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S35.E02: You Don’t See That at Home


Whimsy
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I know everyone has different opinions, but put me down with those who think 90 minutes was just too long. I almost felt like I was watching teams perform the tasks in real time.  I eventually started FF through them and still it took forever.  When the first team came in there was still about a half hour left on my recording. I just skipped to the end. Coming after a 90 minute survivor it’s just a lot for me.  I love this show but not today. Phil remains the best host though! 

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3 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:

Love this show, but never take us to Thailand and have us watch a fake elephant - at least let them pet a real one so we can see the cuteness!

The show got a lot of flak for challenges involving real elephants.

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So much TV Reality on CBS that I'm always 2 days behind on TAR.

Anyway...liking the older Laotion couple and how well they get along. Glad they got a good prize in 4K.

The booted team were marginal and bottom of the packers but I appreciate how well they took the elimination with grace and good spirits.

Forgotten Fanny Packs are always fun but it's more fun when it has serious consequences but this one didn't amount to anything.

I wonder if production purposely picked the two similar sound names to sow confusion and wasted trips.

Still like Ashley but the hubby goofing off in the market reminds me of that husband with the YouTube channel a few seasons back who was always playing for the camera. Think they went on to win but I remember not liking him especially when he was running along a treacherous trail  in the Alps or somewhere just to keep the camera on him.

Seems weird a newlywed bride would go on the race with her dad and not her new groom but oh well.

Prefer legs to start in Europe so that killer fatigue sets in by the time they arrive in more cultural shock countries in the far east.

Mat greeter was stunningly gorgeous. I hope one of the Military Bros chatted her up after the camera's shut down.

I would give serious pause to eating unrefrigerated duck eggs. How long were they sitting there anyway?

Edited by North of Eden
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The Lotus Flower task was surprisingly difficult. I thought wading through the water would be difficult, especially as more teams showed up and you had to wade out further to get to the unopened flowers. But I didn't expect them to be judged so harshly on what seemed like a pretty simple floral arranging task.

I felt for Jocelyn going through 12 attempts when her bouquets looked pretty decent. She deserved her little cry. Ashlie too with 15 attempts watching everyone pass her. Some of them did okay so it wasn't impossible to get through it. Rob took 5 attempts. They didn't tell us how long Greg and Ian took but they seemed to get out of their quickly to when they arrived. I felt a little bad for Greg having his fist bump rejected. He didn't seem to be posturing, just making a genuine faux pas. It was cute how the other half of the teams amused themselves feeding the catfish. Steve's bundles were the ones that looked most obviously wrong to me so I wasn't surprised he took 12 attempts though it did get confusing because it seemed like there was a translator there telling them what they did wrong and it still kept happening. Yeremi only took 4 attempts and he was very adorable when he succeeded. Elizabeth took 10 attempts, Malaina 11, and Robbin 16. Maybe it was tough to get the bundles tied tightly? It's weird that the women (and Steve) seemed to struggle so much more.

The detour split between Stock Up and Scoop Up was interesting. John on the brothers team was super relatable when he said "I mean that sounds fun" reading the Scoop Up task. It did seem like the more enjoyable task (until the end when the teams were brute forcing it as a physical task). Still, Jocelyn and Victor aced the shopping task. Yeah, they have an advantage right now but I hope they stay in the race and don't get KF because they're pretty wholesome to watch. Same for Rob and Corey. I do think there's a slight issue with the episodes right now where I have fun watching the wholesome teams at the front of the pack and seeing who wins... and then there's kind of a drag with all the other teams and it feels like the editors even lose interest. Like there was mild drama with Joel and Garrett when a fanny pack got left behind. But then we also kind of lost track of them (even in a 90 minute episode) because there were so many teams to keep track of. 

Credit to Rob and Corey for making the pomelo task look easy. Credit to Greg and John for being adorable and having fun, even if John abandoned his brother for a second and let him fall into the water. Respect to Todd and Ashlie for choosing the shopping task and doing it with enthusiasm (unlike the last two teams who seemed to not be having as much fun and also to be making the vendors do the task for them). I wonder if the TAR crew spoke to the vendors. Because when the 3rd team comes rolling through, you must know what the grocery list is already if you've already seen two other teams pass through. Yeremi and Liam are young and strong but still, credit to them for making up time at the pomelo task and racing to the mat like giddy children.

I was surprised when Ashlie mentioned she has 3 kids. I feel like there hasn't been a young couple in a while who already has kids. Either it's a couple without kids or it's a friend team like Robbin/Chelsea so someone is at home watching the kids, rather than both parents being on the race, especially with younger children. I wonder how young Victoria and Jocelyn's kids are.

It didn't seem like the first two teams were that close at all in spite of the editing. I think Jocelyn and Victor really breezed through that task. I think Elizabeth and Iliana were just not built for the race. I feel like Joe & Ian seem like a competent team in need of some navigation luck. I feel like most of the other teams at the bottom will probably stay there. Maybe Yeremi and Liam could be doing better with more physical tasks and Morgan and Lena could move up if one of the first three teams falters. If I had to pick a winning team right now, I'd vote for Rob and Corey or Greg and John. Of course the different countries and style of task can always shake things up.

I want an update on the shoe situation. I thought maybe they provided water shoes for the lotus task. But then Ian and Joe had no shoes when they were scooping pomelos. What happens if they actually lose their shoes? Did the shopping task eat into their budgets or did they have money to complete the shopping list?

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That floral arrangement task was kind of diabolical in that the later you got there, the further you had to trudge through the muck to get flowers. The pomelos seemed to always be obligingly floating just around the corner. Speaking of pomelos, how on earth did Robbin and Chelsea's boat not sink with all those pomelos in it? Seems like they had way more than Steve and Anna Leigh did when theirs sank. Must have been the distribution.

I think it was also their weight. Racers who weighed less might be able to fit more in their boats. In spite of their size, pomelos aren't always that heavy. There can be a lot of pith... which probably helps them float. I wasn't paying that much attention to how many trips each team took. But it seemed like Anna Leigh made the mistake of thinking they could only do one trip. 

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Did the later teams at the Lotus challenge receive a little extra help?  When the first teams were getting graded, I didn't think the locals were telling them what was wrong with their arrangements, they just said they didn't pass.  Eventually the locals started telling the contestants what was wrong with them.

The comments were mostly cut out, but it felt like they were also being told what was wrong with the arrangements throughout the task. I do think Jocelyn was graded more harshly because her arrangements did not look bad to me. It's possibly that they also just explained the issue with the leaves and bamboo ties badly for the audience because I did not understand why the women all had to do so many attempts to pass. 

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Is "Let's go!" the new catchphrase for 2023?  I think I heard it around 2 dozen times this episode and it started driving me crazy (kind of like the use of "vibe" on this season BIP).  They were using it even when it didn't make sense.

I think it's something young people say. 

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Jocelyn and Victor had a real advantage at the Detour between language and familiarity with the items. They own a grocery store back home. I thought this would have been the harder of the two Detours if you didn't know the language because even if the items are spelled phonetically you are still relying on locals to tell you what they heck they are. But Todd and Ashlie managed to get through it and make up the time she lost at the Roadblock.

I think Todd and Ashlie proved you could do okay with enthusiasm and trying to sound out the words in different ways. Unlike Andrea/Malaina and Elizabeth/Iliana who said the phonetic pronunciations the way they wanted to, showed the locals the paper so they could sound it out, and basically let the vendors in the market do the task for them. Though I don't know that they took that much longer than Todd and Ashlie. They just seemed stressed about it. 

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Why were they all in the water? Do they fall off the trees into the canal when they're ripe or are they transported to the collection spot to take them to market by throwing them into the water and letting them float downstream or were they just thrown in there for this challenge?

Pomelos grow on trees like other citrus fruit. It seems like in this case, they were planted over manmade waterways to make it easier to collect them. I don't know if they drop when they're ripe. We saw in the clip with Phil that they were being cut down. I do think they probably put more in the water so all of the teams would be able to fill 5 buckets. 

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I've always been curious about what durian tastes like.  And jackfruit.

Durian is creamy. There's a custard-y richness to it. Maybe think Philippine mango in texture? But it's not really like much else. It's quite soft and really feels like you're eating a custard like the inside of a cream puff that's just slightly set. More floral and custardy than just sweet. If you get high quality durian that's probably ripened, there's less funk. It's not something you want to eat a lot of though. It's nice to have a piece or two or have it mixed in to flavor desserts. Unripened jackfruit can be a bit dry. Ripe, it is sweet and has a nice bite to it. I don't know... it just tastes tropical? It doesn't taste exactly like one thing but maybe if you were to blend a bunch of fruits together, like POG juice, you could approximate the taste. I think it's closest to having the syrupy sweetness of canned guava juice or canned mango juice but naturally.

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Those jackfruit were gigantic! The ones I saw growing on the trees in Brazil which much smaller. I don't know if it was a different breed or if the ones I saw weren't ripe yet, so they weren't done growing.

In my experience, they're always that size.

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I know everyone has different opinions, but put me down with those who think 90 minutes was just too long. I almost felt like I was watching teams perform the tasks in real time.  I eventually started FF through them and still it took forever.  When the first team came in there was still about a half hour left on my recording. I just skipped to the end. Coming after a 90 minute survivor it’s just a lot for me.  I love this show but not today. Phil remains the best host though! 

I don't mind the 90 minutes. But it does feel like the editors run out of steam after they're done with the teams in the lead and it's an obligation to show enough of the teams at the end so there's drama to see who gets eliminated. But we still lose out on the teams in the middle. There seems to be little interest in the middle of the pack doing the tasks. Now personally, I find the brother teams Greg/John and Liam/Yeremi attractive so I didn't mind watching them. But while Greg/John get to be charismatic we really barely hear Liam/Yeremi speak. Surely they're saying something. And with Robbin and Chelsea, we only got to see them being stressed and nothing else. While being at the back of the pack must be more stressful, I find it hard to believe Jocelyn and Victor are the only ones dropping cute soundbites. 

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I would give serious pause to eating unrefrigerated duck eggs. How long were they sitting there anyway?

A lot of countries don't refrigerate eggs. Explanation quoted from this website: https://www.organicvalley.coop/blog/why-does-us-refrigerate-eggs/

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It turns out that, here in America, eggs are refrigerated because the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires eggs sold for consumption to be washed, processed, and then refrigerated before they come anywhere near a store’s shelves. On the other hand, most European and Asian countries have reached the opposite conclusion, requiring that table eggs not be wet-washed, and also not refrigerated.

[...] By 1970, the U.S. had perfected an egg washing system that was easy, effective, and produced squeaky-clean eggs. The only catch was that, after washing, these eggs had to be refrigerated. The trade-off for beautifully spotless and bacteria-free eggs is that washing also removes a thin, filmy, protective outer layer called the cuticle. This cuticle is the magical natural shield that keeps bacteria out of an egg while letting oxygen circulate.

It’s also the reason for this discrepancy in the way eggs are handled around the world. Without a cuticle, eggs need to be kept cold—not for the product itself, but to discourage bacterial growth in and on it. Conversely, eggs with their protective layers intact are much less likely to be infected by salmonella—at least on the inside—and because of this they don’t need to be refrigerated.

 

 

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4 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I think Todd and Ashlie proved you could do okay with enthusiasm and trying to sound out the words in different ways. Unlike Andrea/Malaina and Elizabeth/Iliana who said the phonetic pronunciations the way they wanted to, showed the locals the paper so they could sound it out, and basically let the vendors in the market do the task for them. Though I don't know that they took that much longer than Todd and Ashlie. They just seemed stressed about it. 

In fairness to Andrea/Malaina and Elizabeth/Iliana, they might have had more of a sense of being in the back of the pack and having to hustle, as opposed to Todd and Ashlie who were more squarely in the middle (or Jocelyn/Victor who were in first). Plus, A/M and E/I were the only ones taking on the task in "head to head" mode with another team there at the same time. Those two factors probably led to their stress and having less fun.

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Come to think of it, if keeping fresh eggs unrefrigerated were a problem that led to spoilage, would any chick hatch out of them after weeks of being kept warm by the hen (or duck or whatever)?

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7 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I want an update on the shoe situation. I thought maybe they provided water shoes for the lotus task.

I remember that Andrew? the guy who couldn't march,  it was the funniest thing I've ever seen on this show, his partner, Dan? lost or traded away his shoes (to pay a cabbie?) they bought some at an airport store. There was another when a female was given some flip-flops? maybe? by another female on a different team after losing hers somehow. I want to say the Candy scientists were one of those?

6 hours ago, aradia22 said:

The comments were mostly cut out, but it felt like they were also being told what was wrong with the arrangements throughout the task. I do think Jocelyn was graded more harshly because her arrangements did not look bad to me

I kept telling my daughter that there were examples there that no one seemed to be looking at, I saw them a few times laying on the floor in front of one of the judges. Usually there is at least one team that studies the example diligently. Also, in the explanation Phil gave I'm pretty sure he said the buds had to be all the same size (I think that helped with the arrangement) but not everyone followed this and I think it made a difference in some buds sliding out of the 3-4-3 arrangement. I don't know if they let that part be as it was getting more difficult just to get 20 buds. I find that the judges are most critical of the first teams to arrive, and let late comers off after a certain number of tries. I think Ashlie arrived in the first 3 or so teams? and so I think she was judged a bit more harshly and then probably her leaves started to wilt and she was second guessing herself more.

Spoiler

I remember when Team Fun did a dance task, absolutely perfectly as far as I could see, on the first try as the first team to arrive. They were told to do it again for no reason I could see. They aced it again and could leave while others farther back in the queue got to go through on performances that were much worse than Fun's first try.

Also wanted to say, when they first showed Phil at the Pit Stop he was outside the building explaining something before he went to where that beautiful tree was. There were light fixtures outside the building and the globes looked to be the same shape as the Lotus buds.

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9 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I wonder how young Victor and Jocelyn's kids are.

They said their kids were grown and out of the house.

8 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I don't mind the 90 minutes. But it does feel like the editors run out of steam after they're done with the teams in the lead and it's an obligation to show enough of the teams at the end so there's drama to see who gets eliminated. But we still lose out on the teams in the middle.

I agree with this and I chalk that up to the show's editors just not being used to editing 90 minute episodes. Maybe they will get better as they go along.

Things I noticed on rewatch:

When Lena is in the boat on the way to the Roadblock she says she is afraid of alligators. Then they cut to something in the water, but I couldn't tell what it was. Maybe a giant snake?

It appears that the Roadblock judge actually spoke English, which I didn't notice the first time I watched this. Also, I assume the racers were given money to buy the groceries at the Stock Up Detour because we saw them paying for them. Funny how we never hear about how much money they are given at the start of each leg like we used to. I guess it doesn't come into play very often.

After Victor and Jocelyn did the elephant run thing, they never really showed any of the other teams doing it. We saw a few of them at the location reading their next clue but that's it. Most of them skipped right past it to the Detour.

Am I crazy or does Greg look a little like Chris Rock?

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9 hours ago, aradia22 said:

 

In my experience, they're always that size.

In the late 70s we went to Jamaica on vacation and hired a taxi driver for the day one day. Among other things he took us to a local market and we tried fresh jackfruit. I remember - I was about 12 - how big it was.  It's also very sticky and we had to use kerosene or something to clean our hands.

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3 hours ago, dgpolo said:

I remember that Andrew? the guy who couldn't march,  it was the funniest thing I've ever seen on this show, his partner, Dan? lost or traded away his shoes (to pay a cabbie?) they bought some at an airport store. There was another when a female was given some flip-flops? maybe? by another female on a different team after losing hers somehow. I want to say the Candy scientists were one of those?

Having seen both of these recently (thank you, Paramount+), these are 2 different seasons. In one season (Season 13), the frat boys (Dan & Andrew) did a detour that involved putting on a cow costume that had boots, so naturally they had to take off their shoes. They took their backpacks but left their shoes, figuring "we have to come back to return the costume so we'll get the shoes then". Surprise! They did not have to go back to return the costume so their shoes were left behind. They wore hotel slippers into the airport and spent a lot of money to buy shoes there. When they didn't have enough to pay the cab driver, one offered his shoes as payment (the driver did not take the shoes but the team managed to cough up enough money to pay him).

In a different season (Season 9), one team was last on a non-elimination leg at a time when Phil took their belongings (you were allowed to keep what you were wearing at the time and your passports). One team gave them yoga pants to wear (yes, one of the unlucky team members was just in swim trunks with no shoes) and another gave him flip flops to wear. They eventually managed to get enough money to buy real shoes/clothes.

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2 hours ago, illdoc said:

n a different season (Season 9), one team was last on a non-elimination leg at a time when Phil took their belongings (you were allowed to keep what you were wearing at the time and your passports).

I do remember that, but what I was referencing was Season 25 where Bethany (the surfer) lost a shoe and one of the Candy girls, Amy or Maya gave her some extra shoes that they had. Since it appeared that no problems were raised, maybe the teams that lost shoes had extras.

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When Lena is in the boat on the way to the Roadblock she says she is afraid of alligators. Then they cut to something in the water, but I couldn't tell what it was. Maybe a giant snake?

It was some kind of lizard/big iguana-looking reptile. That kind of head shape with a long tail. 

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On 10/5/2023 at 4:32 PM, Bluesky said:

I always wonder why they don’t worry about unfairness when a foreign language is part of a challenge and one couple speaks that language.  

Because that's a very deep rabbit hole. Is it unfair if there is a SCUBA diving challenge and one of the team members is a SCUBA diver? What about a wave rider challenge when one of the contestants is a surfer?

People tend to develop many and varied skills over the years. It is reasonable to expect that someone in the race will find that they know how to do what the challenge requires. Trying to prevent that would be an organizational nightmare.

Besides, wouldn't it be unfair to reject applicants because they possess some skill? Not you, because you know how to braid hair. Not you because you know how to row a boat. Not any of you guys because you can drive a stick-shift. You folks who are OK driving on the other side of the road? You're all out as well. Anyone who knows how to dance can leave now...

Around here we call them Shaddocks. I love them.

Big_Lime.jpg.31d196191c7f603172d1b264787fc690.jpg

Best way to eat them is to peel them thoroughly and then just chomp away. I like to peel them, wrap them in plastic so they don't dry out, then refrigerate so the flesh is cool. The pith is thick and can be candied.

Not sure what the waterways are all about. Perhaps that is a clever way to cultivate them so when ripe they drop off the trees into the water and don't get bruised? Just speculating. 

 

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On 10/5/2023 at 1:41 AM, Fukui San said:

Rob and Corey: Team CODA

Victor and Jocelyn: Team Everything Everywhere All at Once

Two Best Picture Winners represented!

And an Emmy winner, since Garrett reminds me a lot of Ted Lasso. I mean he sounds a lot like him and he has a moustache (he even said I appreciate you to the cab driver). Plus he works with a guy with a beard who doesn't seem to talk as much.

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On 10/7/2023 at 2:58 AM, aradia22 said:

A lot of countries don't refrigerate eggs. Explanation quoted from this website: https://www.organicvalley.coop/blog/why-does-us-refrigerate-eggs/

When eggs are laid they have a protective coat on them that prevents them from spoiling. As long as the coating is on they can be kept out on your counter at room temperature. The usually gets washed off in processing and so eggs have to be refrigerated. But think about baby chicks and baby ducklings - either the mother sits on those eggs or they are kept in an incubator to stay warm so the babies can hatch, and those eggs don't spoil. 

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Had what I will can "the breakfast of Phils" this morning as I picked up a pomelo  yesterday at the market. it was ... interesting.

For the four of us, I cut in top to bottom and then again to give us each a wedge shaped piece - I did not cut it horizontally across the pomelo as one would a grapefruit.

It definitely had a mild taste with only the slightest of tang. It was not sweet, but did not need sugar. I would describe it more as "not bitter" than "sweet".

 

There was a thick 3/8" white inner rind inside with the small pomelo seeds found in the center.  There was no discernible juice inside the pomelo, and the segments or carpels inside broke apart into chunks. Between the carpels was a hard but thin white divider from which you could break off the fruity parts (ie the .  Most success in eating was done by picking up the wedge, breaking out carpels and then breaking the fruit off that thin white (and trust me) inedible white that divides the carpels.

I'll have it again, i'd like to try eating it when cut across, more like a grapefruit. I can definitely understand someone eating this and thinking "not bad, but needs work" leading to the cross breeding that has been done over the years.

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I'll have it again, i'd like to try eating it when cut across, more like a grapefruit. I can definitely understand someone eating this and thinking "not bad, but needs work" leading to the cross breeding that has been done over the years.

Pomelos can be very sweet or a bit bland. Like other fruits, it's about seasonality, sourcing/transportation, and being able to pick a good one. 

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4 hours ago, zapper said:

I'll have it again, i'd like to try eating it when cut across, more like a grapefruit. I can definitely understand someone eating this and thinking "not bad, but needs work" leading to the cross breeding that has been done over the years.

My process is to leave the fruit intact but to but peel off the green skin and the thick white pith. Then with a knife and my fingernails, I peel away the remaining pith from the outside until only the actual segments in their strong sheaths remain. At this point I break the fruit into two and can then remove segments one by one for eating. Slitting the sharp edge of a segment and peeling it back allows the inner fruit to be exposed and there should be very little juice dripping or dribbling out. I just take a bite off one end of the segment and repeat until it's time to open another segment.

Between peeling and removing the last of the pith, I like to put them, in the fridge to get cool, but this can dry the fruit out, especially if you decide to leave them overnight. So I wrap with plastic to prevent this.

My mouth is watering, thinking about it! Unfortunately one of my meds reacts badly to grapefruit so I suspect shaddock is off the menu in my house too...

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On 10/5/2023 at 9:10 AM, tracyscott76 said:

Iliana's gone, rats 😕

That floral arrangement task was kind of diabolical in that the later you got there, the further you had to trudge through the muck to get flowers. The pomelos seemed to always be obligingly floating just around the corner. Speaking of pomelos, how on earth did Robbin and Chelsea's boat not sink with all those pomelos in it? Seems like they had way more than Steve and Anna Leigh did when theirs sank. Must have been the distribution.

 

I'm willing to bet that the locals just dumped the collected pomelos into different canals in between teams. That would make sense.

I really enjoyed this episode and rooting for Jocelyn & Victor, Greg & John, and Andrea & Malaina.  Those lotus flowers are so beautiful, despite having to swim in the muck for them. I really felt for the team members who lost their shoes.

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1 hour ago, tinkerbell said:

Do a Google search of elephant abuse in Thailand and you might change your mind.

There are ethical places too.  Lek who runs elephantnaturepark.org has been a leading reformer in the treatment of elephants and won many awards and accolades.  I spent two weeks there a while back as a volunteer and she doesn’t pull any punches about the mistreatment and how she is fighting it.  

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On 10/11/2023 at 12:00 AM, Stardancer Supreme said:

I'm willing to bet that the locals just dumped the collected pomelos into different canals in between teams. That would make sense.

I really enjoyed this episode and rooting for Jocelyn & Victor, Greg & John, and Andrea & Malaina.  Those lotus flowers are so beautiful, despite having to swim in the muck for them. I really felt for the team members who lost their shoes.

Were those their own shoes or some sort of uniform given to them? I thought i saw something where there were some clothes for them at that challenge.

 

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