Ella Eyre on mouldy hotels and Borneo’s wonders in Celebrity Race Across the World

“It’s about us, not the route we take,” says Nana Pepera to her teammate and friend Ella Eyre in Celebrity Race Across the World as they debate how to tackle the second leg of an epic, 4,660-mile (7,500km) journey that begins in tropical Borneo, the world’s third-largest island, and ends in Melbourne, Australia. Split between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei and with a population of around 23 million, Borneo is free of overtourism. Most visitors go to the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. An off-the-beaten-track feel is clear as the teams reach its Indonesian territory – Borneo is the furthest away from the UK the show has ever ventured. Race Across the World fans will know the ingredients for a formidable team: decisiveness, calmness, efficient communication. Could Ella and Nana have it all? It certainly seems so, two episodes in. Brit Award-winning singer-songwriter Ella and Nana, a marketing and operations consultant, have known each other for 22 years after meeting at school. For Ella, choosing Nana to join her on the challenge was a “no-brainer”. She tells The i Paper: “We’re both pretty tough. And we complement each other: I can be quite gung-ho and impulsive, and Nana can be very thought out.” Nana looked after the passports and cash. “I was in charge of the map,” says Ella. “I lost it twice on the first day.” The race sets off from the city of Kuching, part of Borneo’s Malaysian territory (Photo: Getty) To travel from the city of Kuching, in Sarawak in north-west Borneo, to Melbourne they have a budget of £840 per person – £26pp, per day – the cost of a flight between the two points. They have no credit or debit cards, no phones and no internet access. En route, they contend with overnight bus journeys, physical work in hot, humid climates to supplement their budget and a regular hunt for cheap accommodation.Mountainous terrain and coastlines (parts of which, we learn, must be cleared of the daily detritus of washed-up plastic), homestays in remote regions and wildlife in its natural habitat – such as proboscis monkeys, orangutans and koalas – offer a sense of adventure. Tanjung Puting National Park, a rainforest that is millions of years older than the Amazon, inspires wanderlust in episode two, for instance, as does Ella and Nana’s sighting of a group of orangutans swinging through the trees on Kaja Island, in the Rungan River. A sighting of orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park is among the moments of awe (Photo: Getty) For those yet to tune in, Ella and Nana are joined by three other teams: singer-songwriter Sam Ryder and his best friend and tour manager Kaz, influencer Princess Andre with her brother, musician Junior (the children of Katie Price and Peter Andre) and sports broadcaster Jeff Stelling and his son Matt. Ella and Nana’s closest rivals in the first two episodes are Sam and Kaz, who they spot several times en route. “I’m not going to listen to any of Sam Ryder’s music, ever,” jokes Nana in the show. “I think there is going to be initial rivalry,” says Ella. “But as time went on, we really had a lovely relationship with everybody. We would really look forward to the checkpoints. Especially if it had been a difficult journey, we couldn’t wait to hear how everyone else’s had gone.” As is typical of Race Across the World, the series is uplifting. We watch 18-year-old Princess grow in confidence. Jeff is faced with the stress of long-distance, budget travel in his seventies, but finds support in his son. For Sam and Kaz and Nana and Ella, it’s a chance to switch off from life’s responsibilities and reconnect. Long-distance and overnight buses are a vital form of affordable transport for the four teams (Photo: BBC/Studio Lambert) Ella and Nana wanted to have a gap year experience. They are thrust into the realities of this on arrival in Tayan, a region in Indonesian Borneo of marshy coastal plains and limited public transport, and where little English is spoken. Here, they are stuck with one accommodation option, where they suspect there’s mould. “If you could smell the hotel, I think people would understand even more. It was like a baptism of fire,” says Nana. It’s a relief when they make it to their working stay on a rice farm in Nek Bindang, West Kalimantan, among indigenous Dayak People. They enjoy the hospitality of a family, including their host Marcella, several generations of which live in one “long house”. Ella says: “I wanted to connect with communities in areas of the world that I will probably never [experience again]. And to have to really push in terms of communication and to build a relationship with people without the fundamentals of being able to do that [such as fluency in a shared language].” After their memorable stay, the duo’s first tough choice is whether to head for a transport hub and wait for a bus the next morning or risk going to a rural station, where the bus might not stop, for a same-day departure. “My standout memory was [the guy who we met] at the [rural] bus station,” says Ella. “We very nearly weren’t able to get on that bus. He went above and beyond. It was also Ramadan, so lots of people who were helping us were limited on energy [due to fasting].” There are many obstacles to overcome for Ella and Nana to secure a race win on arrival in Melbourne (Photo: BeyondImages/Getty) It remains to be seen if Ella and Nana’s lead in the race can remain compatible with their desire for adventure. “So much happens during those six weeks. It feels like a fever dream,” says Nana. Expect a shake-up to the journey in the next episode. Whatever the result, there will be delicious views of Indonesia and Australia to enjoy over the next three weeks. ‘Celebrity Race Across the World’ continues on Wednesdays, 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer