Saturday, 5 November 2016

TARA S5 E4: Oh wow, now I'm truly impressed!

Sawadeekarp and welcome to the latest installment of my review of the Amazing Race Asia season 5. Many thanks to everyone who has been reading my reviews of the episode so far. In episode 4 the contestants went to beautiful Phuket, a part of Southern Thailand which has been featured in many other Amazing Race episodes before: (TAR US S1, S14, S19, S26; TAR Australia S1, TARA S1, S3 - need I go on?) Everyone expected the Thai team, Tom and Anita, to shine whilst they are on home turf. Having been to Thailand, the language barrier is pretty huge - some people do speak English if they regularly deal with tourists, but it is a complete luck of the draw whether or not you get a taxi driver who speaks some English, a little English or no English at all. Given how they were dependent on taxis to get from one location to another you'll expect the Thai speaking team to have a big advantage, yet they came in second?
Treasuri and Louisa - I salute you, you are amazing. 

Treasuri and Louisa won this leg in Thailand, running a nearly flawless leg whilst other teams succumbed to mistake after mistake. They communicated effectively with their taxi driver, they were wise enough to pick the right detour and stayed ahead of the pack by completing their meditation challenge efficiently. I didn't think that they were going to be the strongest team initially, given that there were teams that clearly looked physically very strong (in particular Alex and Will from Malaysia as well as Eric and Rona from the Philippines) - yet they showed that brain power trumped muscle power by winning two legs in a row. This clearly establishes them as the strongest team by far at this stage of the race and the favourite to win: the question however though, is whether the other teams will feel so threatened by Treasuri and Louisa that they will gang up against them, just to eliminate the strongest team? I would do that if I had to race against these two formidable ladies who have demonstrated that they have the best understanding of how TAR works. Haven't you seen TAR before? The weaker teams regularly gang up against the strongest team.

JK and his taxi driver antics. 

Good grief, JK wasted so much precious time at Phuket airport by demanding a different taxi driver - hasn't he been to Thailand before? You're better off taking your chances with the first one you get than trying to find one who speaks perfect English and has Google maps on his phone - that is the kind of thing you might expect in a place like Hong Kong or Singapore, but not Phuket. If you prove to be the customer from hell, you risk offending your taxi driver. JK is bad, but not as bad as Jonathan from TAR US S6 who was such a pain in the ass in the taxi in Budapest that his Hungarian taxi driver stopped at the side of the road and kicked him and Victoria out. You don't get anywhere with taxi drivers by being demanding and pushy - you have to be firm but polite with them. Having said that, I was astonished just how long some taxis took to get from the airport to the first location (Phang Nga Elephant Park), what did Eric and Rona's taxi driver do for example? Stop for some sticky rice and mango on the way? Stop to meet his mother-in-law?
First rule of TAR: always be nice to your taxi driver!

Lew lew! Rao Rao! Lao Lao! Li li? Riu riu? เร็วเร็ว!

The word of the day is 'lew lew' which in Thai means "quickly". I have transliterate it as 'lew lew' as that's as close as I can get in English but in Thai the consonant for เร็วเร็ว is neither an L nor an R in English but somewhere in between the two, but in some dialects, it can sound closer to an L than an R. Either way, with the exception of Tom and Anita, everyone else made a valiant effort to try to say 'lew lew' but it came out as anything from rao rao to lao lao to li li to riu riu - I'm sure the locals had a good laugh at these Farangs trying their best but still mangling the Thai language.

Rain or shine - TAR goes on. 

I felt really sorry for the contestants who had to gather the pineapple leaves in the Elephant Park in the pouring rain. It must have been frightfully unpleasant - could it be as bad as the episode of TAR Canada season 4 episode 3 when both members of the cast and crew were collapsing from heatstroke during the filming in Cai Be, Vietnam? Or TAR US season 9 episode 7 when the teams had to dig for their dinner buried in the Omani desert when it was absolutely baking hot? What about TAR US season 15 episode 2 when the teams arrived in Ho Chi Minh City in the middle of a rainstorm? It is clear that in some instances, the tasks are deliberately created to make the teams suffer in grueling weather conditions. But in this case, well, the tropical thunderstorm was just sheer bad luck. I note that the contestants who arrived later at the Elephant Park were spared the worst of the bad weather, so every cloud has its silver lining.
Rain or shine, the race goes on.

Detour: haven't you learnt your lesson in Penang? Obvious not!

Good grief. Haven't the teams learnt their lesson from the last episode? When you have a choice between two detours, one involving learning some kind of choreography, you always pick the other one unless you're some kind of super dance teacher-choreographer like Matt and Dana, winners of TAR US S28.  Besides, if there is a clearly a team like Treasuri and Louisa who keep making wise decisions when it comes to the detours, surely you should at least pause for a moment and ask, "those two keep doing so well, they must be doing something right - which detour did Treasuri and Louisa choose?" I was amazed at the number of teams who picked the Muay Thai challenge as their first choice - clearly it was very difficult as you had to perform it to a very high standard before you could get your next clue. The teams who chose un-tie clearly had an easier time. But wait - haven't the teams who did the Chinese Opera stage combat challenge in Penang learnt their lesson about how difficult these kinds of detour can be? JK and Mike sucked at both challenges - let's just hope they won't choose to learn another piece of choreography in the next leg.

Will we miss Rachel's painfully bad English? 

I feel sorry for Rachel - she speaks English as a second language and I know how hard it is to try to be funny and witty in a language that is not your first language. Heck, I am writing this in English - would I be able to express myself as eloquently in say French or Chinese, my second and third languages? No, of course not - but that's exactly what Rachel has been asked to do. This week she gave us, "I think the elephant should be on diet not eat too much lah." Ouch. Firstly, an elephant has a very healthy diet - if they were humans, they would be vegans. We eat crap compared to the elephants - they don't need to go on a diet, we do. And secondly, leaving aside her bad grammar, how is that supposed to be funny? If you were going to crack a joke about elephants, try these: what do you call an elephant who doesn't matter? Irrelephant. Why did the elephant answer the phone? He received a trunk call. How do you stop a charging elephant? Take away his credit card. Okay, those jokes may be cheesy but at least they were jokes. I almost feel bad bitching about someone making a genuine effort to be funny (and failing) in a second language, but Rachel's English just gets more and more painful each week because she genuinely thinks she is funny. Sudah cukup lah kau.
Thank goodness Rachel and Vicky are eliminated. Selamat tinggal!

Did this team really have a chance to bounce back from last place after having completed their speed bump? Possibly. JK and Mike ran an awful leg again, finishing one place from elimination - Rachel and Vicky could have overtaken them if they had chosen the un-tie detour, but given how Rachel had a complete meltdown whilst trying to learn the Muay Thai routine, their game was over the moment they chose to do the Muay Thai task. I was however, impressed with the way she managed to do the meditation task relatively painlessly, after her meltdown at the Muay Thai challenge. In fact I was quite surprised that Vicky made her do it. Statistically, these two were the worst team so far and had been struggling, so it was really no surprise to have seen them eliminated in Phuket. Will they be missed? Absolutely not - it was a shame that they even lasted this long. Selamat tinggal guys!

I want to see JK and Mike go next. JK has crossed the line. 

When JK gawked at the Malaysian beauty queens in their bikinis, I thought that just crossed the line when it came to bad taste. It came across as downright crass and offensive: even if you did find them attractive, at least find a more classy way to pay them a compliment rather than gawking like a dirty old man. Didn't your parents ever teach you any manners? Didn't your parents ever teach you how to respect women? Good grief, this is why people like Trump think it is cool to brag about sexually harassing women, grabbing them by the pussy - no, this is not acceptable and JK should be made to feel ashamed about the way he behaved. You do not treat women like that - show some respect JK, no one else on the race is behaving like you. Both beauty queen teams from Malaysia and Philippines have consistently outperformed JK and Mike, they have beauty and brains but the Singaporean DJs are just hopeless. Oh and when he showed the lewd flyer of some sleazy strip club to the camera in the taxi - did he think that was funny? I feel sorry for Mike, he seems like a decent person but JK has to go. But first, we must shame him for his incorrigible behaviour.
Who knew meditating could be this stressful? 

The meditating task has been used in Survivor where contestants could win immunity if they could successfully complete the task. It is a task you can quite easily try at home - yes I've tried it and it is even harder than it looks because the slightest movement will send the coins tumbling down and there's really nothing you can do the moment you realize, uh-oh can I try to... nope, it's too late. Oh this is physical torture disguised as meditation - but inflicting torture on the racers is nothing new on TAR. Who can forget the foot massages in Beijing (TAR US S14 E10) that reduced so many racers to tears? Or the Chinese massage in Singapore (TAR US S25 E9) which made most racers beg for mercy whilst screaming out in pain? I felt really sorry for Parul who clearly struggled with this task and amongst the challenges I have seen so far on TARA S5, this is one of the most interesting ones as it does explore an element of local Thai Buddhist culture and it looks easy but turned out to be incredibly difficult.

Aaargh, what happened to Eric and Rona at Lay Pang beach? 

I have liked Eric and Rona from the start - they are an incredibly likable team and they have clearly done their homework to prepare for this race. Yet they seem to struggle leg after leg - after a seemingly bad start in Phuket (their taxi driver was terribly slow), they caught up as benefited from Eric's incredible muscle power. Then just as they were so close to the pit stop, they got hopelessly lost on Lay Pang beach - okay, some of the other teams had trouble finding Allan as well, but what happened guys? Was it just bad luck? A case of more haste less speed? They got so lost that they even allowed Parul and Maggie to finish ahead of them. But I'm standing by my initial judgement call that they are one of the strongest teams and can still make it to the finals. Come on Eric and Rona, I believe in you guys! 
My pick for potential winners.

Clearly, Treasuri and Louisa are the strongest team with an average position of 1.75th so far. Can anyone even come close to these two? Just look at their track record so far. The next strongest teams are Tom and Anita (average position 4th), Eric and Rona as well as Yvonne and Chloe (average position 4.5th), It looks like Tom and Anita, Eric and Rona and Yvonne and Chloe are all quite closely matched, but can any of them actually take on Treasuri and Louisa? Well, I think it depends on whether or not the teams will have a challenge that will require more muscle power than brain power - clearly, there are some incredibly strong men on this race (Will, Alex and Eric - swoon!) and TAR does have a track record of giving contestants really physical challenges which will favour the teams with the strong strong men and the all-women teams will be at a disadvantage. Mind you, with no Vietnamese teams left in the race after Lisa and Nicole's shock elimination in Jakarta in episode 1, it is anyone's game in HCMC. I'm either going to abbreviate Ho Chi Minh City to HCMC or just use the old name "Saigon". Will Treasuri and Louisa triumph again in HCMC?

Who will be eliminated next? 

Well the three weakest teams so far are Will and Alex (average position 5th), Parul and Maggie (average position 5.25th) and then JK and Mike (average position 6.25th). Will and Alex ran a weak leg once they were taken out of their comfort zone of being in their home country and fell from 2nd to 6th. The statistics may show Parul and Maggie to be a rather weak team so far, but note that they have improved their ranking with each episode: climbing from 7th, 6th, 5th to 3rd - it could be that they are learning as they go along and are improving. But ultimately you can't argue with the statistics: JK and Mike are extremely weak and have been struggling in the last few legs, flirting with elimination in Bandung, Penang and Phuket. My prediction that Rachel and Vicky would be eliminated in this leg was purely based on statistics and it was correct - and it is with the same methodology that I am predicting that JK and Mike will be eliminated next in HCMC. And that's with me putting all my very negative feelings about JK's vile behaviour aside!
So that's it from me on this episode, what do you think? Will the brilliant Louisa and Treasuri be unstoppable or will the other racers gang up against them? Will Parul and Maggie keep improving and finish strongly in HCMC? Will JK and Mike finally implode and self-destruct in HCMC? Will Eric and Rona finally prove me right by winning a leg soon? Will anyone even remember who Tara is when she mysteriously appears again when the teams finally race back to Indonesia? Let me know what you guys think, leave a comment below please. Many thanks for reading, kobkhun-karp!

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