At the beginning
of the episode, Phil remarks that Kevin and Drew and Team Guido are "several
hours" behind the leading teams. That is a little bit of an understatement.
Here are the departing times for leg 11:
Rob and Brennan:
6:03 AM
Frank and Margarita: 6:15 AM
(12 minutes behind 1st place)
Drew and Kevin:
11:35 PM (17 and a half hours behind 1st place)
Bill and Joe: 1:30 AM
(19 and a half hours behind 1st place)
As teams depart from Pai Plong Beach in Thailand,
they find out their next route marker is at Top Pavilion, in Jingshan Park
Beijing. Their trip to China will take them 2500 miles from their
current location. Teams depart from Pai Plong Beach by boat headed
for Ao Nang Beach. From there, they travel to the nearby Phuket Airport.
They will fly to Bangkok where they can get a direct flight to Beijing.
Rob and Brennan and Frank and Margarita narrowly
missed a flight to Bangkok, forcing them to wait until noon to leave.
In Bangkok, they book an early morning flight to Beijing. While they
wait for their flight in Bangkok, Drew and Kevin and Bill and Joe leave
the pit stop and head for the Phuket airport. Because of the timing
of flights, it appears they have regained about 8 hours.
The lawyers and Frank and Margarita take the
same flight to Beijing. As they depart from the airport, Frank and
Margarita rush to a taxi and take off, while Rob and Brennan take their
time.
They make their way to Top Pavillion where
they receive a detour. The volley option requires the teams to travel
to a Community Center and score five points in Ping-Pong against a local
champion. The rally option requires the teams to take a bus, then
a motorcycle with sidecar, and then a pedicab rickshaw through the streets
of Beijing.
Both of the leading teams choose to play-ping
pong. Frank and Margarita arrive first. The local champion
turns out to be a young boy. It appears the boy was either intimidated
or was instructed to let the team that arrived first win, because Frank
quickly scored 5 points without much of a contest at all. Rob and
Brennan, on the other hand, played over 30 serves before finally getting
the required 5 points.
The clue teams receive at the detour gives
them a grocery list and the location of a market where they are supposed
to buy the items. The items are 5 beetle larvae, 1 whole squid, and
2 chicken feet. The catch is that the grocery list is in Chinese.
Both teams get the help of interpreters in purchasing the items, then they
rush to another portion of the market where they receive the next clue.
This clue is a Road Block. It requires
the teams to take the items they purchased at the market inside to a cook,
who will prepare them. They must eat all of the items on their plate
before receiving the next clue. Frank and Margarita argue over who
will complete the task, but reconcile inside while they are waiting for
the food to be cooked. Frank and Margarita finish first, but their
lead is cut as Rob and Brennan finish close behind.
The clue there tells them to make their way
to the Pit Stop at the South Gate of Tiantan Park. Frank and Margarita
arrive first, followed about 3 minutes behind by Rob and Brennan.
Meanwhile, Bill and Joe have caught up to Kevin
and Drew and they are on the same flights. It also appears they have
managed to make up about 8 hours on the leading teams. Kevin and
Drew arrive first at the Top Pavillion and decide to take the Rally fork,
as do Bill and Joe. What ensues is a pretty funny rickshaw race through
the streets of Beijing as both teams yell at their drivers to pedal faster.
As the teams arrive neck and neck at the next clue, they realize that the
market will not open until 6:00 the next morning. The Amazing Rickshaw
Race was all for nothing... and any time that the two teams made up by
the good timing of their airline flights is now lost as they wait for the
market to open.
When the market opens, both teams frantically
get the help of interpreters in buying their items. They arrive neck
and neck at the restaurant and when the food comes out, both teams practically
inhale their plates. Drew and Kevin finish first by about a minute,
but their taxi driver takes his time pulling out and somehow Bill and Joe
manage to pull ahead. The teams both desperately try to communicate
to their taxi drivers where they need to go. Bill and Joe's driver
pounds himself on the head, confused by the directions.
Eventually, Drew and Kevin see the park
and make a run for it. Unfortunately for them, they were at the East
gate, so they had to make a mad dash to the South gate. Bill
and Joe stay in their taxi which drops them off just yards from the Pit
Stop. In the end, Bill and Joe edge out Drew and Kevin by about 1
minute.
Once again this episode, the Lawyers and Frank
and Margarita have already left the Pit stop when Team Guido arrives.
Only this time, it looks like the lead might even be worse, somewhere in
the range of 20 hours possibly? Team Guido is in a unenviable position
going into the race for the finish line coming up in the next two episodes.