FINAL ARA3 TIMELINE
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 in Bangkok. For theCNX BKK segment, they will have many chocies and may take TG117 1915 2025 or TG127 2100 2210. In Bangkok the next morning their best bet is BKK SGN 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. They start an extended pitstop late afternoon to early evening.
May 26 Pitstop continued
May 27 teams are released from pitstop in a range of morning times.
As leg 4 begins they fly Hue to Taipei via Saigon(Ho Chi Minh City) on
HUI SGN VN251 0910 1030 connecting with BR392 1255 1730 to get to Taipei.
Better flights through Hanoi to get to Taipei were not taken for unknown reasons.
The teams will be able to complete tasks before the pitstop.
May 28 Taipei leg 5 begins; more tasks; regular pitstop
May 29 begin leg 6 Taipei to Hong Kong
There is an average of three 100 minute flights every hour from 6am to 6pm.
tasks in Hong Kong; NEL
May 30 leg 7; travel to Macau after taking hydrofoil in under 1 hour;
tasks; NEL; 36 hour extended pitstop
May 31 extended pitsotp continued
June 1 begin leg 8; return to Hong Kong Airport by hydrofoil; fly to Singapore;
the leading team gets CX739 1120 1505, connecting to Cochin SilkAir468 SIN COK 2020 2215
2 teams get route Hong Kong to Mumbai, the mumbai to Cochin arriving 0230+1
2 teams get route Hong Kong to Singapore to Mumbai with excessive transfer time to adjacent Mumbai domestic airport, arriving Cochin around 0730+1
June 2 Cochin area tasks, then pitstop
June 3 leg 9; fly Cochin to Mumbai, COK to BOM JetAirways 406 0830 1015;
taxi from Mumbai airport to Pune;
Oman tasks; pitstop
June 4 tasks in Pune, then fly Pune to Mumbai to Muscat; most applicable was:
9W106 PNQ BOM 1110 1140, connecting to WY808 BOM MCT 1740 1840
June 5 tasks in Muscat; pitstop
June 6 begin Final Leg; fly Muscat to Bangkok to Phuket(2 teams) WY436 MCT DXB 1335 1440, connecting to TG522 0505+1, conecting to TG203 BKK HKT 0730+1 0850+1
or
Muscat to Singapore to Phuket WY436 MCT DXB 1335 1440, conecting to IC594 DXB BLR 1615 2210, connecting to SQ503 BLR SIN 2310 0610+1, connecting to MI752 SIN HKT 0850+1 0935+1
tasks in Phuket
Finish Line