- Well hello and welcome
to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and today I'm flying on one
of Pakistan's newer airlines, Serene Air, across to
Islamabad in Pakistan. Let's head inside and go check 'em out. My first step today was
to head to check-in, where it seemed that I
was the only person today who wasn't trying to check
in half of Currys PC World. With my only bag being
my sold trolley case that I was taking on board as a carry-on, I felt like I might have
significantly under-packed for today's flight. Hello. Hello, check-in for Islamabad. - Islamabad?
- Yeah, thank you. - You have luggage? - [Noel] No, just hand baggage. - Have a safe flight.
- Thank you very much. Have a good day.
- As well, you too. - Bye-bye. Next stop was through passport
control and security where, like many parts in the
Middle East and Asia, there are separate male and female security screening points. All right, I'm all
checked-in for Serene Air across to Islamabad. Relatively painless there. Got myself a window seats as well. So I'm gonna try and
find a lounge if I can. Let's see, I don't think
I can use my ticket, I don't think Serene Air use lounges, but I might be able to get in
with Priority Pass somewhere. Let's go and see if we can find somewhere. The terminal building here at
Riyadh is absolutely beautiful and I thought the
architecture was stunning. I mean, isn't this terminal
absolutely beautiful? Would you look at that behind me. Gorgeous. Some of the terminal
buildings here in Saudi are just absolutely incredible. But rather than spending time
looking at the architecture, I thought it would be nice
to try and head to a lounge and I found one here that
accepted Priority Pass. - [Employee] Hello. How are you? - [Noel] I'm good. How are you? You take Priority Pass?
- Yes. - Thank you. All right then, I've come
to the welcome lounge here and that's in Riyadh. It's like a pay-per-use
lounge effectively. But you can get in with Priority
Pass, which is pretty cool. It's got a nice view out over the apron, sort of like over there somewhere. And the food, well they've got
a few little bits and pieces of hot food. I'm not really sure what I've got. Basically I went for what looked like meat and what looked like eggs, so. And that's ful or something? So I'm gonna try that. Saudi dishes, let's try them. I'm not sure what I'm
getting myself in for here. Oh, it's not bad. It's looks like minced beef or something. It's quite nice. Try some egg. We know what some egg tastes like. Mm. It's really scrambled eggs. Nice. All right. Bit of time here then. We'll get down to the
plane in a little while. I'm not sure if it's here or not. But I can see a British
Airways plane over there. All right then, time to head to the gate. Plane is on approach
at the minute I think. So we'll go and head down to the gate and hopefully watch it pop in. So there she is, the
Serene Air Airbus A330. They've got three of these in their fleet as well as a load of 737s. And these fly on routes across, international flights basically, to Dubai and Sharjah over in the UAE. And here in Saudi Arabia, to Jeddah, Medina, and here in Riyadh. This one originally delivered
new to KLM back in 2008, so it'll be interesting to see what that one's like on board. So yeah, let's head down and
check out what it's like. One thing I love about traveling
to places like Pakistan, where a lot of people don't travel, is just how fascinated
people are when they do. It's so nice seeing so many
people so fascinated by aviation in a world where so many
of us take it for granted. The routes between Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan are some of the busiest
air routes in the world. There's dozens of flights every single day connecting the Saudi cities
with cities across Pakistan, with most of them full in each direction. Saudi Arabia's home to the
world's largest population of overseas Pakistanis, with over 2.6 million
working in the country. An estimated 38% of the
workforce in Saudi Arabia are migrant workers who
travel to the country for months at a time to work and send money home to their families. Then head home after
their stint in the desert. An estimated 38% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia are migrant workers. These flights are an essential link for travelers commuting
between the two countries. - [Videographer] What are you doing? - Oh, I've got me Weed
Whacker from Manscaped. Brilliant. It's something that you need when you get a bit older like me. It does all your nose and
your ear and everything. You can sort of put it in there and oh, get all those stray hairs that you get when you get old like me. - [Videographer] Yeah, but
you're like sat outside doing it. What-
- It's okay. It's waterproof, you know? That's the best thing about this. So you can use it in the shower or sat out in the rain like this. Oh. - Really, really good.
- Noel! - [Noel] It's awesome! - [Videographer] Ew. Keep
it out in the rain, Noel. - Don't knee me in the nuts,
don't knee me in the... It's a good thing it's waterproof. The Manscaped Weed Whacker 2.0 uses a powerful 7,000 RPM motor with an improved steel blade system and upgraded cutting performance from their 1st generation Weed Wacker to better whack your weeds. It's cordless, rechargeable, and there's a battery with
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international shipping when you use my promo code,
philips@manscaped.com. This pool is bloody freezing. What are you waiting for? Your ears and your nose will thank you. The funniest thing is that
this flight's just landed. Everyone's getting off it and half the people that
are going back to Pakistan are waving at people they know who work for the same companies, who are just coming for their
stints here in Saudi Arabia. So it's pretty funny. They're all sort of waving and
taking photos of one another and it's quite funny. But we should be getting
on board very soon. We are delayed. We should
have been airborne by now, but hey, traveling in
this part of the world, you get used to it. There's like no point in
worrying about delays like this because they just happen. So we'll be on board at
some point today, hopefully. And getting us way to Islamabad. After some time, there was an announcement that the gate had changed, so it was all changed
over to the next gate, along where we could go
and get onboard our flight. Still nobody seemed to object,
even this guy in front of me. Well that told me, didn't it. But in any case, we
were soon getting ready to get on board the Airbus A330 to take us across to Pakistan. So here I was then, about to board the beautiful
Serene Air Airbus A330. I'm not really sure what to
expect when I got on board. Still it would seem I wouldn't
have too long to find out. Hello. - Hello. How are you?
- I'm good. How are you? - This way please.
- Thank you. As the curtain was pulled back, I got my first glimpse
of the Serene class cabin on the Serene Air A330. Now for the small price difference between economy and these seats, I wasn't expecting a great deal at all and I was quite pleasantly surprised with this 2, 2, 2 configuration. As I was about to find out though, Serene Air do like a good
game of musical chairs, and I took my seat in my first
place for today's flight, seat 2A. All right then, welcome on
board the Serene Air A330. This is Serene class, their
business class product. They've only got this on their A330. It's not on the 737s. So you have to kind of be on an international route to get this and one that's served by an
A330, which isn't all of them. So just check it out. But it's not that much more expensive. It's like a $100 more for this flight to fly in Serene class than
it is to fly in economy. So it'll be interesting
to see how many people take them up on that offer today. But the seat's very nice. Look, we've got seat controls here. Got this nice wood panel effect here. We've got TV screens there. I dunno if they're gonna work
later in the flight maybe. I don't know. We've got storage down there
and I bet that's the power. That's a bit sort of worrying. But there is life jackets in
there, that's okay I think. Just trying to see if there's any power. So there is a USB socket just in there, I dunno if you can see that. Little bit mucky down there. We've got a light and
a divider here as well. Does that pop out? No. That's as it is. And we've got these nice pillows as well. Serene class of pillows there too, so not too shabby really. About a four-hour run today
across to Islamabad in Pakistan. Looking forward to seeing
how this flight goes. It wasn't long though, before my time in seat 2A came to an end and I was turfed out and
moved somewhere else. All right, I've just been asked
if I can move forward a row because they're trying to
shuffle some passengers around, so I'm not quite sure what's going on, but they've put me up in 1A now. So seat of kings. So I'm here in 1A for
today's little flight over to Pakistan. One of the jet bridges is gone. Hopefully the other one will
soon and we'll get on it's way. As the boarding bridges were
detached from the plane, the crew came round handing
out some pre-takeoff drinks and I just had a glass of water. The APU wasn't working on today's flight, so we had to do a ground start at the gate before we pushed back to get on our way. Once we pushed back from the gate, we did have quite a
lengthy taxi to the runway. The airport here at Riyadh
is absolutely massive, and as I mentioned in my
previous video flying on Flynas, it's actually larger than
the city of Las Vegas. Eventually though, we
made it out to the runway, and with about an hour's delay, we took off for our flight to Pakistan. I did try and get some footage of the city of Riyadh from above, but the windows on this
plane were absolutely filthy and it was really hard to
get my camera to focus. I did get a good view of this
stadium down below though. If you know what it
is, comment down below. Our route today then took us across Saudi Arabia and Oman, before crossing the
Arabia Sea into Pakistan. From there we flew northeast
all the way up to Islamabad. Flight time today was
3 hours and 29 minutes, cruising at 39,000 feet. Alright then, airborne from Riyadh, heading to Islamabad. Great views out there
over the Saudi desert, look at that view. You cannot beat that view, can you? It's like being on the
surface of Mars or something. It's incredible. So yeah, about a three and
a half, four-hour flight. We've taken off with about an
hour's delay on the flight, which wasn't too bad all in all. We'll see whether we've
still got that hour delay when we land in to Islamabad later on. But yeah, in the meantime, gonna kick back and try
and enjoy the fight. Here's a quick reminder
to follow me on Instagram where I live vlog all
of my trips in real time through Instagram stories. You can follow me
@noelphillips.official on Instagram. Not long after take off,
the crew came around and set the tables ready
for the meal service. - So please tell me, what would you like to
have as your drinks? - [Noel] I'll have some water please. - All right. Sir? - [Passenger] Some Sprite, please. - All right.
- Thank you. - All right, dinner service
has turned up and look at this. That's incredible. Let's have a look and see what it's like. Don't know what it is. We'll give it a taste. It's definitely got with it as well. It's very spicy. Ooh! Slightly regretting not
having my drink of water just yet, but... There it is. Thank you very much. - You're welcome.
- Thank you. Good timing. But very nice, delicious. You know, I've flown on some
kind of western airlines. They've got a much better
reputation than Serene Air and the food has been a lot worse. This is proper good. - [Announcer] It's time for
the Noel Philips Loo Review. - Alright then, time for
the Serene Air Loo Review on the A330. And this is the front lav,
next to the flight deck. It's relatively nice actually. It's very clean and tidy. To say that we are most of
the way through the flight and it's been quite heavily
used, it's still quite neat. We've got a little trash can there, toiletries and stuff there. Relatively clean toilet as well. Baby changing table there as well. All these nice lights around the mirror. And as you go on this side,
thick full-length mirror. And there's the door on the way out. So far so good, enjoying
this flight with Serene Air. I wasn't really sure what
to expect if I'm honest. I hadn't heard great things
about them, I have to say, but they've kind of surprised me, which has been really nice. The cabin crew are phenomenal. They're so friendly,
can't do enough to help. The food was pretty decent. Seats were reasonable as well. The only thing is, I mean
the inflight entertainment, I suppose it would be nice
to maybe have a flight map at least, but there's
nothing at all on there. We've got the screens, but we've just got
nothing working on them. So that might have been nice if they could sort
something out with that. But other than that, honestly,
I can't complain so far. And I usually try to find something to complain about as you know. But I can't really find
anything to complain about with Serene Air, they're pretty decent. There's a bit of a delay on the flight which is probably, I don't
know, I could moan about that. But then that affects a lot of airlines in this part of the world. So it's not really the end of the world, but I'm pretty impressed really. But anyway, that's the loo on the Serene Air A330. - [Announcer] That was the
Noel Phillips Loo Review. - All right, I figured I'd try and use the angle flat bed on the seat, to try and get a little bit of rest. Okay, this isn't brilliant, I have to say. It's not quite flat, it's angled slightly, but it's not anywhere
resembling an angle flat. It's kind of like that. And, I can't even get my legs straight on the bed in this position. So this wouldn't be good if you were doing an overnight flight, although I suppose it's better than sitting in a standard seat. It's not too bad. It reclines quite a long way but not all the way into a flat bed. But today we've only got a four-hour run, all in daylight across to Islamabad. So it's not too bad. But you know, I was just
thinking about this. The price that I've paid for
this flight is just insane. The flight prices on this
route are incredibly cheap. There's a lot of competition basically between Riyadh and
Islamabad on this route. There's at at least four or
five airlines flying this route. You've got Saudia, you've
got Flynas from that side. On the Pakistani side, you've got PIA, you've got Airblue, a low cost airline, then you've got Serene Air as well. So all that competition really helps to bring the flight prices down because there's just so many
seats going on this route. And this flight, if you sit
in the back in economy, $180. Can't really complain, can you, for that. Here, business class, an extra $100. $280 for this seat, which in my opinion, I'm not being funny, you could get probably a better service and a better quality, slightly, flying on Emirates or something. But you're not gonna get
it for that price, are you? And to be fair, this is
perfectly acceptable. Very good value for money. And that's the thing,
for the price you pay, I don't think you can beat
an airline like Serene Air. Now sure, I could have taken this route in the utmost of luxury, flying
on an airline like Emirates or Qatar Airways in their Qsuites, or on business class on Emirates, and had a fantastic experience. But it would've cost me far more money than this flight on Serene Air. Now sure, airlines like
Serene Air don't exactly have a great reputation when
compared to the bigger airlines, like Emirates and Qatar. But you know what? For the price you pay, I don't
think you can go far wrong. They get you where you want to go with a decent onboard product, really cheaply and
okay, a little bit late. But hey, for the price
difference, who's complaining? As the sun started to set,
we started our approach down into the beautiful city of Islamabad. Now I've been to Islamabad
before, albeit very briefly, but it was a city that
left me wanting more. It was such an incredible place
on my brief stay last time. And I made a promise that I would one day go back and explore. And well, here it was right underneath me, ready to be explored for the next few days of my time here in Pakistan. As we touched down at Islamabad Airport, I was full of excitement for the next week I was
going to spend here, exploring every corner of
this incredible country. But as we pulled onto the stand, it seemed that word of my
arrival had reached the airline. And I wasn't entirely sure
if that was a good thing. As I got off the plane, I was met off the aircraft
by a member of airport staff, who took my bag off me and
asked me to follow him. - So much.
- Thank you, bye-bye. - [Flight Attendant] You're welcome. - Hello.
- Oh. Hello. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what this was all about. I think he worked for Serene Air, he had a Serene Air jacket on, and he basically walked
with me through the airport and that was about it really. All very interesting. I do have to say though, as much as it does seem
that Serene Air did find out I was on board the plane, the service that I got on board was in no way different whatsoever from any of the other passengers
in the Serene class cabin. The only thing different
was this man walking me through the airport at the end. Either way it was a pretty strange ending to my little journey with Serene Air. It's something that's never
happened to me before. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure it's ever
going to happen again. But in any case, thank you Serene Air for sending him to walk alongside me. As we headed outside, I met my host for the
next few days, Hannan, who was ready to show me
around his city of Islamabad. - Hello, how are you? - Very good, thank you. Very good. All right, welcome to
Islamabad in Pakistan. Hannan here very kindly
picked me up from the airport. - Hello, everyone.
- And now you're going to show me around your town, - Yeah, yeah.
- is that right? One thing that's surprising me actually is how green the city is. It's beautiful, isn't it? - [Hannan] Yeah, it is. - [Noel] So they custom built
this city, is that right? - Yeah-
- From scratch. - [Hannan] It was designed to
be the capital of Pakistan. So initially the capital was Karachi- - [Noel] Okay. - which is the most
populated city of Pakistan. But it wasn't planned very
nicely and was built haphazardly. So they decided to move it here. - Okay, to Islamabad. Wow. And it's been mastered planned. I mean look at this, look, you've got sort of grass areas and
trees and everything and it's like boulevards. It's very beautiful, isn't it? Very beautiful city. Ah, so where have you bought me Hannan? - So now we are going to Saidpur Village. - Okay. - It was part of Gandhara
civilization as well. But in around 1500, it was like, built up like a proper village. - [Noel] Okay. And it's right on the
outskirts of Islamabad. - Yeah.
- So a massive city, and then there's a
little village like this that's just like rural Pakistan, isn't it? I guess.
- [Hannan] Yes, exactly. - [Noel] Fantastic. - [Hannan] It's at the
base of Magra Mountain. - Okay. - It has really nice views and there's a gurdwara and a
temple right next to each other and they used to live
here and pray together. - Wow. Oh this place is absolutely
incredible, isn't it? Wow. Look at this. It's hard to believe that 10 minutes ago I was in downtown
Islamabad and now I'm here. Just unbelievable. It's one thing I wasn't expecting to find in Pakistan necessarily, was we've got a Hindu temple
and a Sikh gurdwara in- - At the same place.
- At the same place. But in Pakistan, which is obviously
primarily a Muslim country. And so what, how did that happen? - So before partition, a lot of Sikh and Hindu
people used to live here and they would also
travel through Rawalpindi and they would stay in
this building at night. And Sikhs would pray in their gurdwara and Hindus would do so their temple and continue their journey.
- Before they went on. Incredible.
- Yeah. - Wow. Fascinating. The history in this place is amazing. It really is. Hello. Question is, are you a
pet or are you dinner? Is it pets or is it dinner? - He doesn't speak English.
- He doesn't speak English. No, I could figure that. Yes. Is he a pet or is he for
dinner? That's the question. - Right now it's a pet, but- - Who's knows tomorrow? Yeah. Next up, Hannan was keen to show me one of his favorite food
joints here Islamabad. - This is potatoes. This is meat. This is potato. This is meat. This is meat.
- Ah, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. So Hannan's brought me
to the best samosa shop in the whole of Pakistan, yeah? - In Islamabad.
- In Islamabad, okay. - Yeah. But you can always
find better food in Lahore. - Okay, well we've got Lahore
and Karachi later in the trip, so we'll try some down there. But let's try this. Mm. I can see why you like 'em. It's like a Gregg sausage
roll that we have in England. It's like a Greggs but a Pakistani version of a Greggs. Oh, that's amazing. Mm-mm. Very good. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. So what's this delicacy here? - This is called Jalebi,
it's literally almost sugar, which is then deep fried
because eating simply sugar wasn't unhealthy enough.
- You gotta fry it. Yeah, it's a Scottish diet. I like it. Yeah, fry everything. Let's try this. Wow. Oh my goodness, that is incredible. Now do you want one? - Yeah, no, no. I'm fine with samosa. - You're not ready for
a heart attack just yet? - No. - Mm, wow. The last stop today then, and perhaps in an effort to burn off some of the calories from
all that delicious food, was a hike up to the Pakistan monument on the outskirts of Islamabad. So this seems like a fitting
place to end this video. This is the Pakistan monument here. And each one of these
did you say represents a different state in... - Yeah, it represents a
different culture or a province. So there's the one petal for
Punjab, Balochistan, KPK, and there are two for, one is for Kashmir, the smaller one, one is for Gilgit-Baltistan. So it represents the
unity and togetherness of different states- - The different states.
- of Pakistan. - Fantastic. And that's quite interesting because I'm gonna be
visiting some of these places that these leaves represent
over the next few videos. So make sure you hit subscribe. But also check out Hannan's company. So you are a tour company
here, is that right? - Yeah, we are highest-rated
tour company of Pakistan. We are trying to show the world
what Pakistan has to offer and if you need any
help exploring Pakistan, just feel free to contact us. We would love to help you explore Pakistan like it's meant to be. - Absolutely. And what's
your company called? - It's called Traverse Pakistan. - Traverse Pakistan.
- Traverse Pakistan, yeah. - So we'll pop a link in the description to Traverse Pakistan and
also to your socials as well. 'Cause you're on Instagram
and you share like pictures and videos from all around the country. It's amazing. Check it out. But I'm gonna sign off from here for now, but I will see you on the next one where we head somewhere
else here in Pakistan. So in the meantime, thank
you so much for watching. Take care and I'll see
you on the next one. Bye for now.
