The Amazing Race OAD 10/23/11

What about Laurence, being so bossy and (ultimately) wrong when he said not to take notes on how the shrine was organized, yet saying his SON was to blame when he had to go back?? Yuck.

Loved watching the twins' delight with the elephants. Also, they gained a lot of respect in my view when they refused to beg the people on the street money. (Always hated when TAR required the contestants to do that.)

Sorry to see the twins go. It was fun seeing how much they enjoyed washing the elephant.

Would like to have seen the brother/sister team leave.

Boy, the surfer dudes dropped back this time.

Glad the team that got off the "first class" bus wasn't eliminated for trying to adhere to the rules.

Yeah, kind of a dull episode. The best part was watching the delight the twins had for the washing the elephants task.

Broke but pretty blonde white girls live a different life than I do. No way I'd get free taxi rides in Bangkok. I wonder if the production team ever intervenes on a team's behalf?

Anyone remember why the taxi ride was so expensive? I don't remember it being so far.....

I was impressed with the positive attitude and enthusiasm of the twins, even though they knew that they were pretty much guaranteed to be out.

I was not impressed with Ernie and Cindy berating their cab driver for not accepting US dollars. It's Thailand, they use Thai money there. Otoh, at least Cindy realized how appalling their behavior was and expressed some regret for it.

I loved the twins on this episode. Sad to see them go but last week it felt like they threw in the non-elimination leg to keep them around for another week.

The issue wasn't just that they were trying to pay with US Dollars. It was also that they were trying to pay the taxi driver quite a bit below the going rate. If I remember correctly, Ernie was trying to give him 3 $20 bills. If you are going to try and pay someone with a different currency, you should at least know the exchange rate. Checking the rate last night, the $150 that the woman "forced" them to pay was pretty close to the 4500 THB (Thai Bhat). (4500 THB = $145.39).

I guess I missed it, but why were the twins the only team to run out of money??

robojerk said:

I thought this leg was boring..

• Get a taxi to A
• Ride an elephant to B
• Search a small pool for clue
• ride elephant back to taxi
• taxi to bus station (equalizer)
• ride bus to Bangkok
• Feed fish
• Check in at mat.

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All of what you listed was pretty boring, but you neglected to include the disassemble/reassemble task that was probably the most interesting task during this episode. I thought it was interesting to see which teams thought it was worthwhile to take notes on how it was assembled before taking it apart.

I guess the teams weren't allowed to examine other teams' finished models.

I did notice something that I hadn't noticed before. When the teams arrived at the mat, they were all very careful to stand just on the edge of the mat when in previous seasons they'd stand (or even jump onto) on the middle of the mat.

Marc said:

All of what you listed was pretty boring, but you neglected to include the disassemble/reassemble task that was probably the most interesting task during this episode. I thought it was interesting to see which teams thought it was worthwhile to take notes on how it was assembled before taking it apart.

I guess the teams weren't allowed to examine other teams' finished models.

I did notice something that I hadn't noticed before. When the teams arrived at the mat, they were all very careful to stand just on the edge of the mat when in previous seasons they'd stand (or even jump onto) on the middle of the mat.

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One team even borrowed the cabbie's camera phone and took pictures of the model before taking it apart. That was pretty smart.

I kind of disliked that the bus trip seemed to be random. The first bus that left was not the first to arrive. So instead of bad cab drivers affecting the leg we had to deal with random bus arrival times that apparently had little to do with their departure times.

Loved the twins positive attitude throughout the leg and the sheer joy they go dealing with the elephants.

WO312 said:

I guess I missed it, but why were the twins the only team to run out of money??

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I didn't get this either. And somehow the father son team was able to buy two sets of bus tickets.

mike_k said:

I didn't get this either. And somehow the father son team was able to buy two sets of bus tickets.

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WO312 said:

I guess I missed it, but why were the twins the only team to run out of money??

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In the recap from last week's episode they highlighted the fact that the twins forgot to exchange their Indonesia currency for Thai currency. So, given that they highlighted that, I'm guessing that they only had the Thai money they received at the beginning of the leg (remember they said something to the effect of "We're so glad we have some money now" as they were counting it). I'm guessing that they (a) didn't remember that they could try paying in another currency, (b) they couldn't find an exchange location when they ran out of Thai currency and they didn't highlight that in the footage that was shown or (c) all of the above.

TiVo'Brien said:

Broke but pretty blonde white girls live a different life than I do. No way I'd get free taxi rides in Bangkok.

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I was thinking the same thing, although probably anyone with a camera crew would be more likely to get a free ride than people without.

WO312 said:

I guess I missed it, but why were the twins the only team to run out of money??

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We were wondering this as well.

TiVo'Brien said:

Yeah, kind of a dull episode. The best part was watching the delight the twins had for the washing the elephants task.

Broke but pretty blonde white girls live a different life than I do. No way I'd get free taxi rides in Bangkok. I wonder if the production team ever intervenes on a team's behalf?

Anyone remember why the taxi ride was so expensive? I don't remember it being so far.....

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You're not a pretty blond AND a twin? Too bad they twins got eliminated, I finally was able to tell them apart. They got screwed this leg as there were really no place to bunch up the racers, and yeah peeps got the tourist rate on the rides, no way locals are paying 4500 baht for a trip within the city.

Marc said:

......I did notice something that I hadn't noticed before. When the teams arrived at the mat, they were all very careful to stand just on the edge of the mat when in previous seasons they'd stand (or even jump onto) on the middle of the mat.

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I noticed that, too. The change in behavior didn't make sense. Maybe the mat's taken too much of a beating lately and this is the only one they have.

Marc said:

I did notice something that I hadn't noticed before. When the teams arrived at the mat, they were all very careful to stand just on the edge of the mat when in previous seasons they'd stand (or even jump onto) on the middle of the mat.

Click to expand...

TiVo'Brien said:

I noticed that, too. The change in behavior didn't make sense. Maybe the mat's taken too much of a beating lately and this is the only one they have.

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I noticed it too, but it wasn't just this episode. I've noticed it on other episodes this year as well.

robojerk said:

[*]taxi to bus station (equalizer)[/LIST]

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The bus ride wasn't much of an equalizer... there were five different busses with teams on them, plus the first class bus that almost got used.

Maui said:

I kind of disliked that the bus trip seemed to be random. The first bus that left was not the first to arrive. So instead of bad cab drivers affecting the leg we had to deal with random bus arrival times that apparently had little to do with their departure times.

Loved the twins positive attitude throughout the leg and the sheer joy they go dealing with the elephants.

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I think it was the difference between asking for the first bus to Bangkok vs asking for the first bus to arrive at Bangkok. I think the first team to arrive took an 'Express' bus that was also called the 'First Class' bus that the father/son team got off. I recall this being a game changer in one of the first 3 seasons when one team was smart enough to wait a half hour or more and take an 'express' bus.

The snowboarders ought to have been 2 hours ahead of many of the teams when they arrived at the bus station, but about 6 of them all had a 4:30pm bus. And then they were on a non-express bus to boot and really fell behind there.