By Arthur Perkins

Most of the AR14 episodes to date have been hum-dingers, but this one was disappointing to me. The mix of tasks was fairly pedestrian. Also, possibly I reacted to making a tiger and an elephant into show creatures. I don’t like to see the Amazing Race exploiting a tiger and an elephant in that way.
 
Episode 7 started in Jaipur India with releases from the pit stop there at:
Tammy/Victor 1021am
Mel/Michael  1102am
Jaime/Cara 1103am
Margie/Luke Not Show, but it has to be 1103 or 1104
Kisha/Jen 1104 am
Mark/Michael 1111 am
 
In the introduction of the show, another  preview of Margie fainting at the finish mat was shown, so we know that’s coming near the end of this episode. Teams go directly to a local Jaipur area travel agency for their bookings, except for Jaime/Cara who do it at the airport. All teams are bunched once again and on the same set of flights departing Jaipur at 455pm and connecting in Delhi and Bangkok to arrive Phuket, Thailand at 850am. The on-screen information says that they will arrive in Phuket 14 hours later. When I calculate that they are close as it would be 13 hours 25 minutes. Off the plane all the teams except Mel/Michael easily get taxis and go to downtown Phuket to search for people who know where the gorilla statue shown in a picture all teams receive can be found. It turns out to be at the Phuket Zoo. Mark/Michael reach there first and find the tiger’s lair where pictures are taken with this Esso the Tiger, presumably friendly in spite of the chains keeping him in his place. The keeper for the tiger had only one arm, so you are left to think if maybe this tiger had taken the other one. Next, they go to the elephant area where a skilled professional elephant  pretends to step on their backs. You may be able to believe that this was OK as the first task in Phuket, but I think it’s shameful as enumerated above.
 
The clue given by the zoo keeper gets teams to the Nguan Choon Tuan Herb Shops. The ride there is notable for the slurs that Jaime in particular makes with regard to Mark/Michael. She says “they’re like characters from a cartoon.”  Maybe so, but watch what happens. The storekeeper there has an array of 99 drawers and I am guessing that somewhere between 6 to 10 of them contain clues. This is your typical random  luck-based tasks where better teams can do poorly. Jaime/Cara got there first and left in 4th place,  providing evidence for my assertion. The first team to finish there was Mark/Michael.

They got the clue to DETOUR 100 Barrels or 2 Miles. In 100 Barrels, teams had to find the Pae Yod ship in Phuket harbor, fill 53 barrels with water and move the other 47 of them to an upper deck and arrange them neatly. In 2 Miles teams had to get to a place where rickshaws were available, then a team member ( and the one selected can be switched at any time) can pull the rickshaw over a 2 mile course ending in Rama IX Park. No assistance from trailing or leading taxi drivers was allowed. When Mark/Michael arrived first to the 2 Miles DETOUR  starting location,  they discovered several pumps on the ground and used one to put air in one strategically deflated tire. They then put all the pumps in a box to make it less obvious that teams were supposed to use them. Then they went off through the course and arrived first at the Wat Thepnimit pit stop. Phil would not check them in because they had incurred two 30 minutes penalties, one for maliciously depriving other teams of the pumps and the other for using a leading taxi while on most of the course. I thought both of these penalties were eminently fair and reasonable. The first was explicitly prohibited in the clue, the second was promoting just fair play.

So a 60 minute clock started counting down to the time when Mark/Michael would be checked in. Second to arrive at the mat was Tammy/Victor, who did so with about 4 minutes left on the penalty clock. Then Jaime/Cara checked in and by the time it was done there were about 30 seconds left on the penalty clock. So Mark/Michael took 3rd place. Finishing 4th was Margie/Luke and she collapsed form something like heat stroke at the finish mat. Luke really reacted in a big way to his mother’s difficulties. She is his rock and vice-versa but while she could function in the world by herself, he is not capable of doing that.

So a 60 minute clock started counting down to the time when Mark/Michael would be checked in. Second to arrive at the mat was Tammy/Victor, who did so with about 4 minutes left on the penalty clock. Then Jaime/Cara checked in and by the time it was done there were about 30 seconds left on the penalty clock. So Mark/Michael took 3rd place. Finishing 4th was Margie/Luke and she collapsed form something like heat stroke at the finish mat. Luke really reacted in a big way to his mother’s difficulties. She is his rock and vice-versa but while she could function in the world by herself, he is not capable of doing that. The final finish order was: 1. Tammy/victor, 2. Jaime/Cara, 3. Mark/Michael, 4.Margie/Luke, 5. Kisha/Jen, 6. Mel/Michael, who are eliminated.

Mel says very complimentary things about Michael and appreciates the time they had together on this race. He states that they are not losers. they won just by being on the race.


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