Episode 3

2ND PLACE ….  We’re Improving! 

We live to see another week!  

Hue We had to take a bus from HCMC to Hue ….which was more than 1000 km away. Geoff and Tish and Fuzzy and AD were also on out bus.  Little did we know that the bus ride would be a 24-hour journeyin a cramped, uncomfortable bus.  The bus was a capacity with more than all the seats filled…. they even filled the aisle with produce and more passengers.  If I remember the bus didn’t really have air conditioning … man it was tortuous.  The bus kept on picking up passengers and products all the way up… eventually all the team pooled some money together to pay the drivers NOT to pick up anymore passengers…But what didn’t stop was the HONKING!!!. It was impossible to sleep with all that noise.  Upon arriving in Hue we realized that there were different levels of comfort for the busses and we took the middle level version… it wasn’t the fastest and it didn’t have the most space but it luckily we didn’t have any livestock ( apparently the Thai teams took that one ---YIKES).   We found the clue that directed us to the Caltex service station.

Changing the Tires and Oil

The Caltex service station had operational hours so all the teams actually could have caught up.  We saw the Thai teams get off their bus and told them where to go … but I guess they were too fried from their journey to listen properly and they walked too far…I guess they were looking for a CALTEX petrol station…not service station.  When we read our clue we had to change the tires and oil of a jeep.  We choose the jeep that was closest to the exit and got going with the task… I’ve have changed tires on cars and the oil on my motorcycle so the task wasn’t difficult but we had very primitive tools and we were racing against others.  We were able to finish first and had to head to the tombs to search for the next clue.

Tombs and Road Block Our driver got a little lost and even though we left 1st  we arrived there 2nd.  The clue box was high up some steps and it was a Road Block.  Who’s in line for a King’s Ransom?  I decided to do this Road Block …(but in hindsight maybe Sam should have cause it required you to be patient and organized).  Basically we had to search the grounds of another tomb that was a 10 min drive away for a set of coins.   We were told to note the details related to each of the coins when we collected.  What you probably didn’t realize is the parking area for the jeep and the entrance of the tomb was very far away … about a 10-15 min walk and that we had no idea how big the coins were or where in that huge place they would be hidden.  Henry, Ida, AD and I decided to search together… for the coins.  We eventually found them all laid out on benches in the back area around the pond.  Luckily I had brought a pen and was able to copy down the info related to the coins.  Henry did not have a pen… so I lent him mine so that he could also copy down the information.  The coins were large and heavy and were extremely hot from the sun…as a prank I moved the coins that were shaded into sunny part of the bench hahaha….. Once I copied all the information and collected all the coins I headed back to the jeep … I was already really exhausted from the running around.  When we got back to the original waiting area we had to run to the very top of this tomb where we would get further instructions. All of the other teams members were waiting behind at the mid level area where the clue box was. .  We had to arrange the coins in order of their reign.  This was not any easy task because the clues and information relating to each of the coins were very cryptic with lots of missing information… we had to fill in the gaps … it really was like Indiana Jones solving a puzzle.  I should have been OK but while copying the information for one of the coins I forgot to pick it up so the information that I wrote down did not match up accurately with the order of the coins… AIYA…. It was so frustrating because it was just ONE coin that was out of order!  But I couldn’t figure it out…

Henry eventually finished and because I helped him by lending him my pen … he gave me his coins…BUT I stilled messed up the order ARGHH.. The sun, the heat and the lack of sleep from the 24-hour bus ride made me delirious!  I eventually was able to piece it together and was so happy I just took off and forgot to cover my coins…. STUPID of me!  Rolling Incense The next clue was a detour … We decided to roll incense instead of thrashing rice… I was already physically beat and could not bear to do anything more that required energy.  Little did we know that rolling incense looked easy but was very difficult.  I tried but I couldn’t do it and was too impatient.. I made three and gave up … so Sam finished the rest … HAHA from the TV clips everyone was snappy at this point and I even saw AD tell Fuzzy to “shut –up” HAHA.

We finished 2nd and had to go to a park to search for our next clue.

Park , Cyclo, Pit Stop We finished 2nd out of the incense but passed Henry and Bernie because their jeep had broke down… We got to the park and saw the cyclos so we knew that we had to use them and searched the grounds for a “clue box”.  Eventually Henry and Bernie, Tania and Ida and Fuzzy and AD all arrived and we decided to work together to look for the “clue box” …. We combed the whole park multiple times and even the school across the street! STUPID STUPID STUPID… we were so focused on looking for a CLUE BOX that we didn’t realize that they were on the cyclos … We all knew that we had to use them but were too focused on looking for a “Clue Box”   to honour our agreement with the others we told them that we found the clue.  We took off and on the Cyclo but did not know where we were going … we got onto the streets to ask people.  But no one seemed to know.  We kind of followed the rest of the teams and went in their direction.  It was crazy because none of us knew how to steer the that cyclo and no one knew how to use the BRAKES… There were cars, trucks , motorcycles and other bicycles all on the street whizzing by us and we were all out of control….

We passed Henry and Bernie on the bridge and then all of a sudden we heard a loud crash and scream.. we turned back and saw that Henry had crashed into a jeep and flipped over…. Actually that shot of Bernie falling down from the front was our perspective.  We continued on down over the bridge but approached a stop light and other vehicles… I couldn’t stop the cyclo so I had to jump off the seat and do  Flintstones type of stop with my feet!  I was freaking out because I had just saw the crash , I was tired and hot … and we were about to get into our own accident.  We found a local to guide us the purple city on his scooter … but what her did was bring us to the PURPLE MARKET … IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!!!!   I  was so pissed … and I had my own little meltdown… We eventually got someone else to bring us to the right place and it was a HUGE compound … At that point I was at boiling point.  We saw a lot of cyclos there and many of the teams were inside looking for the pit stop. 

We saw Geoff and Tish, Fuzzy and AD, Ida and Tania. all running around.  We walked in and decided to turn left … just to explore.   I was not in a good mood and was very snappy too so Sam suggested stopping to buy a drink to calm down and think about what we should do.  At that point in time Henry and Bernie casually walked by us,,, they had been wandering around the compound for about 20 minutes already and could not find the pit stop .   We got our drinks and continued to walk in the same direction just a little behind Henry and Bernie.  Suddenly we saw them burst into a sprint so we gave chase only to see them jump on the mat just ahead of us.   TEAM HONG KONG 2nd by a second….

 We live another week.  See what happens next leg tune in next Thursday night on AXN.

VMC