nine teams left, who will be eliminated next?
after 12 hours in the pitstop, the teams were instructed to proceed to the flight of gibbon treetop adventure by taxi. The teams will traverse the parks' treetop canopy through a zipline, one by one. since it was late at night, mai and oliver decided to call it a night and wait for the morning before going to the park. the other teams proceeded to the park and got numbers that would determine the order of executing the task. mai & oliver suddenly dropped to last place from first.
they were next instructed to proceed to a banana plantation. once there, they encountered a roadblock. this team member would try to retrieve a clue from a back pack hidden in the plantation. on the way, they would try to evade the bullets from paitball snipers also hidden in the plantation. when they are hit, they would go back to the start. most of the teams had a hard time retrieving the clue. the challenge was great. with a good mix of action and drama. some even cried and we hear the occassional "ouch" every time a ball is baing fired. it was tania who retrieved the clue first, followed closely by fuzzie.
the teams were then instructed to fly to ho chi mihn city and proceed to the sydney opera house to get their next clue. in the flight to vietnam, the teams were split into 3. ida and tania took the earliest flight to vietnam at 2:40pm. the next group includes 5 teams, geoff & tisha, henry & bernie, ad & fuzzie, niroo & kapil and sam & vince. they took a later flight with stop over at siem reap, cambodia. the 3 remaining teams, mai & oliver, natalie & pailin and william & isaac, took the flight that would depart at 7am the next day. staying overnight at the airport, natalie experienced a breakdown. it was not irritating to watch because it was not an outburst. it looked natural and she just broke the barrier and becomes relateable to other beople despite her status.
in vietnam, teams scrambled to proceed to the opera house, ad & fuzzie wasted time because they said that there were 2 opera house in the city. teams were then instructed to proceed to saigon pho cafe where both team members needs to complete a nokia phone game, system rush using a nokia n88 phone. the guys had an easy time finishing the game, except probably for niroo. the girls were impressive enough to finish it after some tries. they were then instructed to proceed to a flower shop in ben thanh market to retrieve their next clue.
upon arriving at the market, the stores are already closed. the stores would open at 6am, according to the hours of operation sign posted on the store. but ida & tania and sam & vince talked to locals and informed them that the stores opens at 7am.
the next morning; geoff & tisha, niroo & kapil, ad & fuzzie and henry & bernie got to the flower shop at 6am, getting the clues first. the clue instructed them to proceed to cai be bus station for their next clue. they took the bus to cai be together, approximately a 2 hour bus ride. at 7am, sam & vince and the malaysian team retrieved their clue and was surprised to find out that the stores opens at 6am. in bangkok, the other 3 teams' flight departed for vietnam.
in the cai be bus station, teams encountered a detour; a choice between sampan and some walk. in sampan, teams need to load fruits and vegetables on to a sampan, a traditional vietnam boat and deliver the goods to a floating market. in some walk, teams need to catch 20 chickens and deliver them to a store in a nearby market. about 3 teams choose sampan but it proved to ba a difficult task. they all switch back to some walk. catching chickens really proved to be hard for some teams, especially for some of the girls. it was also hard to transport the chickens to the market. eventually, it was henry & bernie who finished first.
teams were then instructed to proceed to thanh nu jeanne dark vang lang church in ho chi minh. in front of the church, the next clue told them about charity work. they need to help one of the "friends in need" and spend the USD500 given by singha beer. it was a great chal;lenge because the teams did not help only 1 charity, the helped nine. most amazing race charity challeneges would focus on one charity, but helping 9 charities in one day is really awesome. most of the teams enjoyed the challenge, even mingling with the orphans. it was a great stress reliever in the race.
the teams then proceed to saigon post office to retrieve a clue that told them to proceed to the 2nd pit stop of the race, the museun of vietnamese history. the last team to check in may be eliminated. it was a dash to the finish, with henry & bernie of malaysia winning the leg and a year supply of caltex fuels. rankings of the first 6 teams are as follows:
1st - henry & bernie
2nd - ad & fuzzie
3rd - sam & vince
4th - niroo & kapil
5th - geoff & tisha
6th - ida & tania
the last 3 teams were then shown struggling to get back in the race. in the nokia challenge, it was william & isaac on the advantage, having been video game players for so long. at the detour, they had a hard time finishing the task, the 2 thai teams were able to overtake them. the lead of the 2 thai teams was enough for them to take the last 2 spots. final ranking are as follows:
7th - natalie & pailin
8th - mai & oliver
9th - william & isaac
this made the south korean team the 2nd team to be eliminated in the race.
the episode was a great one, with tough challenges to go with it. the detour was tough, even the boys had a hard time finishing it. the detour was also great, there was no easier task, both proved to be hard and challenging. in the end, it boils down to commitment, perseverance and commitment. as we all know, communication is a key to this race and this is a factor that most teams really need to work on.
the episode also shown some aspects of the challengers we have not seen yet. there was natalie's breakdown which shows her soft spot. we saw henry's breakdown which was so emotional and was so different from the henry we saw in the previous leg. there was also geoff's competitiveness, i don't actually equate it to arrogance but this is what competitiveness leads to, but he must watch his actions because other teams starts to hate him.
the leg was shown for 90 minutes not necessarily because it was a very hard leg but due to the large time difference encountered. the last 3 teams are about 3 hours behind the lead pack. but if the teams were neck to neck, this would fit in to a 1 hour episode. it was great to see that flights are becoming the deciding factor in the leg. in previous seasons, flights are the great equalizers and eats up some of the team's lead.
this season proves to be an exciting season and i am already looking forward to the next leg.
picture was taken from the official site of amazing race asia season 3.
the singaporean friends ad and fuzzie became the 7th team to be eliminated in what is dubbed as "the toughest race ever", the amazing race asia season 3. the singaporean duo came in last after the 10th leg, which covers india and oman. their elimination came after a non-elimination leg in leg 9 in which they also came in last. they had a 30 minute penalty since they did not come in first. they also did not finish the roadblock since fuzzie gave up halfway through the challenge. they also incurred a four hour penalty for this.
