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We finally raced back into India, which is definitely one of the most visually stunning places in the world.  No matter where you are in this vast country, there will always be something new for you to see.  Everyone is always ready to stop for a photo...Even the elephants are more than prepared to shake your hand!

Of course, the five remaining teams were too busy trying to complete this leg of the race with the Detour we threw them...

Lugging the 20kg fish to the designated location was no easy feat, but it was probably easier than having to fill in the geometric column design.

The Detour in this leg proved to be critical because the race was down to two teams trying to hold on to the last place to stay in the race.  Hong Kong team Sam and Vince and Malaysia team Bernie and Henry both chose to take a flight that ultimately left them arriving later than the rest of the teams so it came down to choosing carefully which Detour could be completed the quickest.  Sam and Vince chose wisely with carrying the fish while Henry and Bernie chose to do some coloring, which required a lot of skill and accuracy.  With Vince transporting two fish at a time, the Hong Kong team was able to reach the pit stop before Bernie and Henry.  

At our pit stop here in Cochin, India, we had one of our coolest greeters ever.  Wouldn't that be one cool costume for Halloween? Even getting his microphone on was a challenge...Once he was all "mic-ed" up and ready to greet, it was time to get set for the arrival of the five remaining teams.

While one of our crew was really sad over the elimination of Bernie and Henry, I was really happy to wrap up another leg in the race...

And when the day's fun is all done, it's time once again to race off to the airport to prepare for the teams to start the next leg!

What will happen this week? Stay tuned.

Dear friends!

Well, my amazing race journey has come to an end. And I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some of the reality that has actually happened in the 3 episodes, as well as my thoughts and feelings. I tried to chat to a few of you last Friday (26 Sept) but there were some problems with the chat engine, so I couldn't say everything I wanted to.

When Pailin and I signed up for this race, as with thousands of other applicants, our intention was to win. It wasn't at all for the prize money or fame. Besides a personal challenge, we both wanted to do something extraordinary. And extraordinary it was - for a multitude of reasons.

Perhaps what I have learned most, is that friendship is not to be taken for granted. Friendship is based upon two people respecting, supporting and trusting each other. I felt that during the race our friendship was tested. And I know from other friends who have been put in similar situations, that friendships become stronger in the long run after a stressful period.

What I'd really like to do in this blog, is try and explain to my friends and everyone who watched us on the Amazing Race Asia, my side of the story, which you didn't see. I will be completely open and honest with my thoughts, in that like every other human being I have said or done things in the heat of the moment that I have regretted.

So here goes...

From the beginning of the race, both Pailin and I were completely pumped up for the race, ready to take on any challenge that faced us. Before the race, we sat down together to watch previous seasons of the show to get ourselves ready and mentally prepared. When the race started, we set off with really high expectations of our team. We ate the bugs (and no, they don’t taste like chicken!), cleaned a huge bus and generally did a great job in the first leg. It was a huge surprise to us how tough this turned out to be. I really would've never guessed, and I do feel that I have hugely underestimated the toughness of this season. Nevertheless, we did come in 4th place and were both very pleased with that. Lesson learned? Don't wear make-up when washing buses

At the start of the second leg, after a much needed shower and rest time, we set off again in really high spirits. We did the Flight of the Gibbons, which was very cool, and the first road block, where Pailin really proved to be "steady under fire" . Then we were off to the airport, at which point luck was not on our side. Sadly, we had to spend the night at Suvarnabumi airport in Bangkok, which happened to be literally 10 minutes away from my house. I knew that my husband of 6 months was within minutes of me, and I couldn't see or talk to him. At the same time I knew that others had a head start on us, through no fault of our own, and that made us both upset and frustrated. On top of all of that, I had a medical condition that made it all that much harder to bear sleeping on a cold airport floor. Believe me when I say, I had no issue sleeping at the airport or even the street for that matter. Ironically just a few months before this, I had to sleep at the Ho Chi Minh city airport because of a missed connection. So to everyone who thought I was crying because I didn't have a fluffy bed, it was not the reason.

Now I really need to address the comment that I made (and now wish I hadn't) but it was completely out of context to reality. Let me explain please. It was the now-infamous line "I feel like being dirty is the lowest form of human existence." What I was referring to, was myself in that moment in time. We hadn't showered or even brushed our teeth for more than 30 hours, and in all honesty I was feeling grubby and disgusting. However, I understand that some people might have misunderstood me, for which I'm sorry.

We concluded this leg in 7th position and were relieved to find out we were still in the race!

The start of episode 3 saw all of us embark on a jaw-rattling, bone-shaking, excruciating 25-hour bus ride to Hue. As much as Pailin and I tried to sleep it was nearly impossible. And I think both of us collectively slept less than an hour on that trip. So you can imagine getting out of the bus at the end of the journey, and facing a challenge in a 35 degree C heat.

At this point, what you would have seen on TV was Pailin changing the wheels, and I wish they had shown me, under the jeep changing the oil, and getting splattered with it. Pailin and I worked equally hard on changing the wheels and the oil.

The impression given was that this was a turning point in our relationship between Pailin and me. I need to say, it wasn't, and we were perfectly OK heading to our next challenge.

Then we came to the next road block, which I volunteered to do, given that Pailin did the last one. As was evidenced in the airing of episode 3, it was an extremely difficult challenge. I wasn’t the only one who was having problems – anyone who watched the show would have seen that.

It was easily over 40 degrees by that time, and I had been in the sun for more than 2 hours, going back and forth between the park and the tomb to get the correct sequence of the coins. I had to put on a sweater since I burn easily in the sun, and I felt that I was very close to a heat exhaustion and serious dehydration. I also knew that poor Pailin was waiting for more than 2 hours for me to finish and was also very tired. At that point I already knew that we were the last team, so I had to make a conscious decision. One was to persevere and risk spending more precious time getting it right and for sure coming in last, or taking a hit on a 4 hour penalty, but giving us the opportunity not to come in last. And I feel absolutely certain that had I continued with the challenge, I would have passed out and probably needed immediate medical assistance. Believe me, I felt that bad!

This decision about not completing the challenge was taken with the best intentions to give Pailin and I a chance to continue to the next round. It had nothing to do with being selfish, as some have alluded to.

I do, however, feel that I have let Pailin down, and I wish I could have been stronger for her on that challenge.

So this was the end of the road on the race for us.

Can I also add that every single one of those competitors that you've seen in series 3 of the Amazing Race Asia, are wonderful, down-to-earth people. But unfortunately, you – the viewer – didn’t get to see behind the scenes, so you didn’t get the same opportunity to meet and know them like I did. And I’m kind of sad to see so many negative comments about my fellow racers. We all entertained you in one shape or another – be happy with that

All in all, this was an incredible privilege to have met so many wonderful people - competitors, locals, and the production team. It's been a humbling experience.

All my love,

Natalie

That was a super long leg...

Flight of the Gibbons

It started in Chiang Mai where we were and had to look for the Flight of the Gibbons... The streets were completely barren and no one was around... there were no taxis anywhere.  Some teams ended up walking back to the rest stop for that leg.  We wandered around and by chance we saw some people eating at a noodle cart and asked them to use their mobile phone...  After chatting for a bit, another patron heard that we needed a taxi so he called a  friend who was a taxi driver to come pick us up...

We were lucky to get a taxi because we saw many teams walking aimlessly around on the street trying to flag down a taxi.  It was about an hour drive to the Flight of the Gibbons and it was up some mountain.  The route marker was hidden and difficult to see because it was pitch black but we were able to see it as we drove up the mountain...  We saw the other teams drive by up and down the road missing the marker.... HAHA.....

Zipping down half the mountain was exhilarating and we were eager to get to the end of the zip lines to get our clue.

Banana Plantation

We had trouble getting a taxi after the Flight of the Gibbons and then ended up getting clogged up in a bunch with the rest of the teams.  There were literally 5 teams that took off together.  We all raced towards the next location.  Our taxi was definitely speeding but somehow other teams still overtook us.  We all arrived in the area where the banana plantation was but all the teams turned into a dead street.  All the taxis did a three point turn and took off but our taxi driver stalled the car and we were left by ourselves.  That's when I got my first "BLEEP"  as I watched all the other teams' taxis leave...haha!

"BLEEP!!"

We finally got our car started but were completely separated from the group and got lost. We were brought to schools and temples but not the banana plantation.  We had to act out and draw what a banana plantation was to the locals because we couldn't communicate to them.  We finally got there, just behind the Beauty Queens ( who are from Thailand... even they got lost).

The Roadblock clue was " Who is steady under fire"  ... That's it... we had no idea what that entailed.  I thought that it had do with shooting something... not evading paintball snipers!   Anyway Sam did the roadblock and it was definitely tough . It was hot, it was difficult to see out of the mask and the snipers were ruthless.  (actually there was some misdirection because Sam was told by somebody that the clue was in a yellow bag... not a camouflage bag and he had walked by that a few times...)

It became more difficult as some of the teams left because that meant less targets for them to shoot at.....  We were there for a very long time... it was just our team for about half and hour.  It was really demoralizing for all participants because once you were hit you had to go and start again... but Sam was able to fight through and find the clue.

Ho Chi Minh City

We flew to HCMC and were very lucky to get onto that flight ... I basically pleaded with an airport staff to hold the flight and she walked us through ahead of other people ... so that we could make the flight!  NICE!! haha..  Once we got to HCMC we were all bunched up at the opera house and found the clue box around the same time.

Pho Cafe

Damn ... I LOVE VIDEO GAMES... and I was confident that we would be jumping ahead of everyone... we got to the cafe in 4th place but we finished the task quickly and got out of there 2nd !!!

Flower Stall

We searched the market and found the stall but we did not notice that it opened at 6.  All the locals told us that the stalls opened at 7 so we got a hotel and slept for a few hours.  We got to the stall at 6:45 AM and realized that it was already open. We had no idea what place we were in because the other teams had probably got their clue.

Cai Be

We booked a ticket on a bus to go to Cai Be and were quite satisfied with ourselves... The journey was a few hours however we were dropped off at the side of the highway 6KM away from the Cai Be exit.... We think that the reason for this was that we were the only ones wanting to go to Cai Be ... and to turn off the highway and to go into Cai Be would waste time and fuel...

We couldn't even call a taxi because we couldn't communicate with the locals. We were lucky to convince another bus to go out of their way to take us...

DETOUR Sampan or Some Walk...

We choose Some Walk because we thought that it would be easier to transport chickens...and we chose right!!!!  All the other teams that tried Sampan eventually gave up and went to catch chickens.  When we got there the chickens were running all around the coupe hahaha..I basically pinned the chickens against the fence and grabbed 3-4 and put them in the baskets.  Sam had difficulty catching the chickens because of his phobia of things near his ears....HAHA.  We were able finally to catch the 20 chickens and we had to transport it to the wet market..... which was more than a 20min walk away...  It was VERY far... again... it was hot , we were tired and hungry and thirsty ... we had 3 hours of sleep the night before ... and the load that we had to carry was heavy and awkwardly balanced.... the chickens kept on sticking their heads out of the basket and pecked my leg repeatedly!   We finally navigated our way to the proper stall with the help of a local guide and we got our clue.

We saw all the other teams struggle with their task and cheered them on as they were walking past us.

Church and Orphanage

We walked slowly back to the bus and negotiated with Niroo and Kaps ( Indian Team)  to share a bus to go back to HCMC to look for the church.   When we got there we found the clue box quickly and were very happy to see our task.

We were very happy that our charity task was to buy supplies for an orphanage... As a former teacher I love children!  We wanted to maximize our money and so we bought food, VCD players , and cartoons.  We maximized all the money that we were given which was what the clue had asked us to do.  After delivering all of the goods we decided to stay and play with the children.

I think that buying things for the kids was great but we wanted to give more and I know that the children rarely have visitors.  We stayed and visited two floors. We knew that we wouldn't be first and we knew that we wouldn't be last (because we knew that for sure there were teams behind us) so our placement didn't matter but the time spent with these children would mean so much to them.

One of the little guys even stepped into my shoes and tried to run away... I guess he didn't want us to leave.

Post Office and then Pit Stop

We received our clue and went to the post office to look for the clue box that eventually sent us to the pit stop at the Zoo.

Team Hong Kong 3rd ... we live to see another week... tune in Thursday night to AXN for Episode 3!

- Vince