Recap: The Amazing Race Asia 5, Episode 8 – "That's when I realized she lost her mind."

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Teams must now fly on Garuda Indonesia back to Wonderful Indonesia and Yogyakarta via Jakarta. The first team at the Garuda Indonesia check-in counter will get special access to the premium lounge. JK & Mike decide to give the Jakarta lounge access to Eric & Rona.

Upon arrival in Yogyakarta, teams must head to Goa Jomblang. At the airport, it’s a scramble for taxis. Back on home turf, Treasuri’s aggressiveness at the taxi counter rubs JK the wrong way. After Treasuri tells the counter to order one taxi, JK tells her not to be selfish. Louisa tries comforting an emotional Treasuri in the taxi.

While the other teams head to the cave, Eric & Rona head to Pasar Kalasan to complete their Speed Bump.

For Eric & Rona’s Speed Bump, they will be blindfolded and drink an herbal concoction and correctly identify the jamu from the many bottles on display. They get it on the first try.

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At Goa Jomblang, teams find the Road Block: Who’s ready to walk the line?

For this Road Block, teams Tyrolean traverse over the cave and descend down a 10m hanging ladder to retrieve their next clue. If a team drops their clue or falls off, they must go to the back of the line or receive a 2-hour penalty.

Treasuri is first to head out onto the tightrope. JK starts from the other side. Once Treasuri starts climbing down the ladder, the tightrope gets pulled lower, making it harder for JK to reach the rope above. JK offers to stop moving so Treasuri can climb down faster. In return, Treasuri catches her breath on the ladder while JK makes his way across.

“You still think I’m selfish?”
JK is ready to answer, but Louisa and Mike try to calm their partners down so they can both finish the task. Treasuri finishes and she and Louisa can now head to Prambanan Temple.

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While JK climbs back up the ladder, Parul starts across the line. JK tries coaching Parul in a way that will help them both keep their balance. But when JK pauses, Parul continues onto the ladder. That causes JK to fall.

JK tells Mike that they should take the penalty as he can’t possibly do that again. Yvonne sets out on the line as Parul heads back with the clue.

Treasuri & Louisa arrive at Prambanan Temple and find another Road Block: Who recognizes divine order?

For this Road Block, teams must memorize the names and locations of Hindu deities within the temple grounds. They must then place those names on a temple map gameboard.

Treasuri decides to do this Road Block as well. She appears to quickly get the thumbs up on her first try.

Each team member must now shoot an arrow onto a hanging target.

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Back at the cave, Yvonne and Eric finish the task on their first attempts so JK decides to give it another try so as not to disappoint Mike as well. JK is able to power through it and apologizes to Mike.

Over at the temple, Parul decides to do the Road Block and as her religion is Hindu, the names are all familiar to her. While finishing up, Chloe and Rona start the task. When Mike starts the task, Rona gets the thumbs up.

Chloe starts to get frustrated when, especially with JK & Mike right there with them.

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Meanwhile, Treasuri & Louisa finally hit their targets and must now make their way to Alun Alun Selatan.

Eric & Rona are able to pass Maggie & Parul at the archery. Parul struggles with the pain in her arms, but she and Maggie hit their targets before Chloe & Yvonne.

Treasuri & Louisa find the next clue telling them to convince two locals to ride with them in an odong-odong around the square. After the joyride, they can pedal themselves to the Pit Stop at Ndalem Ngabean. Treasuri & Louisa step on the Mat as Team #1.

Eric & Rona are Team #2 and Maggie & Parul are Team #3.

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Chloe & Yvonne have trouble finding a taxi. That allows JK & Mike to catch up to them at the odong-odongs.

It’s an odong-odong race to the Pit Stop. JK & Mike take a local with them who points them in a direction. They are able to get ahead of Chloe & Yvonne, but the Malaysians get the correct directions.

Chloe & Yvonne are officially Team #4.

That means JK & Mike are last and eliminated.

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Episode Thoughts

This was a very full and exciting Leg! Of course, before the season started, the Indonesia-heavy route sounded kind of daunting and repetitive. But this had to be the best Indonesia Leg of the Race so far.

In fact, I think this might have been a better Indonesia Leg than any recent TARUS Indonesia Leg, to be honest.

The Speed Bump might have been the weakest part of the episode. Very reminiscent of the absurd Speed Bumps of TARUS. Not really the most challenging task ever.

Things picked up though. The first Road Block was pretty amazing. Imagine more than five teams having to get in line though. That would have made things more crazy (and fun!). Seeing how the two people doing the task actually affected each other was great.

And what an amazing moment to have Treasuri and JK the first ones to do the task after that little airport drama. Amazing.

For the task, it wasn’t even the heights factor that these kinds of tasks are done for, it was how physical it was. It reminded me of TAR China 3’s amazing Los Angeles Road Block where teams had to climb and jump. Physically exhausting if you have to do it over and over.

The temple Road Block was a basic memorization task. The extra aspect of it was having teams run back and forth to the temple. My only complaint was that we didn’t really see the passage of time with the task. Treasuri said “Finally!” at the temple Road Block as though she had multiple attempts and was there for a while.

So it definitely seemed like teams had to run back and forth to the temple numerous times. I wish we got to see more of that.

The archery task was fine, but we also didn’t really see how long teams were there either. I guess it’s hard with only five teams with one so far ahead.

The final odong-odong task was a great extra Route Info task, especially as it led into the Pit Stop.

Overall, a great Leg and even better episode. I hope TARA5’s final two episodes are just as amazing.

My Subjective Team Rankings

I’m definitely sad JK & Mike were eliminated. I definitely grew to really enjoy them and root for them. Tough way to get eliminated as well. Who was that guy they picked up? It was like one of those people Racers ask to hop into the car with them and they end up only driving them to their home or destination instead of actually helping the teams get to where they are going. I’m glad JK did not quit the Road Block. With the airport drama and little tiff with Treasuri, I welcomed it because we haven’t really gotten much of that this season. Anyway, JK & Mike ran a great Race.

But Louisa & Treasuri look to be running an even better one. They appear to be absolutely unstoppable. And considering they’ll have home field advantage the rest of the Race, the other teams better step it up big time, otherwise the Wonderful Indonesia team are going to run away with the win.

Maggie & Parul are doing well for themselves. As are Eric & Rona. Eric & Rona definitely stepped it up, even with the easy Speed Bump.

I like Chloe & Yvonne, but they’re the least interesting of the five. That doesn’t take away from reaching the final four though. And they’re definitely now the darkhorses to make the final Leg.

Episode Quotes

Treasuri: “You still think I’m selfish.”

Yvonne: “When Chloe said that she wanted to switch board, that was when I realized that she had lost her mind.”

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