Amazing Race 13
Episode Seven:
Baha'i Temple to Humayun's
Tomb, Delhi, India
Phil reminds us that previously, six teams took off from Siem Reap, Cambodia for New Delhi, India; and because Ken and Tina were the last to arrive at the Baha'i House, which was the sixth pit stop on a race around the world, they will face a speed bump (a task that only they have to perform) sometime during this leg.
Phil also reminds us that Baha'i House was a once lavish home for a wealthy businessman but it is now the national headquarters for the Baha'i faith in India. Phil also states that New Delhi is the capital and political epicenter of India. I was nervous about whether I had found the correct location of the pit stop in the last summary, but I am comfortable that the house is on the grounds of the Lotus Temple, as shown at this Web page and looking at the satellite view from Google maps.
By my estimates the teams traveled approximately 2,737 miles on the previous leg, but honestly, this is based on my wild guess that the distance between every venue, such as from the New Delhi airport to Moon Light Motors, was 10 miles each. My estimates are therefore likely to be slightly greater (longer) than the actual distance traveled.
Also by way of my estimates, it took the teams 31 hours to travel from the Cambodian pit stop to the first pit stop in India, and we are now on the 11th day of the race.
Nick and Star were the first to arrive at 8:55 PM. This was the third time that Nick and Star had arrived first, putting them in a tie with Ken and Tina for first place finishes. It also means this is one of the more reasonable start times for a team leaving a pit stop.
The Divorcees were the second team to arrive, at 9:02 PM. Toni and Dallas were the third team to arrive at 9:10 PM, with Terrence and Sarah arriving fourth at 9:31 PM. The Frat Boys arrived at 9:44 PM and Ken and Tina arrived last at 9:51 PM. The time separating the first and last teams was 56 minutes.
We also learn that the teams will have US$21.00 for this leg of the race, which is approximately 1,000 Indian Rupees.
Route Info: Deshbandhu Apartments
As Nick and Starr leave the pit stop at 8:55 AM, the first clue tells them to go Gate Number 4 at the Deshbandhu Apartments, where they will get another clue. Although the camera people don't always give us a clue, in this case there is a pretty long and clear shot of the Deshbandhu Apartments (however it appears to be listed sometimes as Deshbandhu and other times as Desh Bandhu). Regardless, the flats are a Delhi Development Authority (DDA) facility, and are the SFS flats in Kalkaji, New Delhi, 110019.
The Kalkaji district or neighborhood is pretty close to the location of the pit stop, and knowing the zip or postal code seems to help with finding the location on Google Maps. Although no driving directions are available, it is less than one mile as the crow flies from the pit stop to possible location of the apartment block.
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Roadblock: Who’s Ready for a Colorful Experience?
A roadblock is a task that only one person can perform…
In this roadblock one team member must take part in the traditional Holi Festival. To begin—the team member has to get to one of three ladders—a task that requires the team member to run through a crowd of revelers who will be pelting them with colored dye and (colored) water in the festival’s tradition. Once they get to the ladder, they have to climb the ladder and search through hundreds of envelopes marked ‘Try Again’ for one of six marked: ‘Amazing Race,’ which will contain the next clue.
This is one of those detours along the Amazing Race that gets harder the later a team arrives because as each clue is taken, the difficulty of finding one of the remaining clues increases. It was not clear whether there were six clues per ladder, or six clues spread across all three ladders.
This detour is bothersome because there is no way that inhaling or getting any dye in your eyes, whether in powder or liquid form is safe, and the festival's boisterous nature, combined with the blinding dyes increased the risk of injury or other harm. The goal is to complete the race first, and there is an expectation that the Amazing Race producers will not have a team member do anything really dangerous. For example, I would do any of the climbing or bungee jumping detours that we have seen in the previous races, because it appears that reasonable safety steps are taken, and the teams appear to be harnessed and supervised correctly. Okay, eating some of the large amounts of food, such as spicy Hungarian goulash might make you uncomfortable, but in the end would leave you uninjured.
In this detour no one was safe: Nick and Tina who did not directly take part in the detour’s task had dye thrown in their faces as they waited. On one hand, that is part of the festival—I get that—but on the other hand, they should have been warned and encouraged to take the precautions outlined in the festival's Web site safety tips.
Starr is the first team member to try the detour, and she was smart enough or just wanting to get away from the dye, she climbed onto the very top of the ladder, which put her above the height that the dye could be thrown from the ground.
I understand that the Divorcees misread the clue, and thought that they they had to retrieve an envelope and then return to their team member to see if it was the right one. I know this made it harder for them. But as these pictures show, it also seems that many members of the crowd took more joy in attacking a blonde than a brunette, and a woman than a man. For example the Frat Boys and Toni and Dallas were virtually ignored by the crowd.
Divorcee Team Member Kelly at Holi Festival Detour
Divorcee Team Member Kelly at Holi Festival Detour
Route Info: Find Charity Birds Hospital
Once they retrieve a clue, teams find they must make their way to the Charity Bird Hospital, a haven for injured birds, and once there, search the bird cages for their next clue.
This hospital is also known as the ‘Jain Bird Hospital’, which of course leads to the question who or what is ‘Jain’ a person or something else? The answer: Jain or Jainism, is an Indian religion and the reason why the teams have to take their shoes and socks off before entering the hospital, is because it is part of the Jain Temple. But the hospital is at least a confirmed spot that we can find on the map.
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At the Bird Hospital, Nick and Starr, despite their fear of walking in bird droppings show why they are in the lead: they make a quick scan of the area, looking for any obvious placement of the clue, versus Terrence, who in another compassionate moment, makes Sarah go into a bird cage and look through a tray of seeds on the bottom of the cage, before they made a quick scan of the other cages. The clue at the bird hospital, which was in a pretty obvious place, describes the next detour.
Detour: Teary Eyed or Bleary Eyed
In ‘Bleary Eyed’, teams must make their way to Nai Sarak Marg (street), where they will start from a marked pole (the race colors on the pole were mixed in with all the other banners) and then follow the power lines by finding the small white tags with black numbers attached to the overhead power wires. The wires look like spaghetti, and cross over other wires multiple times. Once the team has collected the series of numbers, they must find a man with a sewing machine at the far end of the street, and give him the list of numbers. If the list is correct, he will direct them to the ‘New India Stationers’ store, where they will plug in a musical Ganesha to receive their next clue. The trick here is that the small numbers are hard to see, therefore they are easy to miss, and there are lots of signs with numbers that confuse the teams.
In ‘Teary Eyed’, teams must make their way to a spice market and find the ‘Ram Bhandar’ store (which according to its sign features ‘Selected Dry Fruits and Pure Masala’. Here is another description of Masala as used in cooking. Once there, they have to pick up two forty pound bags of chili peppers and carry them a quarter mile to ‘Sharwan Kumar and Sons,’ where they will have to grind the chilies with a mortar and pestle until they fill a bowl to a line with crushed chili powder. This task is quite simple, but the chili powder can be quite harmful to the skin and eyes.
Speed Bump
When Tina and Ken arrive at the Bird Hospital they find their speed bump—the additional task that they must complete. Before they can do the Bird Hospital Task, they have to make their way to the Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahil a Sikhism Temple, where they have to serve holy water to all of the temple goers until there are no more who desire water (although it did appear that the producers had a time limit in mind, because towards the end, people began to decline the water although there was still quite a crowd).
The teams get through the detours with varying degrees of success. Nick and Starr and Toni and Dallas end up working together to spot the tags on the wire, and get the answer correct the first time. The Divorcees decline to work with the Frat Boys, and neither team zeros in on the correct tags until they twice incorrectly give the man at the sewing machine random numbers from signs hanging in the street. Ken and Tina catch on to the small tags immediately, and even with the speed bump, finish before these two teams. The fact that the Divorcees tried to complete the task from a rickshaw didn’t help their cause.
Terrence and Sarah are the only two to attempt the chili crushing half of the detour, giving us the title for this weeks episode: ‘My Nose is on Fire.’
Route Info: Humayun's Tomb
Once the teams have completed the detour, they are to make their way through New Delhi to Humayun's Tomb, which is the pit stop for this leg of the race. This map shows the location of most of the stops on the detour relative to the Bird Hospital and the pit stop.
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The pit stop is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but a more complete description is here and here. It appears that this actually a park or complex of several tombs, and the actual pit stop was at Isa Kahn’s Tomb.
Nick and Starr just beat Toni and Dallas to the pit stop, and win a trip to the new Westin hotel in Princeville Kauai, Hawaii. Terrence and Sarah are third, and Ken and Tina are fourth. The Frat Boys are fifth, and the Divorcees are eliminated.
On the Bonnie Hunt show, the Divorcees were very positive about the race and felt that their misreading of the clue at the Holi festival caused a lot of their problems on this leg of the race.
Coming attractions: A fast forward, and trouble in the frat?