Scots psychiatrist Zainib Khan had to rely on the kindness of strangers to help her travel thousands of miles across Canada for TV show Race Across the World.
So when she got home, the Glaswegian, who lives in Manchester, tried to repay that kindness when she saw old people with bags in the rain.
But she said whenever she’s offered them a lift, the soaked pensioners have questioned her motives and refused.
Zainib, who is on screen in the third series of the BBC adventure show with husband of nine years Mobeen, 31, said: “I’d like to think doing the show has made me a bit kinder to strangers. Because we had to rely on the kindness of strangers so much I do stop to see if there’s any way to help someone.
“I stop to give people lifts.
“Say it’s really raining, as it does a lot in Manchester, and I see an old person with bags, I’ll stop over and say ‘do you need a lift?’
“Quite often they’ll look at me suspiciously and be like ‘what do you want from me?’
“But I feel I have to stop and ask them because I know what it’s like to be caught in the rain with your bags. It’s just awful.
“No one has got in my car. They think I’m too suspicious. It’s sad that people think that’s a suspicious thing to do.”
After a three-year hiatus because of the Covid pandemic, the third series of Race Across The World started last month.
The nine-part series will see five pairs of intrepid travellers try to travel over 16,000km across six time zones from one side of Canada to the other.
They must travel the route on a budget of £2498.13 – the cash equivalent of the airfare to fly to their destination.
With no mobile phones, internet access, credit cards, air travel or any of the trappings of modern-day life to assist them, they started out in Vancouver, at the edge of the Pacific Ocean and will finish in North America’s most easterly city of St John’s, Newfoundland, on the Atlantic coast.
The fastest team will win £20,000. As well as Zainib and Mobeen there are best friends Cathie and Tricia; brothers Marc and Michael and two father and daughter duos – Kevin and Claudia, and Ladi and Monique.
Wednesday’s third episode will see the first elimination of the series with the slowest couple leaving the show.
Now back at work and in Manchester, Zainib revealed the show has changed her life in many ways. She said: “It’s made me a lot more spontaneous. I like my routine and regime I stick to.
“But now I will go out spontaneously with friends in the evening if it comes up. Whereas before it would be my night to cut my toe nails or something.
“It’s made me and Mobeen much closer. We didn’t necessarily drift apart but we got sucked into this cycle of working and then being at home, then working.
“It injected that sense of adventure into our relationship and we talk a lot more about lots of different things as opposed to just work.”
Zainib revealed she went to work the next day when they got back to the UK. so she didn’t feel so sad about finishing their Canadian adventure.
She said: “I was pretty jetlagged and everything was a bit of haze but I felt I needed to keep going. Mobeen took a few days off but I threw myself back into work. I think it helped normalise things for me. If I’d stayed at home I’d have probably got a lot sadder and wished it wasn’t over.”
The couple moved from Glasgow to Manchester in 2017 but go to Scotland monthly to see her parents and siblings.
It was Mobeen, a trauma orthopaedic surgeon, who wanted to do the show. They were big fans of the first two series and he wanted them to apply.
Zainib, who via Zoom laughs that she’s even afraid to go on rollercoasters, admitted: “I liked the idea of it but in reality I didn’t think I’d be able to cope.
“But after the pandemic everyone’s perception of what life is, changed and I essentially grew a pair at that point and thought let’s do something.”
Before applying for the show they weren’t a package holidays couple and had gone on some more adventurous holidays including camping in the Sahara desert.
“But it was glamping,” the Scot is quick to say. “It wasn’t proper camping. We had a nice tent and nice food.
“We’ve never done backpacking and I’ve never pitched a tent before the show.
“We went glamping in Scotland but we had a big caravan. That’s about as adventurous as we got.”
Of course it’s not just trying to travel hundreds of miles without paying but the couples had to deal with not having a phone or credit card and only having the limited budget – deciding when to use the cash.
While Mobeen struggled with not having a phone, Zainib found it invigorating.
She admitted: “I don’t like being so accessible all the time. So for me it was quite liberating not having my phone and not worrying about it.
“But after the first couple of days it feels weird being so disconnected.”
Zainib didn’t like not having her debit or credit cards.
She said: “I was more anxious about not being able to just tap my way through my problems which is what I tend to do normally.”
Given the Scottish history with Canada, she revealed lots of people picked up on her accent although she isn’t sure if they got a lift or help because of where she was from.
The threat of elimination in Wednesday's episode brings out the competitive sides of the couple who bicker about who is the boss.
Zainib has already shown she can be a straight talker who takes risks and the episode will see Mobeen confess that he feels inferior to his wife.
The route will take them from Dawson City south to the third checkpoint, 2700km to Alberta and the resort town of Banff in the Rocky Mountains. Zainib said: “We were worried about the prospect of elimination and knew we needed to spring into action.”
Back in Manchester they now want their lives to be filled with adventures and purposefully kept their backpacks from the show to use them again.
They’d love to go back to Canada but firstly Zainib revealed: “We are planning another trip but with our phones and money but no planes. We are going to go from home to Istanbul. We just need to find the time to do it.
“But there will be more adventures.
“Life is an adventure.”
● Race Across the World continues on Wednesday, BBC One at 9pm.
