Amazing Race 14
Episode Seven:
Gorilla? Gorilla? Gorilla?
Phil reminds us that previously seven teams raced from Novosibirsk in Siberian Russia by way of Moscow to Jaipur, India…finding sacred trees…noticing phones for clues…camel tending…street dancing for rupees…a speed bump for one team to paint an elephant…and at a fort with a surprising number of monkeys, a close finish that led to the elimination of the flight attendants.
Phil reminds us that Jaipur was founded almost 300 years ago and is still known for its beauty. In addition, Phil tells us that the Jaigarh fort, which was the pit stop for the last leg of the Race is perched 600 feet above the city. This is another mandatory rest period which looks like it was closer to twenty-four hours than twelve.
We do learn that Tammy and Victor, who arrived at the pit stop first, will depart at 10:21 AM. Mel and Mike will leave second, at 10:50 AM, with Kisha and Jen, Margie and Luke, and Jaime and Cara each departing one minute apart starting at 11:02 AM. And the last team, Mark and Michael leave the pit stop at 11:11 AM.
Route Info: Phuket, Thailand
Phil tells us that the teams must now fly almost 2,000 Phil miles to Phuket, Thailand, and locate the statue of a gorilla in Phuket using only a photo of the statute as a reference.
It is pretty rare that we get a glimpse of the first clue when the teams are leaving the pit stop, but this time it reads:
Fly to Phuket, Thailand
Find the statute in the
photo. Then search the
area for your next clue.
You have $130 for this
leg of the race.
But there has to be a second, more detailed set of instructions in these envelopes, because we see most of the teams discussing the fact that they can get tickets either at the Riya Travel and Tours office in Jaipur, or at the airport.
In the end it really does not matter because the flights are yet another bottleneck, and all the teams do catch the same flight from Jaipur through New Delhi, and Bangkok to arrive in Phuket at 8:50 AM (the next day).
It seems strange that starting before noon, teams would not be in Phuket until the next day, but the real delay is caused by the small number of flights between Jaipur and New Delhi. Most of the flights are early in the day, so I guess is that most Indians travelling between these two cities take the train.
Kingfisher Airlines has a flight (4302) that leaves Jaipur (JAI) at 7:00 PM, arriving in Delhi (DEL) at 8:05 PM. This flight costs $109.40 for two passengers, and covers 145 miles in 1:05. (According to Yahoo Finance, this is approximately 9,460 rupees.)
Thai Airline’s flight 316 leaves Delhi (DEL) at 11:30 PM, arriving in Bangkok (BKK) at 5:25 AM (the next day). This flight covers 1,824 miles and takes 4:25. The cost for two passengers is $1,183.40.
Thai Airline’s flight 201 leaves Bangkok (BKK) at 7:20 AM arriving in Phuket (HKT) at 8:40 AM. This flight covers 424 miles in 1:20, and costs $203.80 (for two passengers).
So let’s look at this from the perspective of the first team again. They leave the pit stop, and including the time it takes to buy their tickets at the travel agency, they face an 8:39 wait in Jaipur. If they went to the travel agency for tickets then maybe they can spend some time in town, but it is not likely that they are going to rest or sleep. And with limited funds, the best strategy is to try to eat on flights to save money, so it is not likely that a team is going to spend the time with a relaxing meal.
Then they take a flight of just over an hour (1:05), followed by a 3:25 minute wait in the Delhi airport for the flight to Bangkok. This flight takes 4:25 minutes, and then there is a wait of almost two hours (1:55) before the 1:20 flight to Phuket. So in total, they have been in transit for just under a day (20:49) when the race picks up again in Phuket.
When the plane is shown landing in Phuket, the caption reads: “14 hours later.” I don't know where the producers got this number from (when did they start the clock) because based on my estimates there is no obvious 14 hour point (such as when the plane left Delhi).
View AR_14_24_Jaipur_to_Phuket in a larger map
As long as we are going to be in Thailand for a while, lets get some facts about it. The Puli Brothers are thinking about making the CIA’s “The World Factbook” the defacto site for country information to add some consistency to these summaries. From the Thailand entry we learn that “[a] unified Thai kingdom was established in the mid-14th century. Known as Siam until 1939, Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been taken over by a European power.”
Phuket is both an island, a province and a city, and it was extensively damaged by the Boxing Day tsunami in Dec. 2004, a fact that I think the Race should have acknowledged.
Although this Web site is mostly about tourism and Phuket’s beaches, there is some description of the history of Phuket and old Phuket town. In addition, the Wikipedia entry has lots of information, but even Wikipedia admits it may have some factual and citation issues.
Most of the teams find taxi drivers that either recognize that the statue of the gorilla is at the Phuket zoo or who stop and find out where they have to go. But Mel and Mike manage to find a taxi driver that not only doesn’t know, but who takes them on a long and costly drive in terms of time and money to one of the beach areas.
Roadblock: Take a Walk on the Wild Side
I guess this is part of the new format, because Phil never calls this a roadblock, and the ‘Roadblock’ label does not appear on the screen, but Phil tells us that first teams will have to have their picture taken with “Esso the Tiger”; and then they must take part in a typical “Elephant Show” where the elephants will walk and squat over the team members. I am not sure many people actually get why the tiger might be named “Esso”.
After both team members complete both activities they return to the photo booth where the photographer—who has only one arm, a fact that causes some of the racers to worry about being close to Esso—will hand them their photo with Esso. The caption of the photo is the next clue:
You're about to experience some
luck of the drawer.
Make your way to Old Phuket
Town.
Once there, find Nguan Choon
Tong Herbs Shop and retrieve a
clue from one of 99 Herb Drawers.
I am pretty sure that this is the herb shop.
RoadBlock: Luck of the Drawer
This is another non-labeled Roadblock, and the activity in the Chinese herb store rapidly deteriorates into a bottleneck as all the teams, except Mel and Mike who are just finding the gorilla, are crowded into the small shop. Rather than treating each team in a first-come, first-served fashion, the shop keeper apparently decides to have each team select a drawer, and if they are wrong, they have to wait until all the other teams have selected a drawer for another turn.
Detour: 100 Barrels or Two Miles
Phil tells us that in this detour teams have to chose between two tasks that are well known to the residents of Phuket. Their choice: ‘100 Barrels’, or ‘Two Miles’.
In ‘100 Barrels’, teams must make their way to a harbor, and prepare a fishing ship for 10 days at sea. To do this, they have to fill 47 barrels with drinking water, and move 53 empty barrels to the roof of the boat, arranging them properly for the journey.
In ‘Two Miles’, teams must make their way to an unnamed temple, where they will choose a rickshaw. Phil makes a point of stating that in the event of a flat tire, pumps have been provided. It does appear that most of the rickshaws have at least one very soft tire, which would make the rickshaw harder to pull.
One team member sits in the rickshaw while the other pulls it and it appears that they can take turns pulling the cart or being the passenger. They have to find their way to King Rama Park.
The Stuntmen, Mark and Michael, arrive at the rickshaws first, use a pump to inflate the tires on their rickshaw, and then one of them gathers up all the pumps that had been scattered in front of the rickshaws and placed them in a box to slow the other teams progress.
There is a confusing point here because Mark and Mike pay a cab to drive the route so they can follow the cab, while Tammy and Victor, reading the clue differently, have their cab driver draw the route on a map. When Tammy and Victor’s driver offers to drive so that they can follow, Victor insists that is not allowed (so again, there must have been something about this in the clue that the Stuntmen missed). More about this later.
By the way, Tammy and Victor developed a great working relationship with their cab driver, who’s last name was ‘Bandit’ which in Thai apparently means ‘Teacher’. Anyways, despite the fact that Victor occasionally has trouble being polite and listening to his sister, as a team they are pretty good at talking to the locals they meet along the Race.
Okay, the location of the harbor is really indeterminate. And it is not clear which temple the rickshaw task may have started. There are a lot of temples in Phuket, but one of the best sites on the Temple's is Jamie Monk’s site. Based on photos at this site, it appears that the temple is likely Wat Mongkhon Nimit.
Route Info: Wat Thep Nimit Temple
Teams must now make their way through Phuket town to Wat Thep Nimit temple, which Phil tells is not only the pit stop for this leg of the Race, but also home to a Buddha relic.
Let's just say neither task was that easy, but the trick to doing the barrels was to start filling the barrels with water, and then lift a couple of empty barrels up on the roof, then check on the water and if necessary, move the hose, and then lift some more barrels. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Rules, We Don’t Need No Stinking Rules
The stuntmen are the first team to arrive at the pit stop, but Phil informs them that they have incurred two 30-minute penalties: the first for tampering with the pumps; the second for hiring someone to show them the way from the temple to the park.
I agree with the second of these, based on the scene shown with Tammy and Victor this appears to be just bad clue reading, which I think should always result in a penalty.
A case could be made that hiding the air pumps is just good strategy. Sure, messing with the course by hiding a clue box, moving a Race flag or marker, or changing the direction of an arrow showing the right path—all of these would be over the top and would warrant a penalty. But I think there can be a fine-line between breaking a rule and clever strategy.
All they did was put the pumps, which were scattered on the ground, in the box. What would have been going to far: hiding the box? But the pumps were still in sight of all the other teams that selected this task.
While sitting out their penalty, Jamie and Cara, and Tammy and Victor race each other from the park to the pit stop, and in the end, Tammy and Victor pass the Stuntmen (who still have about five minutes on their penalty). They win a trip for two to Oahu.
Jamie and Cara are a very close second place team, and Mark and Michael, when the hour penalty hour expires, are checked in as team number three.
A heat-exhausted Margie and Luke are team number four. Despite Margie saying that she needs water and that her fingers were frozen, Phil takes forever to tell them that they are team number four, and by the time he does so, Margie collapses on the mat.
She appears to recover quickly but Phil is usually more on the ball than that. In the end they bring her an ambulance, but at this point she is recovering and slightly embarrassed by the fuss.
Jen and Kisha, who get lost and end up getting a ride from what looks like a Thai family, do manage to beat Mike and Mel to the pit stop. In the end Mike and Mel were unable to overcome the bad start they got in Phuket looking for the gorilla statute.
This map shows the locations raced past in Phuket.
View AR_14_25_Phuket in a larger map
A Little Housekeeping
Before the coming attractions a little housekeeping. The Race is down to five teams, one final non-elimination leg, and one more U-turn. I think.
Tammy and Victor are becoming the team to beat with three first place, two second place, and one third place finish. Of course they have also had a very bad leg, finishing eighth.
Margie and Luke are either first (twice) or fourth (five times). The other teams have been all over the map (pun intended).
The teams are arriving at the pit stop in Phuket on the fourteenth day of the Race, meaning they have been underway for two weeks. And the teams that made it to the pit stop in Phuket have travelled about 19,273 miles (based on the Puli Brother’s back of the envelope guestimates and assuming all the teams take the same routes).
Next Week: Bangkok Karaoke…
…well, due to the American Music awards it is actually two weeks…
Oh and one last thing, the Brothers are fascinated by the fact that within minutes of uploading a summary people from around the world start viewing it. Then this week Sprint began running this commercial that gives a great graphical representation of what is happening on a network now. The Puli Brothers like the talking bulldog video, are among the 74% who do know what Twitter is, and have a SPAM filter that stops banana diets.