UPDATED ARA3 TIMELINE (modified on Sept. 25)
I now show 8 legs through Oman, so there are three more left to identify.
May 20 leg 1 begins; teams spotted late afternoon at Khao San Road in Bangkok
overnight tranportation to Chiang Mai is by one of 3 chartered buses
May 21 task in Chiang Mai, then pitstop;
leg 2 begins with pitstop release starting in the 10pm time frame
May 22 teams have tasks in the morning and then get to Chiang Mai airport in the afternoon for flight to Saigon
The first may be too early at 1225 1330. Any team that gets that will make an excellent connection TG614 BKK SGN 1540 1710. However, few teams will be able to do that. Most teams will be on TG111 1440 1550 CNX BKK. Their best connection option is TG686 1815 1945 BKK SGN. Only for teams that are not able to get bookings on that will it be necessary to take the flight through Siem Reap to Saigon. Teams do not go directly from CNX to REP as there are no schedules for that time frame. However VN848 has one stop in Siem Reap and is BKK SGN 1740 2125. As for Natalie and Pailin and others, they apparently do not make reasonable flights out of either CNX or BKK and are stuck overnight. If in CNX, the best flight combination is CNX BKK TG125 0700 0810 connecting Bangkok to BKK SGN TG680 0900 1030.
If they overnight in Bangkok, then their best bet is TG680 0900 1030.
May 23
So teams will arrive at Saigon airport from evening through late morning and then do tasks there starting at 6am to early afternoon
this includes tasks away from Saigon in the Vietnam countryside, but the pitstop is back in Saigon afternoon through late evening
May 24 teams on release from pitstop start leg 3 with a 25 hour bus ride from Saigon to Hue.
May 25 teams arrive late morning to early afternoon and do fairly short tasks around Hue. The start the pitstop late afternoon to evening.
May 26 teams are released from pitstop in a range of morning times.
As leg 4 begins they fly to Taipei on either
HUI HAN VN240 0820 0955 combined with HAN TPE CI684 1135 1510 OR
HUI HAN VN244 1255 1405 combined with HAN TPE CI9024 1720 2100
There is also a Hue Saigon VN251 0910 1030 connecting with BR392 1255 1730 to get to Taipei. It accomplishes nothing unless a team cannot make 0820 departure but could make 0910 or unless VN240 had no more Amazing Race Asia seats.
I have also looked at flights from DaNang to both Hanoi and Saigon. They do not change much. DAD SGN VN323 1340 1450 could connect with BR396 1555 2025, which provides a 45 minute earlier arrival than the combination through Hanoi.
The teams arriving at 1730 in Taipei will be able to do some tasks before Hours of Operation gets them.
May 27 Taipei more tasks; pitstop
May 28 begin leg 5 Taipei to Hong Kong
There is an average of 3 flights every hour from 6am to 6pm.
tasks in Hong Kong
May 29 complete tasks in Hong Kong; pitstop
May 30 begin leg 6 and travel to Macau after taking hydrofoil in under 1 hour
tasks; extended pitstop
May 31 extended pitstop continues
June 1 begin leg 7; return to Hong Kong Airport by hydrofoil; fly to Singapore;
most probable flights are CX717 0855 1230 or SQ857 1030 1410 or CX739 1120 1505
then connect on to Cochin SilkAir468 SIN COK 2020 2215
June 2 Cochin area tasks, then pitstop in the evening
June 3 begin leg 8; fly Cochin to Muscat, Oman with choices of:
OmanAir 828 0715 0915 COK MCT
IndianAir973 1940 2140 COK MCT
COK to DBX Emirates 531 1030 1245 connecting in Dubai with Emirates 6478 DBX MCT 1810 1910
COK to BOM JetAirways 406 0830 1015 connecting in Mumbai with Jet Airways 808 BOM MCT 1730 1830
June 4 Oman tasks; pitstop
June 5 leg 9; fly Oman to UNKNOWN1, possibly in Africa or Europe
June 6 tasks at UNKNOWN1; pitstop
June 7 leg 10 travel to UNKNOWN2
June 8 tasks at UNKOWN2
June 9 final leg begins; fly to UNKNOWN AISAN CITY(which may require until June 10 to cross time zones by air) and Finish Line(maybe on June 10)