TAR: Avoiding the chomp

I hope the teams enjoyed their twelve-hour-rest after their gruelling leg in northern Vietnam because it was time to visit India, the country that invented killer fatigue.

Rob and Kimberly had apparently done some soul-searching at the Pit Stop as they reflected on how the Race was a metaphor for their relationship. I stand by my leaky boat adrift metaphor when it comes to their relationship.

In case you had forgotten or were busy talking to your coke dealer on the phone every other time they said it, Tyler and James reminded everyone that they were former heroin enthusiasts.

If you’re rolling your eyes at yet another one of these declarations, don’t be too hard on the boys. They probably don’t even know they’ve mentioned this fifteen times before. Extensive drug use has been known to cause memory problems. Why do you think Kate Moss stayed with Pete Doherty for so long? She kept forgetting she had already broken up with him.

The Wins left the Pit Stop wearing specially-designed shirts with "Lost" printed on above a picture of Phil. Do I smell a crossover? Maybe Rob and Kimberly’s plane can crash on some desert island and they’ll be eaten by a smoke monster.

No Miss Nice Gal

Sobered by their near-elimination, the Beauty Queens promised to kick it up a notch and get their competitive on. They may have won Miss New York and Miss California but they sure as hell weren’t going to be winning Miss Nice Gal.

Peter was unaware of their new eeevil leaf and tried to forge a Blonde Alliance with them; a kind of "I’ll show you mine if you show me yours" information-sharing club much like the one the Back Pack have. The BQs politely smiled their Vaseline smiles as Peter offered to let them use his map in exchange for future info but they never quite promised to help him in return.

"He’s sharing information because he likes you," Kandice told Dustin when Peter had walked away. I doubt that, sister, because Peter is gay dating Sarah.

The Back Pack itself was also sharing info on plane-booking. Well, the Wins were sharing info. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the Lyns or Kentucky ever contribute anything particularly useful to the group. Peter moseyed up close to them like the world’s worst spy and tried to get them to give up their info. The Back Pack were tight-lipped but, as Peter trudged away, Godwin took out a fake cellphone (next to a towel, the most useful item to take along on a race around the world) and pretended to book a flight.

An irritated Peter rushed off to borrow someone's cellphone and the Wins cracked up at having fooled him. Now I’m not saying it wasn't funny because it was for about five seconds — the joke's on Peter so how can it not be — but what a stupid prank it was. Peter borrowed some woman’s cellphone and phoned a hotel to make a plane-booking.

D’oh! Great going, Wins. They are terrible pranksters! I bet they accidentally sit on their own whoopee cushions and always forget the gum in their pockets is actually pepper-flavoured.

Airport drama

As soon as the teams got off their train, the airport drama continued albeit sans airport since they were only allowed to book plane tickets at travel agencies. Distracted by all the stunning fashions of Vietnam, Mary couldn’t pay attention to where she was going and Kentucky got lost. The Wins too suffered a setback when they arrived at one of the travel agencies only to find it had moved.

The Zoolanders and Rob/Kimberly managed to book themselves the earliest flight to Chennai, India. Team Pegleg and the BQs booked a slightly later flight through Bangkok. Peter was so convinced that he had scored a brilliant coup that when the Lyns asked him which flight he was taking, he went James Bond on their asses. "Uhhhh, Ta-ta-taaaaa-hi-ti," he stuttered as he looked away. Subtle, Double-Oh-Stupid. How could anyone possibly see through that stunning ruse?

The Back Pack learned of the flight the Zoolanders and Rob/Kimberly had snagged but could only get confirmed tickets part of the way on that flight route. They decided to risk taking the earlier flight and lucking out getting tickets for the rest of the way on stand-by.