S35.E03: No Sleep and a Million Dollar Dream

[Whimsy]

Quote

The teams feel the strain of commercial travel and float their way through the Mekong Delta as they are challenged between making rice paper or customizing a scooter by wrapping it in vinyl in Vietnam.

Original airdate 10/11/23

[Guest]

Highlights:

The lie-down buses.

Lena's adorable arms-straight-down run out of the airport.

"Out of towners! Out of towners!"

Anna Leigh in general.

[susannot]

Love the season so far.  I think the cast is great.  More airport drama and teams going up and down in the rankings.  I love unpredictability!

 

I'm shallow, because I like both of the cute boy teams:  Greg and John, Liam and Yeremi.

Edited October 12, 2023 by susannot

[Tango64]

The brothers, just…. those eyes…wow 

[KeithJ]

I’m a little confused.  Some of the racers read the clue and said “find Phil at the mat” but some of them said “pit stop”.  Did they just subconsciously say “pit stop” even though it wasn’t in the clue?  

I’m not sure I like the double legs.  It seems like a cop out when they say no non-eliminations but then the racers get to the mat and Phil says keep going.

[Lantern7]

Good News: we got some shake-ups in the order of placement. Bad News: it means jack squat because they're running an extra-long leg. And we still have eleven teams in there . . .  22 people who are all unique, yet tend to blend together as we go from one duo to the next to the next, etc.

Good tasks tonight. Fruit delivery turned out to be more of a headache than it appeared to be. I honestly couldn't blame Morgan & Lena using the Express Pass to skip it. However, it turned out to be a short-sighted move, and they dropped to sixth . . . but it doesn't matter, since the leg isn't complete yet. If they hit a hard Detour or Roadblock next week? Then it was a bad move.

I'm intrigued by the concept of rice paper. Can you eat it as well as write on it? It seemed to be the better task over appealing vinyl to car parts. The learning curve was a bitch, though. Jocelyn & Victor wound up cracking up and fell to the bad of the pack because they couldn't figure out how to make it. In contrast, Joel & Garrett shot up because Joel was great at making crepes. Go  figure. As @dizzyd put it on the Live Thread, "they literally creped up" from ninth to second place.

The vinyl looked to be the harder task. More tedious than the rice paper. Also, the rice paper place had stray dogs. I wonder if they get to eat messed-up rice paper.

Good to see airport drama and bunching returning. I don't think we'll totally get over COVID, but it's great that old-school logistics are back in effect.

[mertensia]

Nice to see pickier judges.

I'm glad they made the fruit task tougher than I thought it would be. 

Sneaky to mix up the times so if you didn't look....

[Ancaster]

1 hour ago, Tango64 said:

The brothers, just…. those eyes…wow 

And the hair!  There was a shot early on where the one who usually has it tied back had it loose.  Wowza!  (Is this offensive to anyone/objectifying?  If so, I apologize.)

Haha!  Phil doing commentary while on a moped.  I love that man!

I'd never thought about how rice paper is made - that was fascinating.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Ancaster

[Ancaster]

Was it just editing or were Jocelyn and Victor spectacularly bad at making rice paper?

I was surprised the couple who had to wait to make the rice paper kept their backpacks on.  I would have dropped mine immediately.  It does seem that people have relatively small/light backpacks compared to previous seasons.

[rr2911]

3 hours ago, KeithJ said:

I’m not sure I like the double legs.  It seems like a cop out when they say no non-eliminations but then the racers get to the mat and Phil says keep going.

Yeah, I think we were duped!  Phil made it seem that there won't be any non-elimination rounds but really this one is.  They just made it the same round.  Not good for the viewers in my opinion.

One thing that drives me nuts is the contestants ordering the drivers of a car or boat to go faster!  It may look hectic but I'm sure there are still traffic laws in Vietnam.

[Seelouis]

7 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

 

 

Joel & Garrett shot up because Joel was great at making crepes. Go  figure. As @dizzyd put it on the Live Thread, "they literally creped up" from ninth to second place.

 

This is a great example of how every task has the possibility of being right in someone’s wheelhouse and should put to bed any thoughts of unfair advantage because a team spoke the language at a task last week. 

[Lady Calypso]

So, a lot changed this leg, which is not even a finished leg yet, so we get to see these sleep-deprived racers continue racing.

Airport drama is fun. It was so much fun to see some teams jump up to get an earlier flight and then Steve and Anna Leigh jumping to get the first time slot out because they found a hidden 5:45 sheet.

With the information Morgan/Lena had, and how chaotic that market was (we saw that was the task where the most shuffling occured), I do not blame them for using the Express Pass. They thought that it would shoot them ahead to at least top three, but it ended up slipping them further down, maybe because they chose the wrong detour (I think the detour was more of the issue than the Express Pass). I would have chosen the Paper task because it seemed like, once you got a rhythm going, you were good to hammer them out while Plastic seemed like it require full concentration and no mess ups whatsoever. 

Shame to see Jocelyn/Victor slip down to almost last. That's what happens with airport shuffling, though (and then losing a lead due to a task starting at a specific time). 

I did laugh at the 7:55 flight crew getting mad at Joe/Ian for....getting a better flight time? Sorry you all didn't get the right travel agent to get you on the earlier flight? Like, Ashleigh was PISSED. Which, I don't necessarily blame them for being annoyed because, at the time, a 6 hour gap between flights is huge, but don't hate the players, hate the game!

Lots of fun teams to watch still. Rob/Corey are still my favourites, followed by Morgan/Lena and Jocelyn/Victor (though looks like they're struggling already). Greg/John are great and Joel/Garrett are shooting up my rankings. Their attitude at the Paper detour was great. I love how enthusiastic they were to do it.

Liam/Yeremi seem to be struggling more than I thought they would. They have not been able to break out of the bottom half of the pack yet.

[PhD-Purgatory15]

For the person upthread wondering, you can absolutely eat rice paper. It's what makes Vietnamese spring rolls clear/transparent. You actually dip it back in water to make it pliable for your spring/summer roll..

It's startling how much this feels like "Classic" seasons of TAR. Right down to the one random Travel Agent guy in the Tour agency who happens to be a wizard (or maybe he had an in at VietJet somehow).

The Roadblock was a mental challenge to get a sense of what everyone's progress was (except for the first couple of teams). I can only imagine how frustrated Joe & Ian were to finish, forget the final piece of the photo clue & then literally take forever to get back to where they could pick up the clue again.

Someone needs to explain to me again how Anna Leigh & her father found the final hidden 5:45am departure time? That made no sense at all. At first we thought the sisters found it, decided to play their Express Pass and then put it back for another team to find, but that obviously didn't happen when they were shown leaving in a long-tail boat at 6am...

It was nice to seem some shuffling of teams. Having the Married Asian Couple & the African American Brothers get shuffled all the way to the back was nice because they hadn't really experienced "race pressure" until that moment.

Felt bad for the other brothers. You could tell, that the idea that most of the other teams picked the other side of the detour (and it was a faster choice) never crossed their minds. They just assumed that they were probably mid-pack when they left the Motorbike side of the detour in 3rd & never had a team come their behind them..

Traffic in Thailand & Cambodia is nuts. That said, traffic in HCMC is it's own astral plane. I've never once crossed the road in that city without following a Vietnamese person (or and Expat local), where I use them almost like a human shield lol :-)

Edited October 12, 2023 by PhD-Purgatory15

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

I did laugh at the 7:55 flight crew getting mad at Joe/Ian for....getting a better flight time? Sorry you all didn't get the right travel agent to get you on the earlier flight? Like, Ashleigh was PISSED. Which, I don't necessarily blame them for being annoyed because, at the time, a 6 hour gap between flights is huge, but don't hate the players, hate the game!

Todd seemed more pissed than Ashlie did. She just seemed shocked to me.

3 minutes ago, PhD-Purgatory15 said:

It was nice to seem some shuffling of teams. Having the Married Asian Couple & the African American Brothers get shuffled all the way to the back was nice because they hadn't really experienced "race pressure" until that moment.

And those two teams handled the race pressure very differently. Greg/John stayed zen and pleasant. Jocelyn/Victor, not so much.

[Lady Calypso]

17 minutes ago, PhD-Purgatory15 said:

Someone needs to explain to me again how Anna Leigh & her father found the final hidden 5:45am departure time? That made no sense at all. At first we thought the sisters found it, decided to play their Express Pass and then put it back for another team to find, but that obviously didn't happen when they were shown leaving in a long-tail boat at 6am...

 

I believe it was shoved in (either accidentally or on purpose) in the pile for one of the other departure times (I believe in the 6am pile). So, if you rifled through the pile, you would have found it.

5 minutes ago, tracyscott76 said:

Todd seemed more pissed than Ashlie did. She just seemed shocked to me.

I need to rewatch; I remember Ashlie (I keep misspelling her name) being the one to announce to everyone that Joe/Ian and Garrett/Joel got on earlier times and they never told the rest of them.

[Colorado David]

Yes today's lesson...look for the older travel agents, they apparently know more tricks of the trade!! I wonder what the magic was he used...probably better contacts maybe?

Good episode. OMG I could not deal with all the sleep deprivation.

The fruit challenge was such a traffic nightmare,  I wonder how many collisions occur on the water.

I don't think you write on rice paper, it is strictly a food. Paper is just an descriptor for how thin it is.

Ugh that vinyl challenge...reminds me back when I was a kiddo, trying to attach  decals exactly right on the models I assembled.

Note to self...always go thru all the piles to see if an earlier time is mixed in, DON'T ASSUME.

 

[Silver-hyren]

My gosh, I'm exhausted for these people!  The teams on the later flight haven't slept (or slept very little) and the ones on the earlier flight camped out by the dock.  

The entire time during the paper challenge I wanted to eat the messed up sheets 😆

"It's just like making crepes!"  I love how quirky Joel and Garrett are.  They really seem to be having a good time.  And of all the people to be a crepe making expert, would not have expected it to be the guy with the long beard.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

I need to rewatch; I remember Ashlie (I keep misspelling her name) being the one to announce to everyone that Joe/Ian and Garrett/Joel got on earlier times and they never told the rest of them.

Hmm. I don't remember a "they didn't tell us!" component, just a "they got something we didn't" part. But I could be remembering wrong. I'll let you rewatch that part, though. If I'm rewatching anything it'll be involving Lena 🥰 (she is my equivalent of Liam & Yeremi)

Edited October 12, 2023 by tracyscott76
Removing random spaces

[iMonrey]

All the airport drama ended up being moot since they all bunched up at the departure times for the boat task. But it was interesting to see how they reacted. Anna Leigh is starting to get on my nerves. She seems like she is pretty high maintenance, emotionally. 

Hard to say whether or not Lena and Morgan jumped the gun using that Express Pass to skip the boat task. It was only good until the 4th leg, but since this ended up being a "keep racing" leg it's still technically the 3rd leg. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I might have used it too.

At first glance, I think I would have chosen Plastic over Paper in the Detour. I know Paper probably ended up being easier but there's no way of knowing that until you try it, and Plastic was one thing versus 12 things. I also think with the learning curve and the re-do's, they probably ended up taking similar amounts of time.

Half the people in Vietnam are under 25? WTF. Also, those buses! They are clearly not built for big people. 

I appreciate the old-fashioned clue of giving them a picture of their next destination rather than just "go here." But then again, the picture was of a clearly marked dock so it's not like they really had to hunt for it. Still, baby steps.

I think it would give me a heart attack to get to the mat and hear Phil say "However . . . " because my first thought would be "Holy crap, we made a mistake somewhere and he's not going to check us in until we go back and fix it."

[Fukui San]

Great episode with both skill based placement shakeups and seemingly random factors like Anna Leigh finding the earlier boat and some people getting the earlier flight. 
 

I would joke about Jocelyn and Vincent needing to turn in their Asian card for their performance at the rice paper task but in truth almost no one makes them from scratch and even the dried and rehydrated version is tricky to handle. It’s fragile and tends to clump, even moreso than crepes. 
 

The type they had to make seems to be almost twice the diameter as what I would typically use at home to make summer rolls. And yes, if you’ve eaten the fresh rolls at a Vietnamese restaurant with a translucent wrapping, that wrapping is the rice paper. I’m not even sure what you’d use that size of rice paper for. A summer roll the size of a submarine sandwich?
 

And dragonfruit is a cool looking fruit which is, in my opinion, entirely underwhelming to eat. The white flesh with black speckles tastes like a blander cantaloupe maybe? 

I had no conception about the sleeper buses and was tickled by the collecting shoes at the beginning. It’s great that this show is still capable of showing you new things about the world’s culture even after all this time. 

[eel2178]

1 hour ago, Colorado David said:

I don't think you write on rice paper, it is strictly a food. Paper is just an descriptor for how thin it is.

I think there are different kinds of rice paper that have different uses. In Japan, they make rice paper that you write on but don't eat.

I also remember getting candy at Peir 1 Imports when I was a kid that was wrapped in what looked like cellophane, but it was made of rice and dissolved when it touched your tongue. I don't remember where it had been imported from.

[illdoc]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

I think it would give me a heart attack to get to the mat and hear Phil say "However . . . " because my first thought would be "Holy crap, we made a mistake somewhere and he's not going to check us in until we go back and fix it."

If Phil says "you are team number X", you're safe. If he says "you are the X team to arrive", then you might be in trouble! I think he would have panicked a lot of people if he had greeted them with the "team to arrive. However..." line!

[Skyfall]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

All the airport drama ended up being moot since they all bunched up at the departure times for the boat task. But it was interesting to see how they reacted. Anna Leigh is starting to get on my nerves. She seems like she is pretty high maintenance, emotionally. 

Hard to say whether or not Lena and Morgan jumped the gun using that Express Pass to skip the boat task. It was only good until the 4th leg, but since this ended up being a "keep racing" leg it's still technically the 3rd leg. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I might have used it too.

At first glance, I think I would have chosen Plastic over Paper in the Detour. I know Paper probably ended up being easier but there's no way of knowing that until you try it, and Plastic was one thing versus 12 things. I also think with the learning curve and the re-do's, they probably ended up taking similar amounts of time.

Half the people in Vietnam are under 25? WTF. Also, those buses! They are clearly not built for big people. 

I appreciate the old-fashioned clue of giving them a picture of their next destination rather than just "go here." But then again, the picture was of a clearly marked dock so it's not like they really had to hunt for it. Still, baby steps.

I think it would give me a heart attack to get to the mat and hear Phil say "However . . . " because my first thought would be "Holy crap, we made a mistake somewhere and he's not going to check us in until we go back and fix it."

Good time to use the express pass, but they then chose the wrong challenge afterwards.

[Skooma]

3 hours ago, PhD-Purgatory15 said:

The Roadblock was a mental challenge to get a sense of what everyone's progress was (except for the first couple of teams). I can only imagine how frustrated Joe & Ian were to finish, forget the final piece of the photo clue & then literally take forever to get back to where they could pick up the clue again.

Just mentioning that that wasn't the Roadblock.  A Roadblock is something that only one member can do and we haven't had it yet in this super long leg.  We will probably see it next week is my guess.

The floating market was just an activity to get you to the Detour clue.  Typical of old school TAR where there were often extra activities along the way.  And what an  activity this was!

I was worried for Jocelyn and Vincent.  I think Vincent was key to getting them through this part of the leg as Jocelyn seemed to get really down and convinced they were out of it.  Thanks, Vincent.  I really like you two and want to see you continue in the Race.

[eel2178]

12 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

I honestly couldn't blame Morgan & Lena using the Express Pass to skip it. However, it turned out to be a short-sighted move, and they dropped to sixth . . . but it doesn't matter, since the leg isn't complete yet. If they hit a hard Detour or Roadblock next week? Then it was a bad move.

Since it was only good for the first four legs, I'm betting that we are going to see at least one more Express Pass put in to play before the race is over. 

[eel2178]

12 minutes ago, Skooma said:

 A Roadblock is something that only one member can do and we haven't had it yet in this super long leg.  We will probably see it next week is my guess.

I'm betting on two roadblocks, one for each of the team members, just because we didn't get any road blocks on the first half of the leg.

[Skooma]

3 minutes ago, eel2178 said:

I'm betting on two roadblocks, one for each of the team members, just because we didn't get any road blocks on the first half of the leg.

Yeah that could be it too because now you mention it I think they did just that in past mega-legs.  And on those if one partner did one then the other had to do the second as I recall.

[eel2178]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

All the airport drama ended up being moot since they all bunched up at the departure times for the boat task.

I hate when that happens. If they're going to put the contestants through all that anxiety, it should be for something they really should be worrying about, not a fake out.

[QuantumMechanic]

1) We've now had 3 episodes without seeing the "everyone votes" U-turn so I figure we are gonna see it for sure next week.  I was expecting it this week.

2) I'm a bad person because I was sorely disappointed that Phil didn't do the "...you are the last team to arrive.  I'm sorry to tell you that you have...to keep on racing!" cat-and-mouse game with the last place team.

[eel2178]

17 minutes ago, QuantumMechanic said:

We've now had 3 episodes without seeing the "everyone votes" U-turn so I figure we are gonna see it for sure next week. 

That could turn out well for Victor and Jocelyn. If they had come in first or even near the front again this leg, they would have been the mostly likely target. However, now that they're at the back, there is no reason to U-turn them, and they'll have the chance to get caught back up with the front of the pack.

I'm also thinking that the U-turn won't appear this far into a continuation leg. I think it will be the week after next before we see it.

[Hera]

I get that you never know how hard a task will be before you try it, but if I were Morgan or Lena, I'd be annoyed with myself for not using the Express Pass before even getting on the boat at the floating market. It seemed like one of them suggested doing just that, although it could have just been editing. You lose too much time getting on the boat, going round to the merchants, and then coming back. In all honesty, they might have been better off completing the market task and then skipping the detour altogether.

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I think it would give me a heart attack to get to the mat and hear Phil say "However . . . " because my first thought would be "Holy crap, we made a mistake somewhere and he's not going to check us in until we go back and fix it."

Same. As good as it is for Yeremi and Liam, it sucks for Steve and Anna Leigh. They came in first, but don't get a prize.

6 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

7 hours ago, PhD-Purgatory15 said:

It was nice to seem some shuffling of teams. Having the Married Asian Couple & the African American Brothers get shuffled all the way to the back was nice because they hadn't really experienced "race pressure" until that moment.

And those two teams handled the race pressure very differently. Greg/John stayed zen and pleasant. Jocelyn/Victor, not so much.

Yes to all of this. And anyway, early leads can sometimes be misleading about actual racing ability long term. Jocelyn and Victor were lucky in the first two legs that the tasks rewarded their particular strengths. But on this leg, they came up against a task that neither one was naturally good at and they're now in a country where Victor has less of a linguistic edge. Plus, exhaustion is starting to creep in (I think they were one of the teams that didn't get a lot of sleep on the journey to and through Vietnam). These things were always going to happen to them eventually. We'll see if they can recover or if they're going to spiral downwards.

I expect Greg and John to recover better than Jocelyn and Victor for no reason other than they performed well in the first two legs (and 8th out of 11 isn't really that bad) without having any particular advantage over the other teams (besides being young and fit). Although they are undeniably less strong than Rob and Corey who have performed well in all three legs so far and also without any particular advantages.

[preeya]

So "non-elimination" is replaced with a "you are still racing"

[Lady Calypso]

5 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

Hmm. I don't remember a "they didn't tell us!" component, just a "they got something we didn't" part. But I could be remembering wrong. I'll let you rewatch that part, though. If I'm rewatching anything it'll be involving Lena 🥰 (she is my equivalent of Liam & Yeremi)

I just rewatched. Here's what happened:

Joel/Garrett were telling Ashlie that they got a 1:50 flight as she was asking. She asked how they got that flight and they said that Joe/Ian told them when they got there about the flight (I didn't realize this, I missed this part upon my first watch). That's when Todd and Ashlie were waving the other 7:55 pairs over to tell them that Ian/Joe told Joel/Garrett about the 1:50 flight. And then we had confessionals from Anna Leigh and Todd about how they were so mad and a "punch in the gut" and even Joel/Garrett made a mention of it. 

So, yeah, they were pissed Joe/Ian didn't inform the other teams who were at the agency about the other flight and only told Joel/Garrett.

[iMonrey]

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

So, yeah, they were pissed Joe/Ian didn't inform the other teams who were at the agency about the other flight and only told Joel/Garrett.

Weren't Joel and Garrett the only other team at the agency at the time? Anyway, it's not incumbent on anyone to tell other teams what flight they got. If it were me and there were other teams there, I would assume they were getting the same flight as me.

[Lady Calypso]

15 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Weren't Joel and Garrett the only other team at the agency at the time? Anyway, it's not incumbent on anyone to tell other teams what flight they got. If it were me and there were other teams there, I would assume they were getting the same flight as me.

No, I remember at LEAST Andrea and Malaina being there, as they were at the agent closest to the door. And I think one more team was there as well. Joel/Garrett just happened to come in while Joe/Ian were leaving and the other team/s were still in the process of booking their flights (or maybe they finished booking and were signing papers or whatever). 

I think Joe/Ian seemed to keep it quiet but I just don't get why they told Joel/Garrett. It would be one thing if Joel/Garrett just got the same agent who did it for them. But J/G saying that J/I told them about the flight? 

[seacliffsal]

23 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Weren't Joel and Garrett the only other team at the agency at the time? Anyway, it's not incumbent on anyone to tell other teams what flight they got. If it were me and there were other teams there, I would assume they were getting the same flight as me.

And, isn't that kind of the concept of, you know, a race? To beat other teams? I dislike the seasons where some of the racers feel entitled to get the same flights, get the answers to the tasks (similar to the first episode when they were all going to solve the puzzle together [in L.A.] until they didn't?), and basically rely on the kindness of others to help them through the race.  So, no, it wasn't Joe and Ian's responsibility to help the teams get better flights.  

[Ancaster]

7 hours ago, iMonrey said:

 

I think it would give me a heart attack to get to the mat and hear Phil say "However . . . " because my first thought would be "Holy crap, we made a mistake somewhere and he's not going to check us in until we go back and fix it."

Haha!  It took me about three goes before my heart stopped skipping a beat whenever he said it!  And I'm just a couch potato 7,000 miles away who knows what's actually going on after the first time - imagine being them!

Edited October 12, 2023 by Ancaster

[TeapotWakeen]

I literally LOLed when Phil told Rob (and Corey) that they were Team Number W.* It made me feel better about some of my misspeaking moments, and it was just a nice moment.

* in ASL, the #3 is made with the thumb, index finger and the middle finger. The letter W is made the way Phil did (index, middle, ring fingers)

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

I’m not always clear what the racers see on their clue cards compared to what Phil describes, but from description alone, making rice paper wrappers (essentially crepe technique) would have been the obvious choice over dressing a motorcycle. Then again, I’d take my chances in a kitchen over a mechanic’s shop any day.

I also would have chosen paper over plastic simply because of the environmental factor implied in the name play. When given the choice in a grocery store, I always choose (presumably recyclable) paper over (in landfills for thousands of years) plastic. Choosing the plastic detour would have felt like choosing the petrochemical bag tax, and my overthinking mind would have concluded that the race runners designed the tasks accordingly. Paper all the way!

Morgan and Lena made a choice about the express pass with the best information they had at the time. In retrospect, they would have been better off doing the boats and skipping the detour. Or making the call sooner and also choosing the paper detour. Or not using it at all. Even if they’d come in last, they’d still be in the race. Because it was a (non) non-elimination leg.

“Search for Phil on the mat” ≠ “Make your way to the Pit Stop.”

[Haleth]

Wow, a whole lot of shaking up this episode, not only because of the randomness of airplanes but because of how well the teams performed.  It sure makes for a more interesting race when the top tier doesn't necessarily dominate the whole time.  Good for the teams that found an earlier flight and for Anna Leigh and her dad for finding the early ticket to the boats.

Who would have guessed that Joel or Garrett (don't know which from whom) is a wiz at making crepes and rice paper?  Neither option on the detour were easy.  I'm liking that the challenges on this race are tougher, more attention to detail.

I thought the team that used their express pass wasted it.  They had quite a few teams behind them and even though the boat market was chaotic there was no way they'd fall too far out of their place.  Certainly there are going to be more difficult challenges ahead.

20 hours ago, Colorado David said:

Note to self...always go thru all the piles to see if an earlier time is mixed in, DON'T ASSUME.

Tricksy Phil! 

20 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I think it would give me a heart attack to get to the mat and hear Phil say "However . . . " because my first thought would be "Holy crap, we made a mistake somewhere and he's not going to check us in until we go back and fix it."

I know!  I thought he was going to say that too!

15 hours ago, preeya said:

So "non-elimination" is replaced with a "you are still racing"

The difference being the last team doesn't have to perform an extra task.

They must all have been exhausted by the time Phil told them they were still racing.  Hopefully the rest of the leg was shorter so they could finally get some sleep.

[J-Man]

23 hours ago, Silver-hyren said:

"It's just like making crepes!"  I love how quirky Joel and Garrett are.

"It's just like making crepes!"  I love how quirky Joel Pierre and Garrett are.

Fixed it for you.

22 hours ago, Fukui San said:

I’m not even sure what you’d use that size of rice paper for. A summer roll the size of a submarine sandwich?

A Vietnamese super-sized bahn mi burrito?

[zapper]

the "you're still racing" has been around for awhile and I've always considered it a a way around the "no more non-elimination" comments near the end of a race, only more cruel. (sorry, can't think of a specific example for the from either AR or ARC)

I do want to know where that big straw stetson of AnnaLeigh's goes when it is not on her head. It doesn't look crushable, none of my stetsons or straw hats are crushable[1], yet we only saw hers for part of this leg, not on previous legs and not in the latter part of this leg.

must be a Texas thing. "This is the age of the expanding hats ..." [2]

[1] panama hats are crushable, but are not straw. my jute cap and raffia travel fedora are crushable, but again - not straw. hers looked like a typical straw stetson.

[2] apologies to Donald Fagan 

[iMonrey]

Has the race gone to Vietnam before? I'm almost positive we've seen the floating market challenge, in some variation, before this.

[Guest]

Just now, iMonrey said:

Has the race gone to Vietnam before? I'm almost positive we've seen the floating market challenge, in some variation, before this.

They were at least there in Season 3. Ian, a Vietnam vet, was leery of going back, but ended up having the time of his life. They did do a challenge in a floating market as one half of a Detour, but it was "find the only vendor selling this specific thing", not a multi-part task like this one.

[dgpolo]

2 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Has the race gone to Vietnam before? I'm almost positive we've seen the floating market challenge, in some variation, before this.

Oh, lordy! season 3 and Flo's meltdown! Ian being unsure about returning after serving in the war and finding he loved the country and the people.

[Fukui San]

1 hour ago, J-Man said:

A Vietnamese super-sized bahn mi burrito?

I mean, I’m not saying no. 

[proserpina65]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:45 AM, Colorado David said:

Yes today's lesson...look for the older travel agents, they apparently know more tricks of the trade!! I wonder what the magic was he used...probably better contacts maybe?

I wondered if some additional seats opened up on that earliest flight after the other teams had already gotten their tickets.

On 10/12/2023 at 11:32 AM, iMonrey said:

Hard to say whether or not Lena and Morgan jumped the gun using that Express Pass to skip the boat task. It was only good until the 4th leg, but since this ended up being a "keep racing" leg it's still technically the 3rd leg. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I might have used it too.

I think I would've used it before starting the fruit delivery task, not partway through it, if that was an option.  Would've at least gotten them to the detour sooner, even if they chose the wrong detour.

On 10/12/2023 at 12:06 PM, Fukui San said:

And dragonfruit is a cool looking fruit which is, in my opinion, entirely underwhelming to eat. The white flesh with black speckles tastes like a blander cantaloupe maybe? 

I thought it tasted a bit like kiwi only less flavorful.  Yeah, underwhelming.

23 hours ago, preeya said:

So "non-elimination" is replaced with a "you are still racing"

It's not a new thing.  They've been doing "to be continued" legs for a long time.  It's rough on the teams because they don't get the rest break at the pit stop that they all expect.

 

[tkc]

On 10/12/2023 at 9:47 AM, eel2178 said:

I also remember getting candy at Peir 1 Imports when I was a kid that was wrapped in what looked like cellophane, but it was made of rice and dissolved when it touched your tongue. I don't remember where it had been imported from.

Do you mean:

https://www.spot.ph/amp/eatdrink/the-latest-eat-drink/83314/history-white-rabbit-candy-a3284-20200820

[zapper]

I remember that white rabbit candy. very yummy.

[eel2178]

3 hours ago, tkc said:

Do you mean:

https://www.spot.ph/amp/eatdrink/the-latest-eat-drink/83314/history-white-rabbit-candy-a3284-20200820

I don't think so. I remember it as being a red square wrapped in the edible cellophane.