Culturally Preconditioned

An exciting leg, for a change. Teams finally left India and head to Almaty, Kazakhstan. All five teams were all within 1.5 hours at the start of this leg. However, thankfully, there were flight bunchings at the airport as they got on 3 different routes from India to Kazakhstan. Nick/Star, Toni/Dallas and Ken/Tina made their way via Frankfurt, Terrence/Sarah through Moscow, and Dan/Andrew via Dubai. Once in Almaty, teams headed to a Chicken Farm to get their next clue.. only to be foiled by the dreaded Hours of Operation.

The clue at the Chicken Farm contains information on the next Detour, and also a clue to the Fast Forward. Nick/Star and Sarah/Terrence quickly leaves the farm and head towards getting the Fast Forward at a restaurant. At the restaurants, teams find out that they had to eat the local Kazakhstan delicacy - which turns out to be two bowls of soup containing meat/fat from the rear end of a sheep. I don’t know about you guys, but this little FastForwards makes me wanna head down to Raja Sup in Taman Tun Dr Ismail tomorrow. YUMMY.. haven’t had cow’s tongue in a while now. The local delicacy is nowhere as gross as what the TARA3 racers had to endure, that’s for certain. I would like to say that both teams were neck and neck trying to finish the fast forward, but that would be lying. Terrence sucked so much at this challenge. I knew he’d be the one to fuck it up for this team. So… midway through they give up and head back to the Chicken Farm as only one team will be able to get the Fast Forward, and Nick/Star didn’t seem like they were slowing down. So Nick/Star got the Fast Forward, and were once again the first team to head straight to the pitstop. *yawnsies*

Back to the rest of the teams. At the Chicken Farm, they had to search for one of only seven golden eggs hidden on the grounds among all the chicken and shit (literally speaking). One thing I noticed, TAR has been amazing with the added soundtrack to the footages - I wish the TARA producers would pick this up for added entertainment, instead of shoving product placements in our faces. Pimp Mama (ie. Toni) managed to find the golden egg first and made their way out. Andrew found his egg next, and closely followed by Tina. Sarah was way behind the other teams, so they’re probably not worth mentioning from here on out.

Next they had to search for a giant crane truck thingamagic, get on it, and instruct their drivers  to drive to Koktobe Arch and hike up a hill and wait for a Mongolian Warrior. As expected, Ken/Tina overtook the fatties on the ride to the Arch. Seriously? Dandrew’s nonchalance in this race is so fucking annoying.. even more so than AD/Fuzz. How the hell did they end up this far in the game? Pimp Mama and son were the first to get their clue (via the wickedly cool flying clue-bearing eagle zomg) for the next Detour.

For the Detour, teams had to choose between (1) Play Like Mad - where teams had to learn to play a tune using two different types of local musical instrument, and play in public to collect tips, or (2) Act Like Fools - where teams had to travel to the children’s theater and don a cow costume, walk through public, find milk booth, drink milk, find clue, go to market and deliver themselves (LOL) to the butcher. Glad to know everyone realized that although option 2 sounds long-winded, it was indeed the better detour to choose. And the cow-costume thingy was put to much better use than it was in the latest installment of the Mole (seriously worst self-proclaimed Mole in the history of Moles ever).

Suffice to say that Toni/Dallas did no wrong in this task and was the first ones to complete, and they were the second team to arrive at the pitstop (YAY!) Well done! Ken/Tina did a lot of snafus on this one.. well Tina, mostly.. well Tina did everything wrong actually. First up, she missed the clue at the bottom of the milk glass, then she was stupid enough to say the clue tells them to leave the cow outfit back at the theater, before heading to the market. Obviously she was wrong and lost valuable time getting back the costume before they can proceed back to the market and to the pitstop. She almost did her third straight mistake by saying “let’s take a cab” before Ken reminded her that they were to “go on foot”. Seriously, did all the green dye get into her brains from last week? Or did she get some divorcee cooties from Kelly/Christy for suddenly turning so dumb? It’s hard to tell, people. Whatever it is, they actually were the third team to arrive at the pitstop.

Next, the bumbling fucking idiots, the Frat boys. I wonder which dumbass fraternity actually accepted these two fools’ initiation? These guys actually left their shoes at the theater (why in fuck, right?) and actually got into a cab instead of getting to the pitstop on foot.  I was wishing so hard that these two would get the 30-minute penalty or something that would lead them to being eliminated ala the Indian guy models in TARA1 (man, was that a superbly delicious elimination or what?) Alas.. they did manage to turn back to the market, and make their way back to the pitstop on foot (literally since the shitheads left their bags at the theater) in time to be the fourth team to arrive. I really loathe this team, I really do. There’s nothing redeeming at all about this team, especially the four-eyed git.. he’s such a big whining baby. Really.

Oh, and Sarah/Terrence was the final team to arrive. I honestly though Phil would say “.. However, this is a pre-determined..” but he didn’t. I was actually surprised cause I thought this would be an NEL. 11 episodes in and how many NEL’s have we got this season? I’m too lazy to go through my own posts to find out. Ah well.. it was nice while it lasted. I actually thought Sarah/Terence were actually going to win.. so I’m superbly glad that my gut was wrong. Let’s hope my gut stays wrong for the outcome for TARA3.

Next week’s preview looks good. Dan making a fool out of himself. And the downfall of Nick/Star. How could you not want to watch next week’s episode. But for now.. tomorrow, at least.. Raja Sup. MmMmmmmMmmmMMMMMmmmmm (don’t be hating me cause you’re still in the States, Siew Kim).