TAR S29 E9 + 10: The fun ended in Vietnam

Xin chào! Bạn khỏe không? We were treated to a double episode this week with two legs in Vietnam - I visited the same area in Northern Vietnam in 2011 so it was a treat to see how the racers coped there. Hanoi is a manic city with crazy traffic and there is a huge language barrier in Vietnam where most people speak only Vietnamese.  Like many fans, I was incredibly sad to see team fun eliminated because of a medical situation, but let's face it, even if they somehow managed to struggle onto the next location at Đền Thái Vi, they were already so far behind. Even if Becca did manage to complete the rowing task with her feet whilst Floyd just sat in the boat, he would have still struggled to get up Hang Mua peak and in a foot race for the last spot, a healthier team Lolo would have certainly beat them to the pit stop. So much to talk about these two legs, here are the statistics to review where the teams stack up so far:

That was me at Đền Thái Vi in 2011! It was pouring with rain.

Average ranking after 10 legs: 

Matt & Red 2.4
Tara & Joey 3.2
Becca & Floyd 3.4 (eliminated in Ninh Binh) 

Brooke & Scott 4.7

London & Logan 5.3

I am actually not going to bother with the alternative rankings (in which I allowed for ties instead of insisting on tie-breaks which make no sense if two or more teams arrive at the pit stop at virtually the same time) because Becca & Floyd have been eliminated. The whole point of the other set of statistics was to prove my point that Becca & Floyd were an equally strong if not stronger team than Matt & Red. But now that they have been eliminated, well, it is pretty clear where the rankings stand. It is a two-horse race between Matt & Red and Tara & Joey who are clearly the two strongest teams left, whilst Brooke & Scott are going to be battling it out with London & Logan for the last spot in the next leg in South Korea. What a shame really, because it would have made a far more interesting finals if three strong teams were fighting it out for the win, rather than what is going to happen now: when it is a two-horse race with one much weaker team just happy to be there for the experience. Brooke & Scott were definitely wrong to U-turn Liz & Michael back in Greece, because they are now stuck with two extremely strong teams doing into the final four - the odds are really stacked against them. But let's move on to team fun's shocking and dramatic elimination in Vietnam.

Floyd's heat exhaustion in Vietnam

After winning leg 9, team fun seemed fun-stoppable in Vietnam, arriving at the cycling roadblock first. But Floyd's inability to secure the shrimp traps to the bicycle was his ultimate downfall - some teams struggled more than others to get there, notably London who fell a few times on her way there, but because she had managed to secure her shrimp nets to the bicycle, she didn't lose any on the way. Only Floyd seemed to have had that problem of shrimp nets falling off his bicycle - it was probably a simple case of "more haste, less speed", but he paid a heavy price for it. But I do feel for the guy - heat exhaustion is no joke, it is brutal and I've suffered from it last year when I fainted in San Juan (a group of very kind Americans helped me out when I collapsed in the old town). When you have to do very physical tasks in very high temperatures, you sweat a lot and whilst you do see the contestants constantly drinking water in these two legs, you lose more than just water in your sweat. You do lose some minerals when you sweat profusely - now the actual content of your sweat varies from person to person (it depends on your diet and physical condition as well), but there is usually ammonia, urea, salts like sodium, potassium and calcium. That is why when you sweat profusely, you could suffer from cramps as our muscles and brain rely on these salts for nerve activities. The sensible thing to do is to sit down and rest, allowing your body to cool down and recover when you are suffering from heat exhaustion, but unfortunately, Floyd didn't have that luxury and pushed himself to breaking point. I note that Tara & Joey also struggled with the heat in leg 9. Oh it doesn't matter how strong you are, heat exhaustion spares no one. 

Just how hot is Northern Vietnam? How do the locals cope? 

The teams were in Northern Vietnam in late June and typically, it would be around 32 to 35 degrees (low 90s F) in the daylight hours when the teams were racing around, doing these extremely physical activities. I note that teams had already raced through a few locations where they would have experienced equally hot weather - Panama, two legs in Tanzania and Greece. However, it would have been the humidity that would have caused most of the discomfort - any kind of physical activity would make you sweat instantly in that such conditions. On one hand, the locals are used to these kind of conditions, they tend to give in to tropical lethargy: they move a lot more slowly in the hottest parts of the day and a lot of work gets done very early in the morning, in the predawn hours when the temperatures are a lot more forgiving. In London, the streets would be still relatively quiet at six in the morning as most Londoners would be fast asleep then but in places like Hanoi, Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, people have already been up for a while and busy working for a while already, just so they can give themselves the luxury of taking it easy when it gets stupidly hot in the afternoon. Oh you simply can't say, "nah I'm not a morning person" if you lived in somewhere like that! 

I do think that it is a bad idea to make the racers do particularly physical tasks when the weather is that hot and humid, it just seems cruel. But then again, TAR has had a track record of making racers suffer like that - I remember in season 9, in Al Hawiyah, Oman, a roadblock required racers to dig for their dinner. There were only six "shuwas" buried in 117 dunes and it was just brutal - nay, make that evil, because each time a racer successful dug up a buried shuwa, then your odds fall from 6 in 117 to 5 in 117 and so on; so the odds for the last racer were terrible. This had to be carried out in the punishing heat of the Omani desert, which having personally experienced in 2013, I can tell you is just insane. Ironically, I didn't faint in Oman because it was a very dry heat - the humidity is very low in a desert whilst in a place like Vietnam, it can be close to 100% in summer. Now I appreciate that it is interesting to show the viewers exotic, hot countries in these legs, but why can't they make them do tasks that will not lead to heat exhaustion? For example, in TAR S15 E6, the teams were in Dubai and had to do a task at Aquaventure, a water theme park where they had to go down the 'Leap of Faith' water slide. Now that's one way to stay cool in the ridiculously hot weather. 

Other racers in TAR history who have been injured on the race.

Well, I'm sure there will be others to add to this list, but from memory there was Dave & Connor in S22, when Dave torn his Achilles tendon in E2 running to the pit stop. He limped on for till the fifth leg when he was forced to quit as the injury wasn't recovering and he badly needed surgery. However, most other racers have survived their injuries and have bounced back - there is a really good list here that needs to be updated with poor Floyd added to this list. I suppose it is the responsibility of the producers to make sure that racers are not made to do anything too dangerous that could cause serious injury or event death, because that would lead to a massive law suit and the end of the show no doubt. The conditions that races endure are without doubt tough but nothing compared to another very popular reality TV contest: Survivor, where evacuations due to medical emergencies and accidents are a lot more common.

Is Brooke giving birth? Twins? No she is cycling. 

Oh my goodness. Brooke. She whined and moaned her way through Hanoi, she made false accusations and was hideously unreasonable with Scott. For example, she blamed him for not holding her ladder whilst Logan held the ladder for London as the two of them raced for the last ladder - that is completely false. A quick review of the footage showed that she did scream for Scott to hold the ladder but Logan didn't hold the ladder for London either. Scott didn't respond fast enough and she made an error of judgement by waiting for him to respond whilst London simply grabbed the ladder without Logan's help. Instead of taking responsibility for that error of judgement, Brooke blamed Scott for not helping her hold the ladder and then blamed the other team for snatching that ladder from them. Not only is she extremely negative, she loves playing the victim card. Oh dear - I've met people like that, when things go wrong, they refuse to take any responsibility for their mistakes and just blame everyone around them. Such people are impossible to get along with and Brooke is one of them. Perhaps in her mind, she justifies everything by blaming people, but in the unforgiving medium of reality TV, we can simply review the footage and tell her that her version of events is simply a complete lie. Oh dear. I have no idea how Scott put up with her. There must have been moments when he must have looked enviously at other teams and wished he had a better partner - he was the one who picked Brooke, after all. 

Ironically, Brooke & Scott had their best ever finish, coming in 2nd in Ninh Binh - but that was mostly because Scott did both difficult aspects of that leg: he did the cycling roadblock with the shrimp traps and then he rowed the boat with his feet at Đền Thái Vi, Brooke didn't do much at all apart from tag along and even then, she was screaming as if she was giving birth to twins when she was simply cycling. Good grief. Now I went back to watch episode 1 again, it was in fact Scott who selected Brooke when he could have chosen Becca, Floyd, Vanck, Ashton, Tara, Joey, London, Logan, Jenn, Kevin, Liz, Michael, Jessie and Francesca. Good grief. He had an amazing choice at that stage and he picked the worst possible partner. Okay, hindsight is 2020, but surely any one of the others would have been a better partner and I'm still amazed that he passed on the physically stronger men in that line up and went for Brooke of all people. It would be amazing to see if he could drag her all the way to the finals and one wonders if how he would have fared if he had made a wiser choice back in leg 1. Oh but he did make a complete fool of himself at the Corinth Canal bungee jump - duh, dude this is reality TV. There's a camera in your face, learn to reign in your emotions! Gosh, even when things go very wrong at work, I don't freak out or even show any emotions: mastering the art of the poker face will serve you well in life. I think my boss would simply sack me if I ever got so emotional like that at work. 

Social media, Brooke, reality TV and haters. 

Okay, let's talk about Brooke because what is happening on social media right now is far more interesting than what actually happened in Vietnam. There seems to be two camps right now. There are many people who are saying really hateful things about her on social media - it almost makes me feel sorry for her when I read some of the comments, mostly personal attacks on her character, based on the way she behaved on the race. On the other hand, there are people who say, hey that's enough, lay off Brooke, these personal attacks are uncalled for - TAR is not a popularity contest (unlike Survivor or Big Brother), it is a different kind of race. My stance is somewhere in between the two: I think that when you choose to go onto reality TV, you accept that you're putting yourself out there to be judged. It is not like an actor playing the role of the villain in a movie - there isn't a character for you to play, you are being yourself and you do run the risk of the public not liking you, as in Brooke's case where the opinion about her is overwhelmingly negative. Even those who did defend her didn't exactly like her, they just didn't like the way there seemed to be a lynch mob of hatred against her on social media. Criticize her for her poor decisions and bad behaviour by all means, but I would draw the line at personal attacks (some of which have been really vicious), such is the world of cyber bullying.

You can't control how people will react online.

This is why I found it quite disturbing when Michael Rado (of team Liz & Mike, eliminated in Athens) posted an angry defense of Brooke, claiming how much he loved her despite being at the receiving end of her U-turn. Here's what he said on the Facebook Amazing Race Fans page, "Let me say what Mark Highfield is too classy to say. LEAVE Brooke Camhi THE FUCK ALONE!!!! If anyone has a reason to dislike her and Scott Flanary, it's Liz Espey and I. And guess what!? We don't! I love em both to bits. You have every right to have favorite teams and least favorites as well. But personal attacks are not ok, and they expose you as the sad, hateful, pathetic troll that you are." Oh dear, it just got ugly - well, you can't control the public's reaction to Brooke and trying to somehow control or even influence it is plain foolhardy. The people who attacked Brooke aren't simply going to turn around and say, "okay, if Michael said so, I've changed my mind." As if it was something that Michael's outburst on Facebook could resolve that easily. If anything, trying to intervene like that would probably just fan the flames of the fire and provoke a further discussion as to why Brooke has proven to be so unpopular (and even that is putting it mildly) amongst the fans of TAR on social media. 

All I can say is that Brooke is a 36 year old adult who knew what she was getting herself into - she is old enough and educated enough to have made an informed decision in doing a reality TV programme like that and if she chose to behave in a way that would provoke such a negative reaction, then she needs to take responsibility for it. All racers must realize that if they do something like treat another racer badly or throw a tantrum, then there's a camera nearby recording everything. By that token, Brooke seemed to have be quite naive to say the least as to how she came across to the public. Her reaction on social media has been awkward at best. "Michael Rado - thank you for this. Obviously you know I think the world of you. To all of you who have been supportive, I want to say thank you. To those of you who have changed your mind and apologized for any harsh words, I truly appreciate that. And to those of you who continue to perpetuate hate from the comfort of your homes, I say go do something constructive. Go outside and enjoy life. It's a beautiful day. Positivity only people." After all, the racers are not used to being in the spotlight like this - they go from obscurity to celebrity overnight and the best Brooke can do is to wait for all this to die down, for the attention to go away because there's nothing she can do or say at this stage to fix this. It is what it is - the producers don't care if you come across as the most wicked witch in the west as long as it is good for the ratings. Such is reality TV for you.

Do people in Vietnam really row boats with their feet? 

It's more rare than you think. When I visited the very same location back in 2011, I only saw a few boatmen do that. In fact the old lady rowing my boat gave me an oar and expected me to help - that was fine by me I suppose, but then she expected a tip at the end of that? Good grief. I do get the feeling that in such poor countries, they do go out of their way to extract as much money as possible from rich tourists. She could have at least done something to entertain me like rowed the boat with her feet - yeah, then I would have left her a bigger tip. But then again, TAR tends to pick the most interesting facets of local culture to feature on the race and you gotta admit that was one of the more interesting physical challenges. Whilst the landscape at Hoa Lư Đền Thái Vi was stunning, it was pretty much an area that was popular with tourists and day-trippers from the city on weekends and public holidays. Likewise, the group of women dancers doing the fan dance greeting the racers when they first arrived in Hanoi was a highly choreographed spectacle - you're hardly going to stumble upon that in Vietnam unless it was some kind of special occasion.

Who will be eliminated next in South Korea? Who will be in the final three? 

This is a tough one - you see, the team that stands out as much physically stronger than the others is clearly Matt & Red, but the two challenges we see in the preview are cup stacking and computer games (which has been confirmed as 'Street Fighter'). This will clearly favour any racer who has played computer games and it is hard to predict who would have that kind of experience. Likewise, for cup stacking, unless it is something you have done before, there is a steep learning curve to climb. It is not like the kind of physical task like transporting the luggage in Venice or the canoe race back in Panama which clearly favoured Matt & Red. From the previews, it does look like the cup stacking was a roadblock that was performed by Brooke - it is the kind of activity where you just need to stay calm and climb that steep learning curve, something she is unlikely to do under pressure. I am predicting that she will have a melt down, scream and cry, throw the biggest tantrum the Koreans have ever seen and get them eliminated. Whilst London and Logan are statistically the weakest team so far, I am predicting that they are far more likely to remain calm under pressure and get to the pit stop first. But let's see, I really wasn't expecting Becca & Floyd to be eliminated under such circumstances especially after they won leg 9 in Hanoi, well that just shows how TAR can be quite so unpredictable.

So that's it from me on this double episode in Vietnam. Let me know what you think please, many thanks for reading.