The Amazing Race 19: Eps 4 to 6
Nov. 6th, 2011 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsEp 4:
1. Next destination is Phuket, Thailand (its 3rd outing on TAR, after TAR1 and TAR15). Everyone takes flights via Jakarta (amusingly, the latter teams actually book out the JKT-HKT flight all the way in Yogyakarta before the first two even reach JKT, making them confused at the full flight to HKT :-D)
2. Detour is a choice between two tasks to repair the damage from the 2004 tsunami: "planting" coral or arranging deck chairs and umbrellas on a beach. Most go with the latter. Teams ride to the Detour on speedboats, and Amani/Marcus talk about Justin/Jennifer (siblings) trying to imitate "Titanic"... as we cut to them saying "We're the king of the world" :-D
3. Justin/Jennifer have their usual bickering while dealing with the coral, while everyone else has issues trying to keep their structure made of water pipes from falling apart. With the beach task, the problem is keeping the umbrellas from flying off in the wind. We see Liz/Marie struggle mightily in spite of other teams' recommendations.
4. Next clue is a cutout of two rocks, and a hint to go north on a speedboat for 15 minutes. Ernie/Cindy go south (literally and figuratively) for 15 minutes (even mistaking a local fishing boat as their next clue drop), but they won't be the only ones with navigational issues... At the two rocks is a Roadblock clue: "Who wants to be king of the hill?" It turns out to involve rock face climbing, just like good ol' TAR1, with a short climb to a bird's nest.
5. Clue sends them to Panyi Island, and its floating soccer field (made famous by the short film/ad campaign linked here). Incredibly, Laurence/Zac (accomplished sailors!) also go in the wrong direction on their way there (!) Snowboarders win their third leg in a row (but first time actually arriving first) to take $5,000 each ("Our wives can come on our trips! :-)") We get to hear Amani/Marcus talk about how he's never seen a "floating stadium" before :-) Bill/Cathi finish 7th for the 3rd leg running, and they quip that it's their lucky number, but they'll have to do better next leg... Then again, this leg is non-elimination, as Liz/Marie find out when they finish last.
Ep 5:
1. First stop after getting back on the mainland is to head to an adventure camp (by a local songthaew driver hired for the day) to take some "local transportation" (an elephant!) to a waterfall. (Jennifer: "I give you back massage with my feet :-)") Here there's a Roadblock: "Who wants to hear some water music?" Turns out to essentially be looking for their next clue in a water pool under some guy playing a traditional flute. Clue turns out to be in the form of a clay fish that everyone smashes to get the clue. Liz/Marie's speed bump (shoveling elephant dung and scrubbing an elephant) is here, and also happens to be right up their alley :-)
2. Next stop, a "spirit house" store, to disasseble a spirit house and carry the pieces to a temple. Clue doesn't say it'll be reassembled, but most teams reckon it will be a task for later and take down notes anyway, and one team even borrows their driver's camera phone to take a photo (I was wondering, is that even allowed?) Snowboarders talk about their religion while working on this task, yuck :-P
3. Sure enough, at the temple, the next task is a Roadblock for the other player to reassemble the shrine, so one of the snowboarders (they both only memorized their half), Zac (/Laurence) and Ernie (/Cindy) (both had their reasons not to take notes, basically amounting to "They didn't say anything about reassembling") have to double back to the store to make notes anyway. Ouch.
4. Next stop, get to Bangkok by overnight bus (AKA, the reverse of Team Guido's trip in S1). The teams find they have to pay off $150 of their $186 alloted for this leg to their driver for the day, and my mom thought it was a ripoff. Laurence/Zac get on a first class bus at 4:30pm, realize there's a rule against first class transport, get off, walk back to the station (missing the 5:30pm in the process), and get tix for an 8:00pm bus, so they have a good 2 1/2 hours to kick (themselves? ;-)) at the station. The $150 songthaew ripoff leaves the twins with no money heading into Bangkok (and they're lucky to even be heading into Bangkok tonight!)
5. Bangkok, and everyone heads to a temple in Bangkok Noi to feed fish. Then, the pitstop at M.R. Kukrit's House, a late Thai politician's house turned museum (incidentally, a very short distance from where my mom used to work). That's almost as bad as the TAR Asia leg in Japan that "ended" with everyone taking the bullet train then cabs to the "pit stop"... that one ended up being a TBC leg, but this one's an honest-to-goodness end of leg (!)
6. Anyways, on their way to the House, the snowboarders ask for directions from some woman... who takes their clue then goes off to teach (!) At the pit stop, the house is beautiful, the greeter not so much :-\ Amani/Marcus pip Bill/Cathi (!) for the win and a trip to Bali. L/Z find out the first-class transport rule applies only to planes (oops), while the twins, after managing to bum off two (!) taxi rides (no money, remember), get eliminated.
Ep 6:
1. Next stop, Malawi, and a tobacco factory for a Roadblock: "Who's ready to put up bale?" Basically, carry around 10 bales of tobacco using handtrucks (not all at once!) Armani/Marcus and Bill/Cathi find themselves falling behind the other teams, and an engagement procession (!) Snowboarders make comments about the high energy cheering of the regular personnel :-) while Bill(/Cathi) talks about how he's used to using handtrucks to carry around hay, so naturally he's quite inclined for this task :-)
2. On their way to the next "cluebox" (more like a clue bowl) at some monument, Laurence comments about their taxi driving between lanes as being like in a James Bond movie :-D Detour is between sewing (with foot-driven sewing machines) and making toy trucks (though not the kind most people are used to seeing: these are made with paper boxes and bottle caps!), prompting Laurence to expect the teams with women to do well :-P At the toy trucks Detour, a few of the contestants manage to find time to kick some ball with the kids :-)
3. Next stop, a roadside furniture shop, for a clue pickup: carry beds to some village in the sticks/the pitstop. At the entrance to the village, everyone then has to leave their truck (and pay them!) before carrying their beds by themselves to the mat. Cindy gets "crushed" by her bed after Ernie leaves her on her own :-D
4. After Justin/Jennifer get turned away for not paying their truck, the snowboarders take their 4th win (3rd by default!) and a trip to the British Virgin Islands. It comes down to Bill/Cathi also having to go back to pay and Amani/Marcus carrying their beds to avoid last... B/C get 6th, A/M finish last, but it's non-elimination. And everyone gets to sleep on the beds they carried :-)
1. Next destination is Phuket, Thailand (its 3rd outing on TAR, after TAR1 and TAR15). Everyone takes flights via Jakarta (amusingly, the latter teams actually book out the JKT-HKT flight all the way in Yogyakarta before the first two even reach JKT, making them confused at the full flight to HKT :-D)
2. Detour is a choice between two tasks to repair the damage from the 2004 tsunami: "planting" coral or arranging deck chairs and umbrellas on a beach. Most go with the latter. Teams ride to the Detour on speedboats, and Amani/Marcus talk about Justin/Jennifer (siblings) trying to imitate "Titanic"... as we cut to them saying "We're the king of the world" :-D
3. Justin/Jennifer have their usual bickering while dealing with the coral, while everyone else has issues trying to keep their structure made of water pipes from falling apart. With the beach task, the problem is keeping the umbrellas from flying off in the wind. We see Liz/Marie struggle mightily in spite of other teams' recommendations.
4. Next clue is a cutout of two rocks, and a hint to go north on a speedboat for 15 minutes. Ernie/Cindy go south (literally and figuratively) for 15 minutes (even mistaking a local fishing boat as their next clue drop), but they won't be the only ones with navigational issues... At the two rocks is a Roadblock clue: "Who wants to be king of the hill?" It turns out to involve rock face climbing, just like good ol' TAR1, with a short climb to a bird's nest.
5. Clue sends them to Panyi Island, and its floating soccer field (made famous by the short film/ad campaign linked here). Incredibly, Laurence/Zac (accomplished sailors!) also go in the wrong direction on their way there (!) Snowboarders win their third leg in a row (but first time actually arriving first) to take $5,000 each ("Our wives can come on our trips! :-)") We get to hear Amani/Marcus talk about how he's never seen a "floating stadium" before :-) Bill/Cathi finish 7th for the 3rd leg running, and they quip that it's their lucky number, but they'll have to do better next leg... Then again, this leg is non-elimination, as Liz/Marie find out when they finish last.
Ep 5:
1. First stop after getting back on the mainland is to head to an adventure camp (by a local songthaew driver hired for the day) to take some "local transportation" (an elephant!) to a waterfall. (Jennifer: "I give you back massage with my feet :-)") Here there's a Roadblock: "Who wants to hear some water music?" Turns out to essentially be looking for their next clue in a water pool under some guy playing a traditional flute. Clue turns out to be in the form of a clay fish that everyone smashes to get the clue. Liz/Marie's speed bump (shoveling elephant dung and scrubbing an elephant) is here, and also happens to be right up their alley :-)
2. Next stop, a "spirit house" store, to disasseble a spirit house and carry the pieces to a temple. Clue doesn't say it'll be reassembled, but most teams reckon it will be a task for later and take down notes anyway, and one team even borrows their driver's camera phone to take a photo (I was wondering, is that even allowed?) Snowboarders talk about their religion while working on this task, yuck :-P
3. Sure enough, at the temple, the next task is a Roadblock for the other player to reassemble the shrine, so one of the snowboarders (they both only memorized their half), Zac (/Laurence) and Ernie (/Cindy) (both had their reasons not to take notes, basically amounting to "They didn't say anything about reassembling") have to double back to the store to make notes anyway. Ouch.
4. Next stop, get to Bangkok by overnight bus (AKA, the reverse of Team Guido's trip in S1). The teams find they have to pay off $150 of their $186 alloted for this leg to their driver for the day, and my mom thought it was a ripoff. Laurence/Zac get on a first class bus at 4:30pm, realize there's a rule against first class transport, get off, walk back to the station (missing the 5:30pm in the process), and get tix for an 8:00pm bus, so they have a good 2 1/2 hours to kick (themselves? ;-)) at the station. The $150 songthaew ripoff leaves the twins with no money heading into Bangkok (and they're lucky to even be heading into Bangkok tonight!)
5. Bangkok, and everyone heads to a temple in Bangkok Noi to feed fish. Then, the pitstop at M.R. Kukrit's House, a late Thai politician's house turned museum (incidentally, a very short distance from where my mom used to work). That's almost as bad as the TAR Asia leg in Japan that "ended" with everyone taking the bullet train then cabs to the "pit stop"... that one ended up being a TBC leg, but this one's an honest-to-goodness end of leg (!)
6. Anyways, on their way to the House, the snowboarders ask for directions from some woman... who takes their clue then goes off to teach (!) At the pit stop, the house is beautiful, the greeter not so much :-\ Amani/Marcus pip Bill/Cathi (!) for the win and a trip to Bali. L/Z find out the first-class transport rule applies only to planes (oops), while the twins, after managing to bum off two (!) taxi rides (no money, remember), get eliminated.
Ep 6:
1. Next stop, Malawi, and a tobacco factory for a Roadblock: "Who's ready to put up bale?" Basically, carry around 10 bales of tobacco using handtrucks (not all at once!) Armani/Marcus and Bill/Cathi find themselves falling behind the other teams, and an engagement procession (!) Snowboarders make comments about the high energy cheering of the regular personnel :-) while Bill(/Cathi) talks about how he's used to using handtrucks to carry around hay, so naturally he's quite inclined for this task :-)
2. On their way to the next "cluebox" (more like a clue bowl) at some monument, Laurence comments about their taxi driving between lanes as being like in a James Bond movie :-D Detour is between sewing (with foot-driven sewing machines) and making toy trucks (though not the kind most people are used to seeing: these are made with paper boxes and bottle caps!), prompting Laurence to expect the teams with women to do well :-P At the toy trucks Detour, a few of the contestants manage to find time to kick some ball with the kids :-)
3. Next stop, a roadside furniture shop, for a clue pickup: carry beds to some village in the sticks/the pitstop. At the entrance to the village, everyone then has to leave their truck (and pay them!) before carrying their beds by themselves to the mat. Cindy gets "crushed" by her bed after Ernie leaves her on her own :-D
4. After Justin/Jennifer get turned away for not paying their truck, the snowboarders take their 4th win (3rd by default!) and a trip to the British Virgin Islands. It comes down to Bill/Cathi also having to go back to pay and Amani/Marcus carrying their beds to avoid last... B/C get 6th, A/M finish last, but it's non-elimination. And everyone gets to sleep on the beds they carried :-)
