive landmark you could see and can remember that day of when it was sunset it would go bright red and this and the sun would sink behind it and then it was like it was rather like um somebody pulling a dark duvet and as it got darker it just lit up over your head you know this massive duvet over your head and as as it got darker it just lit up and that was the the really the first time that um i david always talked about it but for me it was the first time i'd i'd i'd seen our galaxy i'd seen the milky way so unpolluted just this massive sky a massive sky because there was no light pollution at all and that image lying there with me best mate has will just will will stay with has stayed with me ever since it it's just it's it's it's rather like a bit of a safe space in my head that image it's it was amazing but because we did everything all the research each episode we're about two months in Namibia yeah although we're only yeah we're only filming for like 10 days so you've got to know these countries so well yeah well we went out there to do the records and obviously you don't head off in namibia on your own you need local guides and local knowledge and so i think for that record trip we were three weeks under canvas yeah and um we kept saying to the guide paul paul van der plug was saying paul we need to see some people you know we've got to interact with the locals and he's going yes but there aren't any it's just you know it's the local tribes people so we need to find someone you know it can't be just us two cooking sausages over the campfire you know but um i mean it was full of superlatives i mean even like you know i suppose the nearest we'd come to insect life had been staying at cheap hotels and the odd beetle cockroach coming around this one was you know in the morning checking you under your sleeping bag for scorpions and and actually when you're riding you used to dried up riverbeds as you know to ride the motorbikes down and one of the rules were that elephants have the right of way you know if you see elephants you wait till they're finished because you mustn't disturb them so how mad was it to get your head around that uh uh it's just so as a first trip together you know we kept looking each other's going i can't believe this mate and we saw you know we saw giraffes in their natural environment and kudu and zebra and springbok and the flora and fauna was was just and was just in the euphobia bushes and the history behind the euphobia bushes so during the boer war that the dutch would um the the the english soldiers would hide behind these bushes but if you hid behind the bushes you were dead because what happened was that the the dutch knew that if you just they were so poisonous that if you just fired at the bushes you'd be sprayed and you'd be either blind and well you'd be blind and dead in a matter of hours so you know there was all of those amazing pieces of social history that captured david and i's imagination and kind of shaped the narrative of those countries because the bikers is just as much about social history and its people of that particular country than it is about just the travel because i we've always looked upon it as those things being indivisible because the the people are defined by by the geography of the place in which they live and the cultures that that geography and topography create so it was always indivisible for us all of that and fascinating by the very nature of the men that we are.

22:39Yeah, so do you remember there was a rhinoceros mitten, a rhinoceros' toilet, and you said, smell this. And the rhinoceros poo, as it were, was so nice because they'd been eating myrrh and tobacco. And it was just like a man's cologne. I was going to say, it sounds like a Penn Halligan's fragrance. It did, it did. It's exactly what it was. Rhino poo built for bikers. sounds like a real um like really evocative in terms of how it assaulted your senses the light the the sense the space it's really sounds like a really powerful no wonder it's really sat with you as a place that you you think about even now even though it was one of your first trips oh i nearly nearly killed us didn't it yeah i mean oh yeah well we took off more than we could chew we'd never ridden off road before and of course we we got free bikes you know we've got offered these vmw 1200s which are completely inappropriate for the landscape they were too big and they came and they had road tires on so we'd row off into the desert and fell off oh the tires we need off-road tires don't we kingy we'll be fine put the off-road tires on we'd off into the desert and fell off and by this point of course the crew had caught we thought we've just got to suck this up really yeah and um oh gosh it was hard you were you were safe you did you didn't have anything too too dangerous in terms of your accidents a few sprains and we got away with it i would say we got we got away with it yeah just about we did yeah well it sounds like a place that you i'm sure no doubt learned a lot about yourselves but we move on to chapter three now that is the place where you learned the most about yourselves is there somewhere else that comes to mind as being a place that really led to a lot of growth what do you reckon oh that's a tough one we spend a lot of that don't we in the bar yeah there's a lot of that um well you strike me as as friends that also um aren't afraid to share about like your feelings and you're always growing aren't you i always see that on your shows oh of course no no no of course i'm just thinking patagonia kingy i was just about to say that the yeah patagonia or possibly india because that was uh for for other reasons india was i mean india was just quite the most remarkable david been a couple of times before but again i hadn't and it was just the most remarkable journey both in terms of our of our friendship but also in terms of that the hairy bikers had somehow become or looked like it was going to be the potential to be a rather big band and business and and And that particular time, you just had this really odd dichotomy in the sense that you had all this colour and amazing alchemy in the cuisine, which Dave and I were just completely into and just absolutely loved it.

25:37And we were riding Royal Enfield bullets, you know, and a real, you know, two fat white lads on a Royal Enfield bullet and just being waved at by everybody that was coming past us, and dodging chickens and sacred cows on the hard shoulder and all of that. But then there was all this other business stuff going on that was kind of in stark contrast to that. And it was just a very, very odd time. An exciting time. Well, it was, but we got off to a rough start because what we do is we do the recce and do our research. And we soon learned that where the food was concerned, not to preempt anything in the UK.

26:18You can't do it on the internet or through other people's cookbooks. You need to go out, taste the food. Then do your recipes. And when we were doing the recipes, Kingy collapsed. And it was like, oh, hell. So we phoned the Indian fixer. And what's wrong with him? Well, his lips are blue and doesn't look good like, you know. So, oh, no, right. So he said, right, get him in a tuk-tuk and follow me on my scooter. So I got him down the stairs. and I thought this is just going horribly wrong. And you were going, when we got down to the pavement outside this apartment in Chennai, it was really hot.

26:55And he just goes, where am I, Dave? I'm going, you're not well, you're going to hospital. He goes, will my man be there when I get there? Oh, sugar, I thought. So anyway, it was like this mad dash to Indian ER. So I'm in this tuk-tuk with Kingy, the fixer's on a scooter. and at that time there were no street maps or gps to chennai so we had to rely on the the fixer and we got to this thing and it was well it wasn't hilarious there was this crash trolley straight on the crash trolley wired up through reception now in reception there was this eight foot poster of mother theresa he sat up went there's mother theresa sat back down again so we were there it turned out that it was a combination of obviously stress um he bought himself an espresso machine drinking espressos and dehydration but the dehydration had brought brought it on so it's like a heart attack so they kept him in hospital for two days but they made me stay with him i was like in a cot at the end of the bed so it was like oh god help me you know i had such plans as well i thought if he's in for a couple of days i'll nick off and have a good time with the home home economist that was with us sammy and oh no no we don't do that like this in this country he's had a nasty shock he needs a friend i go i'll be his friend you guys have been through a lot together haven't you yeah so so i think i know what king he means like on that spiritual side slightly spiritual because obviously he was fine yeah but But at the time, you know, it was one of them.

28:31And they were saying, like, there's Indian workmen who work on scaffolding. They collapse just the same. They forget to hydrate. And it really is quite radical. But, you know, it did make us think. And then the road trip was epic, the pair of us. Yeah, that was amazing. So what was the route that you guys took? Right across from Chennai over to Kerala. Yeah. Through the Cardamom Hills, Madurai. Yeah, we went all the way down the eastern seaboard to Madurai and then cut up through the Cardamom Hill, the Ghats, and then across the top into Cochin. It was... You covered a lot of ground. Oh, it was remarkable.

29:06The holy golden city of Madurai blew our minds. Oh, so tell me about it. We're going to a Hindu temple is the most joyous experience. Do you remember we were there? It was Madurai, wasn't it? Yeah, it was Madurai. We saw Shiva's ligam, wasn't it? This very holy site, but you come out, you know, covered in marigolds and dots and the road to Shiva on your forehead and but but hindu temples are just joyous you know the kids running and ding the bell and you know you're greeted by the you're really welcomed um i don't know that the whole trip was spectacular because kerala was like the calm afterwards it was beautiful when we got there you know the land of sea and coconuts it was a different kind of yeah different magic to the rest of india yeah different pace different person and and in the temple in madurai there's just it's it's i don't know whether it's solid gold or made out of gold leaf or whatever it is but it's it's surrounded by a moat of the most beautiful holy water and um and it's uh it's just the most and there was a coolness and silence so you had in the cloisters of this amazing temple that you were as you walked in you were greeted by the by uh an elephant that so you had to give the elephants or a peanut or something you had to offer something to the elephant which was a derivative of the hindu god ganesh who was there for a party and a bit of a crack on you know and then uh and then we walked through these these just just massive sentinels of time and that were set in stone and then and then and as Dave says you'd have all of this colour and circumstance and and and ceremony towards life and then you'd enter the into the centre of all of this and it was quiet it was calm the air smelled of jasmine and it was just mind-blowing and you know we're from We had two working class lads from Barrow and Furnace and the North Durham Coalfield going, looking at each other going, this is mental.

31:21When would we ever have seen this? You know, you float out of that temple, kick the motorbikes up and go on your way feeling fabulous. Stop at a roadside vendor, buy some voddies and some samosas wrapped in newspaper. You know, never got sick. and just the world's a lovely place yeah that was remarkable was that what what country have you guys enjoyed the cuisine the most in i mean that i imagine you're asked that a lot but um i mean you've experienced so many flavors and and and cuisines is there one that that really comes to mind thinking about those samosas just getting me hungry oh man um i've got to make near a home when we did the mediterranean adventure the mediterranean food yeah southern italy in particular the coccina povera to me was was spectacular kingy's got very close links with italy much more than i have um but i really kind of the italian food was so pedantic and perfect you know i'm talking about the poor end of the food it was so good and that's something i still try to emulate in the kitchen today it wasn't fancy but the culture was amazing the culture was as deep as the hindu culture that we experienced in india the food culture certainly what what what is the kachina povara what would that be it's the poor people's food kachina povara it's you can have like there's there's the front of a looking recipe yesterday it's pasta and chickpeas but it's the way you make it and we were this this chef giuseppe and there was half a clove of garlic in it it's very minimal it's almost like culinary homeopathy but but when you get it right for some reason we just couldn't stop eating it uh like the the the that dish with the archiette and chimida wrapper you know the turnip tops yeah it's the very pedantic you would never have cheese on that but it was just so right and it just went on and on and on like that through the whole of southern italy there's a particular chili that is grown um that that comes to maturity in the autumn and forgive me but i can't remember the name of it but with the um the chimmi de rapa and the and the pasta you have just like a little drizzle of that chili oil and that's it that simplicity the way the ingredients really sing but but the focus of that particular chili at that particular time of year is particular to that dish and northern what a cuisine and is so was that if is that like the kind of puglia region of italy or kind of where would you have mostly yeah puglia calabria that was where we that was where we filmed yeah it's amazing fantastic well thinking of our favorite things chapter four the most tricky chapter of them all your all-time favorite destination you guys have been all over the world as a duo and i'm i know that it probably changes from day to day when you're reflecting on your travels as it does us all but what comes to mind today your all-time favorite place the silence is oh man um there's a lot of destinations to run through in your head yeah there are you know it's hard Argentina always comes up as being one of the favorite.

34:51We had such a good time from Buenos Aires, it was the most vibrant fabulous city. We learnt to tango in Buenos Aires which we did in the programme. Not very successful. Free cast of the Strictly days. Yeah, the writing was on the wall obviously. But then on the bikes we rode down to Patagonia from Buenos Aires and Patagonia is the most astonishing place. It's the culture that the Welsh culture that's there you go into these towns and you've got Juan Jose Evans, the butcher. They speak Welsh and Spanish. They have Spanish-Welsh male voice choirs. But there again, I think one of the best days ever was on the Peninsula of Alders, King.

35:34Do you remember the superlatives that we had? I mean, we were looking at southern right Wales that came in to the peninsula and to the sheltered waters there. king seals that were just were huge elephant seals yeah they're about 10 metres long and you lie on the beach with elephant seals having just been with the whales and then we finished off that day with half a million penguins on a beach I mean that was a day out and the landscape I imagine that is surrounding you while you're witnessing all of this as well is just otherworldly but but i think as well it was that that again was a trip of two halves it was the as dave says the most amazing city in buenos aires this is just mind blown it's just mind blown it was fabulous colorful a real cosmopolitan city and then conversely you had huge, huge swathes of empty landscape, but that's filled with life.

36:46I mean, it was just mad. And you're riding motorcycles. Yeah, the seafood was amazing, wasn't it? Because you've got that South Atlantic coast. So it wasn't, the beef was outstanding, but the seafood, you know, the king crab. I mean, in the programme, one of the kids to death is always, if you're filming, is to go fishing on the telly. It never happens, does it? It did with us. we went out fishing for sea bass and you know you fish for mackerel with like three feathers and hooks we were like this for sea bass we were bringing two or three sea bass a time we stopped when we caught 30 sea bass and four baby sharks and we actually went went in and we kept enough sea bass for the program we sold the rest of the sea bass which paid for the hire of the boat so actually it helped our license payers out a bit but it was the whole thing was like the natural landscape it was just insanely kind of productive and impressive yeah somewhere i've always wanted to go oh you must bucket list you must you must do you like are you particular fans of wild wildlife travel i mean is that something that always you guys look for when you're when you're out and about it i just think by the nature it's a bit of a default setting that we don't think too hard about holly actually because i think the places that dave and i tend to go it's inevitable that you're going to see some and it's and it's a very different experience when you're riding on a motorcycle than you're in yeah because you're out in the elements i guess so you're in it in a different way you're in it so you know you're saying hello and you're seeing it from place to place as well you're not just like taking planes you're you're moving through the landscape part of it but quite a lot of time actually we've cooked the wildlife so it's kind Kind of.

38:31It's odd. Not that we cook penguins or elephant seals. You need a bloody big barbecue. Or anything protected, of course. In terms of my listeners who are avid bikers themselves, you guys have taken so many iconic routes across the world. If there was one that you would say that you really should do in your lifetime, is there a particularly iconic route that you would suggest to add to someone's biking bucket list? i think that i think i think riding the gross knock la pass is is that between austria and italy is absolutely you've got to do it once in your life as a motorcyclist because it's fabulous it's absolutely fabulous but there are so many aren't there i mean you know that's just one i'm thinking through the through the atlas mountains yeah that's the other one you can get off the ferry in Tangier and two days later you've got your front wheel in the Sahara desert yeah and you've been up through the snow and you're in then you end up in the Sahara having a cold beer so that contrast in in kind of one journey yeah yeah yeah you work your way up and I always remember out of my out of Tangiers Marrakesh and you can see smell all the tagines you know cooking on people's walls and then so you eat then you're in the snow so you're cold but then when you start to drop down to Wazazet, towards the Sahara, the whole world just opens up before you.

40:00It's like coming down from an aeroplane. How exciting. Mexico's well-peaky. The biking there was stunning. And also though, also, up through the Gats, through the hill stations in Cummerley and Tickety and all that sort of stuff. That was amazing. We stopped cooking because there was a load of elephants came down to the watering hole and we were just like, okay, we've got to stop this. We've got to watch the elephants you know yeah i mean it was just you know amazing amazing it sounds incredible i'm so envious of these wonderful experiences that you've had together what what a special career you guys have had and i'm sure you're just going to continue to to travel to so many amazing places but i mean it must be just so great to to meet up and and have a few beers and reflect on so many of these different places that you've been in the different memories memories last a lifetime and then Sam.

40:56I don't know. Yeah, it's good. It's quite fun watching the old programs. Yeah. But you always look, oh, wasn't that far? You know, all that nonsense, yeah. Yeah, all that nonsense you forget. But we're watching the reruns of the Asian Adventure that's been on recently. And that was, again, that was joyous, you know. How many blokes get to ride a motorcycle from Tokyo down to Kyoto? That, you know, and stopping at the service stations then and just eating all this insane Japanese road food fantastic and then look at the mist come down literally roll down this the side of of of Mount Fuji I mean that'll do that'll do absolutely well let's move on to chapter five and that is your hidden gem you guys have covered so much ground what is a place that you discovered that you thought wow this is somewhere that we've discovered that maybe everyone doesn't know so much about that is really remarkable.

41:57Oh, I don't know. Probably different. We'll probably have different ideas, really. The Baltic was something that I really enjoyed going through Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. I think I would agree. You pick the bikes up in Amsterdam and then you're in Poland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and then, you know, onto Finland. Amazing. Amazing kind of really accessible road trip. Very cheap. probably cheap accommodation along the way yeah, Riga that food market in Riga one of the biggest in the world it's zeppelin sheds have been turned into a food market and you know the smoked food, the fish what was the cuisine like in Latvia?

42:41well it was quite sophisticated in the sense that it is now when Dave and I went there we were kind of like well Riga what really nobody it wasn't kind of on our radar and and and but since the program riga has become a real destination so yeah so it's talon hasn't it yeah and talon um we we it was it was remarkable there were levels of cuisine as you would expect in every in every other modern metropolitan um and cosmopolitan city. And it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. There was a chef, Yves Lillet. Yes. He was just the most astonishing chef who cooked for us. But going out foraging in Estonia was different because you always do that on food problems.

43:33It annoys me. You'll be down kind of in Hampshire and you'll go, oh, let's go foraging. And you'll come back with three unidentified leaves and it's fabulous. You go foraging in Estonia, you come back with a sack full of food. And you remember the sea beets, sea kale? Sea kale. Sea kale. It was just, it was like a field. It was completely natural and wild. Do you know what, mate? I was looking at photographs of that about three days ago and going, oh my God. And I took a photograph of this, of a sunset. And I was really, and I thought, oh, and I actually didn't think it was my photograph because it was so good.

44:14But you couldn't feel. So I checked on it, you know, to get the metadata. data from the photograph and went oh god no i did take it it was air the the light again the whole essence of travel isn't it is that is that kind of pick and mix of sensory it's just a sensory explosion so it's not just about it's about smell it's about taste it's about light it's about air it's about it's you know all of those things come together to make a trip incredibly special you know and and if you think about it all all of us that do travel we talk about the food or we talk about the people or we talk about the sunsets we don't we never talk about the shops that we bought that in or that that's not the first thing that comes to our minds it's about the environment which we find ourselves in which is so different to the ones that we normally live in and that's what travel quintessentially is about that experience completely so if if you were doing um uh a baltic trip what would be like the one thing that you'd say you mustn't miss you must do it while you're on while you're in one of those countries i would i would say what blew my mind and and and i mean i think i did dave dave had had more knowledge of that of that than me at the time was that i could i couldn't believe the archipelago that was attached to uh finland and finland's land mass is 75 percent forest yeah and people live within that but the land mass itself there's 75 percent of it covered in forest and then so many lakes as well well yeah and you've got to have you've got to have a sauna you've got to do it properly and just run out into your freezing lake it really does make you feel fabulous invigorating oh not half so in contrast to these beautiful memories chapter six the penultimate chapter is your worst travel experience i think a diarrhea epidemic that we walked into in in diabaqia in southern turkey um it's like on the syrian iran iraq border and this place was we walked into a diarrhoea epidemic and we got so sick we actually had to stop wrecking I managed to get out to a chemist to get us something to settle us down and I always remember this this particular medicine it was spelt E-R-C-I-E F-U-R-Y which pronounced arse fury and I thought you're not wrong but I can remember I came back with a two litre bottle of water and a box of arse fury and I just looked into your room, Kingy oh god, it was like Gollum's lair, it was horrible it was pretty grim and there was three of us in a row that was the fixer, that was Dave and I in this caravan surai and I have to say that the guys that gave us the rooms must have looked at us and gone yeah, stick those boys, those three at the end, because this is not going to end well it was the most stunning accommodation and actually i think when we finally got out to eat something the restaurant looked phenomenal and actually i think just when we're in recovery we we rode up to the the border and we spent the morning with a master kebab builder learning how to make donna kebabs and that was like whoa you know we're pushing it a bit really um oh goodness i mean i imagine that over the years you guys have also had to stomach some unusual cuisines on the unusual things to eat is there something that you kind of that's really like well makes you still feel sick thinking about it now a few things but we've never been the people there's enough people on tele eating kangaroos bottoms for the sake of it we never wanted to be that we were looking for the good stuff occasionally where it's been culturally appropriate like mapani worms in in namibia we ate those that like a dried grub that people it's a major source of protein for poor people they dry them out on the roof and in the actually they eat them as a beer snack but they really are pretty horrid but isn't it interesting how different cultures you know favor different cuisines and things taste differently to different people i mean like when in iceland you know that stinking shark is a delicacy oh yeah we've had that in sweden yeah yeah that wasn't great i mean it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great i think the worst thing that we've eaten and again by no weems was it sensationalized at all it just happened to be appropriate in terms of making a point on social history which was in vietnam dave and i sat in this restaurant and we're looking at all the other tables in vietnam you know around us going oh look there's crispy beef going on there there's this going on oh man that looks amazing and we um a waiter approached us who was wearing us a mexican hat and a bullet belt filled with shot glasses um that was definitely looking like he was trying to be from mexico but clearly vietnamese with a bottle of tequila so we thought this can go either two ways but we'll give this a so we ordered our tequila had a couple of shots and Dave said there was two menus and we looked on this other menu we said oh well this is interesting Dave said um uh we'll have the um how's the dear penis and uh and the fellow said oh I'm totally sorry that that that dear penis incidentally was on the menu it was on the menu I didn't just I didn't just shout oh you do your penis it's a random waiter unlike me with management I'd have thought about it and uh and uh and he said oh i'm really sorry that uh the deer penis is is is actually off but if you look a bit further down on the menu the goat's penis is on and it's and it's big enough for two so we were like oh well we'll have that then so um goat's penis hot pot yes hot pot hot pot certainly was yeah yeah i'm not entirely sure what the frugal broth to this day it was served in what actually was so it's probably best we do it wasn't disguised was it yeah okay so i'm not going to be adding that to my uh list of things that i want to try coming up no it's probably best no no well guys you've taken us all around the world and then some and it has been so much fun chatting to you we are on to the final chapter of your travel diaries and that is chapter seven the destination that is at the top of your bucket list and as we're finishing off I'd love to hear both of your respective answers separately so Dave how about you top of your bucket list uh Machu Picchu in Peru I've always wanted to go there and um and you know it's interesting because the the Peruvian cuisine is is getting such a lot of global attention you know like the fine dining side and fine dining always comes from the street food as well and i'd love to do that but you know a matcha peach you would that that's that's my bucket list i really would love to go there amazing and how about you say i'd actually quite like to explore more of africa i was thinking about this the other day that actually david and i we've never been to nigeria i've never been to senegal i've never been to ghana i've never been to all of the and i just don't i don't know what to expect so i'm gonna i'd like to i'd like to do that or do the pan american highway with dave and just come all the way down from prodigy all the way through and down into t out of del fuego and argentina because i think that would be amazing you know stopping off in costa rica and panama and i mean it would be pretty far out that i'd be i'd be tuning in for that 100 yeah guys thank you so much those were the hairy bikers travel diaries it's been such an honor to meet you both thank you thank you thank you it's been an absolute pleasure

52:28oh well that was my conversation with the hairy bikers Psyking the lovely Psyking and of course the much missed Dave Myers you know listening back I was just really moved by the depth of their friendship and the places that they've been together. I mean, they really traveled the world. They saw so much together. And it's been lovely to go back and revisit some of their TV programs on iPlayer as well. I really hope you enjoyed that. It was a very special conversation and I feel very honored that Dave took the time to talk to me at such a difficult time in his life. Next week, I will be back with a destination special.

53:10This is one I can't wait for you guys to hear. It's a great episode. So be sure to tune in then. Thanks, everyone.

53:33Thank you.

54:03Thank you.

54:33Thank you.

55:03Thank you.

55:33Thank you.

56:03Thank you.

56:33Thank you.

57:03Thank you.

57:54so what a joy it was to speak to Si and Dave, the Hairy Bikers, and you can check out their podcast, Agony Uncles, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening today. If you'd like to hear more from the podcast, don't forget to hit subscribe or if you use Apple Podcasts to hit follow so that a new episode lands in your podcast app each week. And if you're really enjoying it, I'd be so grateful if you fancy leaving a quick rating or review. If you want to be the first to find out who's joining me on next week's episode, come and follow me on Instagram. I'm at Holly Rubenstein. I'd love to hear from you.

58:35And if you can't wait till then, remember there's the first seven seasons to catch up on. That's over 85 episodes to keep you busy there. Don't forget that all the destinations mentioned by my guests are always included in the episode show notes here on your podcast app. And they're also always on my website, thetraveldiariespodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and I'll be back next week. Thank you.