Unpacked: China, Uzbekistan, Baku, Six Senses & more with travel editor, John O'Ceallaigh

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2:16Travel Fix. I'm your host Holly Reubenstein and today I'm joined by the fabulous John O'Kelly. John is a legendary travel journalist and consultant to many hospitality brands and he is taking us from China to Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan and much more. Don't forget to hit follow or subscribe on your podcast app of choice to make sure you never miss an episode. It's completely free and it means you're treated to a double dose of one to last each week. Okay, let's get started. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. It's so great to be chatting with you. In person right by your garden. Literally dripping out. We might as well be in the desert, frankly, but we're going to be chatting about quite a lot of exciting things today. So we'll reflect on Nita's episode in particular China. Of course. And a recent say mine in London, your recent trip to Azerbaijan.

3:18Backhoe, that's right. Yeah. And a listener Q&A as well. So just remind it if you want to send in your own questions for us to answer. That is the travel diaries podcast at gmail.com, the travel diaries podcast at gmail.com. Don't forget the the part of it. Yes, part of it. Yeah, or DM me on Instagram or John. What's your Instagram? Luxury travel editor. Luxury underscore travel underscore editor. Also want to take off. Yes, very important. Okay, John. So Nisha Katona, I love this episode. Isn't she like such a passionate speaker? It was so nice to hear you're talking about a place that I feel not many people have actually mentioned so far on your podcast, despite how important and incredible it actually is. I'm an advocate for the destinations, you know, and recommend everybody go there. So China. One of the most exciting places to visit in the world without question irrespective of what you're interested in. It is interesting because like five years also went by and it wasn't really mentioned. I don't think at all on the podcast from my from my guess.

4:20And then Ben Fogel said it was at the top of his bucket list. And then of course he made a program for Channel 5 about it. So he's great when some else pays for your trip. Isn't it? But actually, I think one of the impediments to people mentioning it previously is that entering the country was quite difficult for Brits, especially from a visa perspective and recently they've alleviated a lot of those restrictions. So now you can just rock up what your British passport Irish passport the one I have and have a 30 day holiday. Yes. So it's the perfect time to consider a trip. Right. So it makes such a difference just in terms of ease. If you're off, you see doesn't exist in nearly the same way anymore. That's OK. And that's actually just have a listen to your clip. One of them is I want to do a food tour of China. I really, I told you about the place that had such an impression on me and that was China in terms of food. Yeah. And in terms of culture and all of that. And that is something I feel. I really mean this. You know, when I came back on that plane and I felt there is maybe I was a child, I was trying to pass life. In the past life. Yeah.

5:21Because I felt such a connection to it. Yes. So she wants to go back and do this foodie tour of China. So John, at some point he's travelled extensively around China. Where would be a good starting point do you think? I feel people can be reassured that wherever they choose to go, they will have incredible dining experiences. You know, my background is an Irish person. We go to the pub to socialize in China, you eat and you eat extensively and you're a passionate and avidly obsessed about where you go. There's a huge emphasis in having healthy fresh food as well. The quality of the produce, even the major metropolis like Shanghai is incredible and it is astoundingly affordable as well. I like even going to supermarket Sarah. I remember being in one recently. They just have huge vats of live fish that you pick up directly when you go to the equivalent of the same sprees because the importance that they place in everything being as absolutely fresh as possible is without compromise. It's something that is essential all the time. I would say, and I'd like to speak about the destination a bit more generally, there

6:22is a province called Yunnan, which is one of the most magnificently beautiful destinations I have ever experienced and the emphasis that's placed on fresh produce there and the quality of the food you have is off the scale. So where's Yunnan? So Yunnan is on the western side. It's southwest. It's a very clement, if that's a word, climate where it tends to be quite pleasant. I went in November last year for 10 days approximately. It's home to a number of what they called ancient cities, which have a really high dense concentration of incredibly beautiful or nane ancient architecture. It's also home to Shangri-la, the actual Shangri-la. So to give you a little bit of context, Shangri-la was first mentioned as a fictional paradise in the book from the 1930s. Then we all know Shangri-la hotels and they adopted the name because it just alluded to the idea that you had reached paradise more generally. And then the Stuart marketers that they are, people in China decided that there was a town in China that was quite like the fictional Shangri-la.

7:23So they changed the name, the actual name, to Shangri-la in order to entice tourists and it worked on me. So I would do it. It's like, I'm in Yunnan. I want to go to Shangri-la. So I went to Shangri-la. I've experienced Shangri-la. I've seen the doors of Shangri-la open. It's also home to one of the most majestically incredible or nane monasteries I've ever encountered anywhere in the world. So it has buddhas inside that are stories high. It's on a plateau overlooking a valley. A lot of Chinese people who go there love getting dressed in traditional attire. So you're surrounded by people who appear to have merged from the 15th century. It's just completely surreal and incredibly beautiful. We're not allowed to take pictures inside which made everything such an unexpected revelation. I hadn't seen the interiors until I physically found myself there and the degree of decoration and intricate embellishments was astounding. So the monastery just outside Shangri-la, I wanted to say the name, but if you google it, you'll find it straight away, is one of the most profoundly impressive religious sites I have ever encountered in my life.

8:23And do you have traveled the world? I should say extremely sensibly. So that's saying something. It really blew me away and I'm lucky to have seen so many reference points. But it had the same sense of awe and wonder that I found when I first wandered into St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican, for example, that type of scale and grandeur. So absolutely amazing. And what's really wonderful about China as well is these surprises reveal themselves continually because we collectively here in Europe are quite ignorant about the intricacies of the destination. Oh my god, take it. So you go to Beijing, Shanghai, but there is an immense, immense massive country that has developed over millennia and has so many distinct aspects to its culture and history. So you are constantly bombarded with stimulation and new experiences. And what's great as well, it's so cheap. You can actually afford to do everything that you might want to encounter. So it's so accessible in that respect as well. But for a Western traveler who doesn't speak Chinese, does that make it really challenging? Definitely. Yeah. I don't want to pretend it's easy. It's so disorientating as well when you really can't read or feel like you can't be

9:27in a group of nouns, a single thing you encounter. I did feel a bit adrift constantly. Now we're collectively quite lucky that technology facilitates easy digital translation. I would suggest that it's essential that you get an ESM before you go and you can access your site. There's a lot of tech there that's inaccessible to us, so they don't use the apps that we would use in Europe. And you need what they call WeChat and Alipay, which are two of the apps that are like the foundational basis for every commercial transaction that you do in China. So there are technical elements that are difficult to navigate. I need to think about ahead of how they already all downloaded, all properly registered. It's like we pay with our touch and tap on our phones all the time here. They have their domestic equivalence there that you need to make sure you have nobody uses cash. I went to a 7-11 and paid for a Coke or something with the equivalence of a £5 note. And the young 19-year-old who took it from me had literally never seen paper cash before. He was picking it up, holding it to the light, and then the geriatric Mendelineale, like

10:29me, an equivalent came over and showed her how to get coins out the tail so she could give my change back to me. Which is pretty remarkable. It is so futuristic what they're doing there. It's just next level. I have been mountain climbing in China, which in itself with a country of 1.4 billion is a process. They had capped access to the mountain. So it's called the Yellow Mountain. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's very beautiful. They capped access to 3,000 people and I think I was with 2,999 other people because the queue to elevate slowly up the mountain was complete the entire day long. But the natural splendor of the country is really something that not many people are prepared for. It's just so much diversity again. It's just so enormous. I mean, it's such a new frontier for us. I feel it's like a continent, essentially, in terms of diversity offers. And again, to go back to the fact that 1.4 billion people lived there, it means different expressions of cultural identity that you encounter from north to south, east to west, are so varied and so unexpected on occasion as well.

11:30I thought it was so nice also how she talked about how lovely the Chinese people were with her, her little one, her little baby that she was traveling with and how they came and picked her baby up in the restaurants and that sense of warmth. Because you always want to hear that your experience of the locals is one that is a sense of connectedness, a sense of heart warming and because there's often a language barrier between us and the Chinese because we don't typically speak Chinese. Yeah, I thought that was a really nice touch that she included there. I found people, surprisingly, even in major cities like Beijing or Shanghai, where there are tens of million people's milling around and we're rushing, we want to say London is the friendlyest. There are some people to be extremely friendly universally and it's interesting because it hasn't really been imprinted with international tourism to a huge degree as yet outside of those major urban centers. When I went to more remote areas, I am often an object of fascination in a way that I'm

12:31not always entirely comfortable with but you get people staring at you at a curiosity or milling up. Because you're pale of the eye. I do, you know, that's a novelty over there, right? I do have people that kind of wander over to me tentatively and ask through a translator or just try true miming for a picture and so on which is really weird but it's so well intentioned and they are really delighted to see you and engage with you. You will definitely struggle to be understood in terms of speaking English but actually there's something quite, I'm going to say, romantic about the fact that it's carking back to a more simple era of travel when we didn't really know everything that we were going to do and it still felt like an adventure and everything's fine. Discoveries. And what's important to say in relation to that as well is super safe. So even if you aren't sure what's going on, you don't feel ill at ease. I've had experiences in, say, Johannesburg where you're a little bit unsure of what's surrounding you and there's a tentative danger that's associated with that. Yeah. I've never had that sensation in China. Yeah, that's great. And I guess before we wrap up on China, then kind of going back to Nisha's top of her bucket list doing this kind of a foodie tour.

13:34Where would he say she should go from your experience? Like she was doing a kind of multi destination approach. I would possibly consider Chengdu, the level of spice that you encounter in the cuisine there is explosive but also as a destination. It's really curious because it's the panda capital of China. I am not joking when I say every few meters you will see panda paraphernalia, whether it's the phone case, the young teenage girl has the beanie hat, a guy is wearing some type of poster that's stuck on the bus, they are obsessed with pandas. So I'm just kind of wedging in the next use, really good to go to China. Chengdu, but also the food there is really, really good. I do know, I saw on that Ben Vocal programme about when he went to the panda bear sanctuary and that they all, all the staff, their dress in panda outfits. Have you seen that? They are the most pampered animals on the planet. They are revered and they're so adorable as well. So obviously just being in the proximity of them is something that people rapsodize over. It's lower in cooperating in the drip.

14:35Oh my goodness, I mean, I feel like we could literally do a China destination special to sit in here. You could do a full series for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. Okay, so I want to mention my hotel of the week, a bit closer to Hain, but still very much in the wild of escapism and that is Six Senses London. Much anticipated hotel opening, have you been? I am going to go but you've beat me to it, so I'm curious to hear about it. What's your expectation? I think it's been really interesting to look at Six Senses transition from being a resort only-based brand to now trying to infiltrate city centre settings. I'm curious to see how it adapts, but I think it reflects the fact that travelers of old elks who are rich, you know, it's obviously an expensive brand to stay with, want to well in this proposition within the property irrespective of where they are. An additionally modern life is quite stressful, right? So I think Six Senses brand is quite successful in giving you the sense that you should be completely relaxed when you enter there. So I see it as being quite appealing. What did you think? I really loved it actually. I had heard different reviews, but for me I found it, in terms of the first impression

15:42of it, to be very kind of sleek and sexy. I thought that, so just to provide a little bit of context, Six Senses is in Bayes water, which if you don't know London is quite near to Notting Hill. It's kind of adjacent to Notting Hill, and it's inside the restored, whitely building, which was a very iconic historic department store, which then was left unused for a period of time, and now it's been completely reimagined as the whitely with Six Senses at the heart of it with some other kind of properties and restaurants and stuff inside it. And they've really kept that architecture and design. The scale is very impressive, right? Well, there's really impressive, there are these beautiful sweeping staircases when you walk in. I loved that when you walked in, there are these two big eucalyptus trees that are inside that I think they're like 80 foot and they go all the way from the basement where the spa is all the way up. Really up? So it's a very dramatic, yes, kind of central entry, I would say.

16:49And it reminded me aesthetically, I would say of Soho House, the Soho House properties that are the same kind of furnishings, tiles and so on. I definitely think it could have been a Soho House, but that aligns quite nicely with my kind of taste anyway. And I thought it was really lovely how in the kind of communal spaces downstairs, people who weren't staying. So if you're in the area and want to check it out, you know, there's a beautiful bakery, there's a really lovely breakfast spot, you can go for a drink in the bar there. So you can pop in and get an experience of it. You know, it's interesting you mention about Soho House because it's also hope, excuse me, home to something called Six Senses Place, did you encounter this? So it's a new members club concept from Six Senses, this sounds very advertorial, because I'm just interrupting you to tell you something else that you can do there. But it's a wellness centered members club contrary to something like Soho House, which was based on revelry and having drunken lights out and getting up to all shenanigans,

17:51which I think really speaks again of this transition between what young consumers want to do now versus what maybe we did or I did when I was younger. And that shift is really quite interesting for monitor as well. Yes, right. So I didn't know that that's what it was called, but the wellness offering there that, as you say, can also be experienced not as somebody staying there, but perhaps as a local was absolutely exceptional. So they have hyperbaric chambers, they have resident doctors, they have IV drips, they have consultations, then they have an extensive spa. And one thing that was really cool was they have all of these different recovery rims. And after I included in my stay, I was reviewing it. I had a facial, which was very pleasant. But then after I went into this recovery room where they had these sound healing beds. That sounds nice. Where you were headphones and you select the kind of level of relaxation or stress level

18:52that you may be experiencing and you press a button and you're listening to music, but in time with the music, the seat vibrates in like a million different places in time to the music to shift your body's whole nervous system into a different state. Wow. This sounds embryonic or something. Yeah, it was really interesting and I'd never tried anything like it. But that was a really cool experience. And I think that the property will be complete once it's pulled as opened. I think it launched without the pool being there. And as a spa hotel, I think that that was missing. So I looked forward to going back when that subterranean pool. I know it's been so anticipated. Yes, is that. And the major openings of the year. And the bedrooms, I really liked. I thought they were really, really lovely, really beautiful, really luxurious, reflective of the price point, I would say. And yeah, I would recommend it. So I look forward to hearing what you think. I'll be there. So it is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb.

19:53As you guys all know, I spend a lot of time traveling and we've listed our home on Airbnb in the past while we've been away. One particularly memorable time was when we set off on a seven week road trip across the US. We lived in central London at the time and our flat would otherwise have been sitting empty for all that time. So we listed it on Airbnb during the trip. That journey became even more special because it was also when my husband and I decided to get married on a beach in Santa Barbara and we used some of the extra money from hosting on Airbnb to help pay for some really personal touches for the wedding, like the flowers from the market that morning and a local photographer who we booked last minute. So in a small but very real way, hosting became part of one of the most memorable trips of our lives. It wasn't about becoming a full time host. It was simply a practical way to make use of our home while we weren't there. If you have a trip coming up, it might be worth exploring whether listing your space on Airbnb could work for you too. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbmb.co.uk for a slash host.

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21:55That's UPWORK.com. Upwork.com 75% of women who seek menopause care don't receive it. The lying awake at 3am, wondering what's happening to your body, ends now. Midi is virtual care built for women in parry menopause and menopause, with clinicians who specialize in women's health. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. Midlife needs midi. Visit joinmidi.com to book your first visit today. That's joinmidi.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. I'll see you. I'm sure. And why have you come back for recently? So I'm now based in Dubai, as you know. And one of the things I'm benefiting from is that I have this whole new ecosystem, a short whole destination. Yeah. Close to me that I can just pop over to. So, and the rest of that. I kind of, yeah, I did so much in Europe. I need a different environment to mess around in. And I am just back from Baku, actually, in Azerbaijan. So what brought you there?

22:55A desire to go to places I knew nothing about. Just like random. Right. It really hasn't had much investment in its international marketing, which was nice. I think it's quite refreshing to go to a city where you don't feel obliged to go to the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa or whatever else it might be. I knew to kind of discover it at will. What I found really interesting about it was the indicators of prosperity. So it's very affordable to visit now. I think that's always important to consider in our cost of living crisis times. But it was the first oil town in the world. So in the 1800s, I had this period of incredible investment, lucrative winnings for people locally. The architecture that you see around you is very beautiful as a result. And even though it's in land, it's on the borders of the Caspian Sea. So it essentially feels like you're looking out at the ocean when you walk along the promenades. It was impeccable. I don't know if I've ever been to a more pristine city, which again, wasn't something that I necessarily anticipated. Interesting. Yeah, very civilized, very sophisticated, beautiful old town, very experimental architecture,

24:00modern architecture in place that was replaced with like very modern with more history. Yeah, there's very hackney travel writer terms I could use here, right? About like melding old and new, but actually it does do that quite well. I stayed in the Fairmont Hotel, which is in one of the, in verdict comments, iconic buildings called the Flametowers, which are shaped like flickering flames. And that's like these, yeah, very bizarre and interesting and beautiful, incredible views of the city, mediocre F&B. So I would caution you to maybe try other restaurants, but you know, the views are astounding. And then looking over the waterfront, the city beneath you, which is gold and encoder, and just feels very quietly glamorous and sophisticated and inviting. So lovely discovery. That's so cool. So would you say it'd be like a good kind of long weekend destination? Brilliant long weekend destination. And actually, even though you can constantly discover new things, a long weekend is enough to feel like you've ticked off all the boxes. So great as it was. I don't feel compelled to go back anytime soon.

25:00Right, right. So good place to see. So what would you, what would be like a perfect day in Baku, would you say? Again, recognising there's very little pressure to do specific things. I like ambling it and see where I end up. So along the waterfront, you'll have a lot of beautiful little coffee shops, beautiful parks, great ice cream counters, things like that. That was a very pleasant ambel. It does eventually lead up to a cultural centre that was designed by Zahadid. And even though I typically find her work really overrated, I thought this specific cultural institution was fantastic. The scale was phenomenal. And they just had such a bizarrely eclectic range of art to explore within it very affordably. And that was a lovely discovery as well. They had some really sinister display of Russian dolls up on the top floor, which unsettled me. But then they had great modern art elsewhere. And they had the Colombian painter, I think his name is Botero. It does do the very fallopshuous women down below. So yeah, really constantly delivering very nice discoveries in a very relaxed atmosphere,

26:00great food as well. Yeah, I was going to say what's the kind of food like? Stodge. Delicious stodge with lots of cheese and bread. Yeah, it's quite like Georgian cuisine if you happen to be familiar with that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, brilliant. How about getting to Baku from, if you're not based in the Middle East? Well, Holly, this is research I haven't done. So I cannot tell you, but... Let's have a look. I win for you Dubai and it's about a three hour flight. Okay, so I've just looked it up. We can fly non-stop London Gatwick as a by-zone airlines. Five hours 30, that is a long weekend. You could do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three nights, I think you're good. Yeah, currently if you want to go in July, that's the past as we are now. August. It's £544 round trip as a by-zone airline. So yeah, you can do a direct flight from the UK, that's interesting. Highly recommended. Okay, one to add to Alice's guys. And finally, then, let's wrap up with a listener question. Thank you so much for your replies on Instagram.

27:01Again, if you want to ask us a question, you can email or direct message us on Instagram. Okay, this is Katie in Suffolk, John. Hi, Katie. And she says, I'm desperate to go somewhere a bit different next year, but I don't want it to feel too difficult or overwhelming. Where would you recommend to someone who wants more of an adventure, but still wants that bit of comfort? I would recommend that Katie, I'm just reflecting on many places I've been, but in terms of that specific brief, one of the most rewarding destinations I have ever visited is Uzbekistan. And it really feels like now is the time to go because I think it is going to explode in popularity in a few years. They're very actively investing in improving their tourism infrastructure. For example, they are expanding their high speed rail network. The national airline has put a contract in place to acquire a number of new aircraft with the desire to rapidly increase the destination set it serves.

28:02So that will be really great in terms of utility and access, but it does mean loads more people are going to be climbing around with you to see the best sides. Uzbekistan is astoundingly civilized in terms of how it has been a fulcrum for intellectual development. So it used to be a center for global trade, and you had a mishmash of global cultures congregating there, and they've all embedded their influence throughout the country in different ways. What I would say about Uzbekistan is it is remarkably beautiful in the cities, which have been endowed with centuries of incredible architectural heritage and beauty. Very sparse and arid and dull in the countryside. So you do have long drives through tundra or really plain landscapes, but then you get to this jewel. So there are specific places that I would recommend visiting to Katie and anyone else. So Hiva is a town in the north, which is described as one of the world's most extensive open air museums, because the congregation you have in the old town of minaretts, mosques, museums, museums, is so extensive.

29:03And when I was there in late February, early March, I was one of the very few tourists walking around at that time of year. So when you're in this ancient citadel, essentially by yourself, it really feels like you've time traveled. It's so special to have that experience, you know, solitary just for you. And you said like, you use the term jewel box. And I feel as though if you picture his back is done and the architecture in the buildings, they are like jewel boxes, the colors, the richness of the colors in the town. You have these really deep gleaming turquoise goals and just shredded details to intricacy and then bellishments and how if I'm blowing it is in places, it's just so intoxicating and rich. So you're so visually stimulated wherever you go when you're in the main tourist centers, the other essential place to visit when you're in Uzbekistan is Samarkand. That was an ancient capital. It's home to registant square, which I think a lot of people would have seen previously. So if you Google it, like it should immediately be apparent to you. But for me, it's one of the jewels again of human civilization in terms of there are

30:07certain places in the world you go where you think humanity is pretty amazing, right? You know, the fact that stuff like this exists in the world is such a privilege for all of us. For me, it was akin to the first time I saw the Taj Mahal when I walked to registant square and just being completely stultified by how incredibly grand and meticulously developed it was and how robust it was. You know, centuries later, it's still standing there in complete grandeur. So it's this collection of Pazas and Minerets again and beautiful historic structures that have so much visual impact, the taste that people had to create them at that time. They're just timelessly beautiful. So again, I was there same time a year, probably 20 other people around in the evening when it's beautifully illuminated. It was just so, so, so special to be there. I stayed in a pretty posh by local standard, so tell nearby that was probably $80 a night or something like that. So the other thing that's important for Katie is that while aspects of its tourism infrastructure may not be developed to the same degree we're familiar with in some popular tourist destinations

31:09in places that are now completely overrun by tourists, you can have a lot of comfort there in terms of hiring guides, hiring private drivers, things like that are very accessible in terms of pricing. So yeah, and that then kind of gives you, if you're slightly trepidaceous, a bit of comfort knowing that, say, if you have a driver taking you between these big destinations, that there's somebody kind of like alongside you in the way. I would enjoy using the high speed train between the destinations because it's some interaction with locals, it's extremely comfortable, but when you're in Samarcan itself or Hiva or wherever else it is, you can have a driver at your disposal all day long for an incredibly reasonable rate and that person can additionally be a guide because it's so impenetrable a lot of the culture, it's so deep and longstanding that if you don't have an expert beside you, you're going to miss out on so much, but for Katie's usage, what I think is important is that comfort also equates to having the best possible time and not feeling like you have to break the bank to do it really enhances your entire experience, right? So what I mean is when you're in Paris or in New York getting a great guide could be 400

32:10euro for the day, not many people can afford to do that in addition to everything else, in Uzbekistan you can really fully embrace everything that's on offer because you can go to the best restaurant, you can stay in a beautiful hotel, you can speak to an expert guide, you know that price is reasonable for him and for you, so I just cannot recommend it enough and now it's Katie, Katie I've speaking to you directly, now is the time to go. He's leaning in. Yes. Now is the time to go before there are going to be a lot more people selling him. I just can't believe it's not more comfortable, not more popular already because it's a good thing. It's popular on the podcast. Is that right? Yeah, Joanna Lumley, Prudelyth, they are John Simpson, all time favorite destinations I'd say. Well Joanna and John, I trust their recommendations. I tell you Prudelyth got, Prudelyth then trepid traveler John. She had just come back from, she had come back from Tajikistan, what's your residence value? Well you might want to cut it but I believe she's a Brexit folder so I can't really view her as being an internationally open-minded person. But I have no idea about Joanna and John but I'm going to take their recommendations more seriously.

33:13Right, yeah. Well, her son is an MP who is very pro-Brexit. Okay, right, that all makes sense. I'm just regarding her talk. I'm making it very apparent how I've folded it in that referendum. I have not been to Uzbekistan but I literally have my jaw on the floor every single time I listen to people wax their vehicle about it. And again in terms of transport, so you were flying from Dubai but how easy is it to get to, would you say? I feel how, again I'm sorry I didn't research exactly what it's like to travel from the UK. Holly's got her phone out now to fact check it in real time. Not sponsored by Skyscanner, would like to be. So London to Uzbekistan, you can fly direct. Really? From London to Taj Kent, roughly seven hours on Uzbekistan airways and you can do lots of stopover connecting flights in Istanbul, Doha or on Etihad.

34:15Oh, nice. So yeah, so and it's about five hours ahead of the UK if you wanted to know in terms of the time difference. You know, even if it was slightly inconvenient to get there, there are certain places where the journey is so worth it and for me it was just going back to the genuine joy of travel, which you reference so often in your podcast as well. You know, the sense of discovery and it's difficult to really be in an environment that feels completely new. You know, we've got so much exposure to everything. Yeah, I don't want it to be too easy to get there, right? Because you have to have that in the situation. Well, I was like, do you say about the Greek islands, isn't it? That if there's a direct flight there, it's not going to be the same thing. Totally changes the character of the place, right? And actually this goes back to exactly what I was saying. Uzbekistan is going to change for better or worse because they are actively looking to significantly build their tourism infrastructure. And when more people discover it, it's going to be overrun. So definitely now. So we've really, I think, maximized on Hidden Gems this episode. I have loved that. Is there anywhere left on your bucket list that kind of fits into that category? Yes.

35:15Georgia, I'll be traveling to in August. Kazakhstan is on the list. And Pakistan, I am very keen to visit as well. That's so interesting. So both Pakistan and Kazakhstan came up in our season on season 16 of the podcast. So I'm feeling quite predictable. I thought it was big original. No, wait, were you not in Kazakhstan? I noticed Pakistan, Azerbaijan. I'm working my way messaging about Kazakhstan. I was planning to do it, but unfortunately it didn't work out at the time. So it remains on the list and I definitely will be going. So Kazakhstan obviously has come to the fore with race across the world last season because they traveled through Kazakhstan. But oh no, I was talking about it with the race across the world, winning guys. Did they love it? Yeah. I mean, I think there's like you mentioned with these Pakistan, I think there's like indefinite nothingness for a little time. But the culture, the hospitality of the people is wonderful and it's you know, an experience like no other. In fact, they really sold me on Kyrgyzstan as well.

36:17Is that right? They said that was the most beautiful place in the world. Really? And when you look at the mountain landscape, I can see why it really looks incredible. And like riding on horseback through the Kyrgyzstan mountains. But yeah, Kazakhstan was Nile Rogers and Eve as in who's that girl? Your recollection is extremely impressive. Oh, hi, I'm listening during my interview. I know. As someone who just has a turbo short-term and long-term memory, I just commend you. Well, I think it imprinted in my mind because I didn't expect them to say it. And they were saying how beautiful it is. It's interesting though, because I think it speaks to the fact we're looking to go to increasingly distinct locations that are a bit unpredictable. And maybe that's part of the privilege of having traveled so much right that we're seeking out these new frontiers. John, thank you so much. John Ekeli, what a pleasure. Travel expects, would there. Returning guests on the podcast. Yes, thank you. If you have a list to John's enchanted island episode, I thoroughly recommend it and join us again soon.

37:20Thank you, Holly. I'd love to. Oh, well, a huge thank you to John Ekeli. So much travel inspiration there. Really enjoyed that one. Lots of places that weren't on my radar. Remember, all the destinations mentioned are included in the episode show notes and on the traveldiriespodcast.com. Remember, you can get in touch at the traveldiriespodcast at gmail.com. And on Instagram and TikTok at Holly Rubenstein. I'll leave you to listen to my new unpacked music. My new unpacked theme tune. Let me know what you think. I'm obsessed. All right, guys. I'll be back with another episode on Tuesday. Take care.

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