EPISODE 7
This time I have done a bit of international flight schedules to provide information that is usually available on the show, but was not provided. I am also going to have more personal comments than usual.
We start at the Chard Farm Winery, where the teams leave the pitstop as follows for teh Queesntown airport:
Sandy/Francesca 254am
Zabrina/JoeJer 315
Andrew/Syeon 405
Mardy/Marsio 422
Howard/Sahran 425
Andy/Laura 605 (HUH?)
The penalty for Andy/Laura was supposed to be 92 minutes and they originally finished just after Sandy/Francesca. Regular math puts them no worse than 92 minutes after 315am, but apparently the Amazing Race Asia editors are uses a brand new form of math or ARE NOT TELLING US SOMETHING IMPORTANT, which is much more likely. I hate it when they show such little respect for the audience that this indicates.
Teams are headed for Singapore, but the best route is via Auckland. My analysis of airline flights shows that this is what they almost certainly flew:
Air New Zealand 642 ZQN to AKL departs 1100 arrive 1245
Singapore Airlines 286(oh, what a tough break) AKL nonstop to Singapore departs 1400 arrivwe 2035 (Note: besides being the first flight in to Singapore from Auckland each day, that time also corresponds to the dusk dky condition for July 5, 2006 when they arrived at the CALTEX station).
The stop in Singapore was the most criticized set of tasks in the entire history of the Amazing Race. As Sandy put it "all the way to Singapore just to wash a car." Not quite, Sandy. It was also to do product placement for CALTEX and FORD, something that only an infrequent Amazing Race task should be doing. The teams bunch again at Singapore airport and fly to Bangkok. That flight is not on Air Asia as indicated on the show but on Thai Airlines departing at 2205 as shown and arriving 2335 Banngkok time, 2.5 hours later.
Teams grab taxis and rush to a temple 85 km north of Bangkok, many changing from their original taxi once communication problems were too vast. However, Hours of Operation were 0630 to 1900, so all arrived before opening and most slept in the taxis. Zabrina and JoeJer, the first to arrive at 2am, were designated to enter first. This actually became important as the cable car for entry across the river only could tranport 2(plus the camera and soundmen) at a time. Teams received coins with the picture of the golden Mount Temple, back in Bangkok, for their next clue. Once there it was a Roadblock forcing choice of Who Can Ring a Bell to find among 560 dangling bells, out of the 100 containing capsules, one of the 6 containing a clue. They finish in the order: Andy, Syeon, Francesca, Marsio, Sahran, JoeJer. Next is a DETOUR, and this causes chaos not seen except for the "Child on Swing" in Devonport. BACON requries a taxi to Ha Long Latadong to get the clue, then another taxi to the Pig Monument. EGGS is a taxi to the Wholesale Market, difficult to find, and then a 3/4 mile walk with a stack of 20 egg cartons on a dolly to a merchant even more difficult to find. If any eggs are broken they have to be replaced. The chaos of BACON is in getting translation of the word PIG, which turns out to be the phonetic sound "Moo" in Thai. Getting directions from locals to the correct addresses is confusing, even for Andy and Laura, who theoretically have Thailand as their "home country"(and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you; I must add that even though I dislike them as a team and do not believe their ties to thailand I think they are examples of genius casting by ARA).
Teams get a clue to Wat Pho as the pitstop as they complete the DETOUR. The finish order is:
Andy/Laura win a year's supply of CALTEX gasoline each.
Andrew and Syeon
Howard and Sahran do a magnificent turnaround and move up to 3rd by finding the PIG Monument quickly.
Sandy/Francesca
Mardy/Marsio
Zabrina/Joe Jer are extremely lucky and saved by non-elimination. They lose all their cash but appear like they were expecting this to be non-elim.