Happy Spring Amazing Race fans!
I went into watching this week’s broadcast knowing that one of my favorite teams, Margie & Luke appear to suffer a major event during this race. The preview shows Margie fainting in the heat and it appears to be at the pit-stop mat. It also appeared that other teams would struggle as well. The teams left the sixth pit-stop after a day in India where you would expect teams to struggle, but this time the Amazing Race visit to India was relatively easy.
Also easy was the departure from India. The teams left in the following order. Tammy & Victor at 10:21am, Mel & Mike at 10:50am, Kisha & Jen at 11:02am, Margie & Luke at 11:03, Jaime & Cara at 11:04 and Mike & Mark at 11:11am.
On the show, it appears that FEW could properly prounounce the name of the next destination, "Foo Kette" as in "two wong foo" or "egg FOO young" then the first half of the word KETTLE. Teams would leave India for the city of PHUKET, Thailand and all but Jaime & Cara purchased their airline tickets at a travel agency before going to the airport. But all teams made the same flights and were on even footing.
The teams had their taxi drivers and locals lead them to their first destination. Their first clue was only a photo of an animal that hinted that teams would go to the Phuket Zoo but Mel & Mike assumed their clue was to go to a beach. They found themselves lost with no one having an idea what clue the photo meant.
The first clue had teams take a photo with a tiger then participate in a local zoo performance that required having an elephant walk over their backsides. After that teams would go to retrieve their picture with the tiger and on the back of the picture would be their next clue.
It is worth noting that the tiger’s handler only had ONE ARM!
The next clue would have teams travel to an herb shop where the clerk would have to search for their next clue through 99 different drawers. It appeared that the first five teams easily passed on to the next task with Mel & Mike lagging way behind.
The detour task choices were “100 barrels” where teams would have to have to fill 53 barrels with water placed on a fishing boat preparing for a long trip and position the remaining empty barrels in precision on the top deck of the boat. Or “2 miles” where teams would have to carry a rickshaw with their team partner as the passenger to a park. Many teams went first to the marina and found it difficult to locate the boats then they changed to perform the “2 miles” task.
The “2 miles” detour was the source of a few problems teams had on this leg of the race. Teams faced flat tires with manual air pumps that a few teams forgot to bring. Teams also had difficulty with directions but one team, Mark & Michael hired a taxi to lead them to their correct destination. They used their taxi by following it to their destination then had that same taxi drive them to the final destination which was the PIT-STOP, therefore giving MARK & MICHAEL their first ever first place pit-stop arrival.
But Mark & Michael discovered a problem. They violated rules by hiring the taxi to assist them in the “2 miles” detour and they tampered with the tire pumps used for the rickshaws and put them back. For those infractions, they faced an hour long penalty forcing them to wait before they could check in.
Mark & Michael weren’t the only ones to make mistakes. Tammy & Victor prematurely dropped off their rickshaw so that set them back a few minutes as they had to run back to properly park their rickshaw vehicle. Then Tammy & Victor were SECOND to arrive at the pit-stop with less than 5 minutes left for Mark & Michael’s penalty. So TAMMY & VICTOR would end up in first place again and for that they won a vacation in Hawaii.
Closely behind Tammy & Victor were JAIME & CARA officially in SECOND PLACE with Mark & Michael having ONE minute left in their penalty wait, they would eventually become THIRD PLACE.
MARGIE & LUKE arrived in FOURTH PLACE and after Phil made a comment about Margie being like “the Bionic Woman”, Margie fainted from the heat. They ran her into a shaded area, applied water and called for medical assistance. But she recovered from her heat exhaustion and refused the medical assistance.
One could imagine the fear that Luke had in seeing his mother suffer this spell. She is his ONLY assistance in communication and they were in a foreign land. But it appears that Margie will be ok. Besides, if anything really bad had happened when this was taped, we most likely would have already known before the show aired.
Only two teams successfully completed the “100 Barrels” detour task with the fishing boats. Kisha & Jen who would then have their taxi driver drop them off at the wrong location. But Kisha & Jen arrived at the pit-stop in FIFTH PLACE.
And finally, Mel & Mike arrived was the last team to arrive and I had a prediction right two times in a row. Mel & Mike were eliminated but not for the reasons I had expected. They fell to the back of the pack upon arrival in Thailand when thought their photo clue led them to a local beach instead of the zoo. They also didn’t seem to rush through any of their task. On this leg, Mel & Mike were tourists instead of competitors on The Amazing Race. Now they can be “on vacation” as they join the other eliminated racers held “captive” at the holding resort while the race continues. This is not a bad thing for Mel. He could use some rest. I hope he had a great time doing just that.
If Mel & Mike had chosen the “2 miles” detour, one of them would have been the second casualty of the heat. I just didn’t see Mike carrying his father on a rickshaw and Mel could not have survived the physically demanding run carrying his son on a rickshaw in the heat. Even the most physically fit racers showed signs of strain. If Margie would faint after only carrying the rickshaw for part of the run, Mel would have had some issues for sure.
Well I am not celebrating the fact that I correctly predicted the elimination of Mel & Mike. I do think I have a good chance of predicting the next elimination. The gloves are off as we are not far from knowing who will make the final three. I still predict that the final three will include Tammy & Victor and I think it is a good bet on either Jaime & Cara or Kisha & Jen making the final three. I still think we could see the first all-female team winning The Amazing Race. This means either Mark & Michael or Margie & Luke are the next teams to be eliminated. I think this could turn on Mark & Michael and the previews for the next broadcast indicate that Mark & Michael having a huge problem. Apparently they lost their back packs and begin to argue over it.
I predict Mark & Michael for next elimination for another reason, playing too hard and having a relationship breakdown. The latter is always a problem for a team on The Amazing Race.
The next broadcast is in TWO WEEKS. We have to tough it out and wait a little while longer for it. And I will blog about it then. Thanks for reading and happy spring!
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