TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 4

I now see why so little action took place last week. I think the race planners were letting the contestants gather some strength for some pretty tough physical challenges this week. Each team looked exhausted and relieved as they reached the mat; they could barely celebrate not being eliminated.

This stage of the race was particularly tough on Rob. He was treated for heat exhaustion before leaving the pit stop. While the cold water may have cooled off his body, his emotions were still running high. He freaked out in the taxis whenever he realized one driver after another was lost and driving in circles. The blurred out faces were a big clue that they had the wrong driver :-). Of course, I guess the cameraman or producers may not have had time to ask the drivers for permission to show their images on TV while trying to keep up with the Rob / Kimberly team. Later, Rob climbed an ascender rope up a tall, steep cliff. Then he bumped his head while searching a cave. Then he had to do a bunch of rowing. Under all this duress, he yelled a few times at his girlfriend -- something I would not advise to any guy who wants to date a woman who is smart, strong, and fairly attractive. Kimberly has stuck with Rob for reasons that have not been fully revealed. One is she seems happy to yell back. Another is that she feels she has gotten Rob to change a bit in the past (temporarily dumping him until he took classes so he can leave his bartending job?). He also did admit at the finish line that he had to "chill" out - literally. That gives one hope that this relationship lasting a bit longer, and finishing in first helps tremendously.

Apparently finishing last also can cement a relationship. Team TNT came in last by what may have been a wide margin as other teams finished during the day while TNT came in under what must have been a beautiful sunset over Ha Long Bay.

So, I suppose that means the triathletes are in the lead on the road to dunzo.

Unlike the last edition where it was pretty easy to spot the top two teams from the start, this race has been very difficult to predict. Teams randomly shuffled positions again even during the episode. First there was the taxis whose drivers either were getting lost or driving slow. It cost the Chos their 30 minute lead and practically dropped them to the back of the pack again.

Then there was what may have been the first use of an audio clue in this series that I thought was pretty inventive. The place names the racers were told to go to sounded pretty similar. The male models showed they also have brains by being the first to ask their taxi driver to listen to the directions. Anyway, the audio clue was fun for a while but turned out not to be important as the bus stop they were directed to ended up being another bunching point. At most maybe some teams lost more taxi fare than others, and who knows if money shortage will come up again in the race.

But this whole ordeal made me remember yet another story about my Beijing trip. I told a taxi driver to take me to the Yanshan Hotel, and I fortunately noticed pretty quickly that he was driving northwest instead of northeast. I tried to repeat my destination several times. Finally he pulled over to have someone translate what I was saying. Turned out he thought I wanted to go to the Yanshan Mountains.

Next the teams had to pick speed boats to take them to an island to climb a rope up an island cliff. This time it was the relative speed of the boats that determined the order teams arrived at the Road Block. Then it was stamina getting up the ropes that helped some teams pass others. I was impressed by Sarah using her one good leg and the Alabama mom in getting up the rope. Godwin Cho apparently did not learn his lesson from the Great Wall climb and relied on arm strength thus burning out his forearms again instead of using his legs more.

Rowing the sampans in some rolling waters with a stiff breeze would have been extremely difficult for me. I tried rowing in the very calm waters of the Foster City lagoon once and never could do anything other than go in circles. In the open water, I would probably be spending more time throwing up than rowing. I guess the good news is that the water related tasks allowed the episode title spouting Mary (3 for 4 now) to give her ankle more time to heal. Hopefully, the beauty queens will realize that they need to take better care of their clues and/or expand their vocabulary to know, for example, the difference between a junk and a sampan. From this point forward, any mistake is like flirting with elimination.

CBS was sort of flirting with an FCC fine by allowing references to picking up dongs (the Vietnamese currency) and looking for junk. The other funny moment was when the models found out other teams were beating them to the finish line because their junk crew forgot to raise anchor. They were remarkably forgiving about that. Perhaps like me, they have driven cars some pretty decent distances with the emergency brakes still engaged. I even have an "idiot light" for that directly in front of me, and one time, it even took a passenger to complain about an unusual burning smell before I realized what I had done.

Next week, fun with crocodiles.