Introduction → Leg 1 → Leg 2 → Leg 3 → Leg 4 → Leg 5 → Leg 6 → Leg 7 → Leg 8 → Leg 9A → Leg 9B → Leg 10 → Leg 11 → Leg 12
Leg 17.04 – “Will we get in trouble if I vomit?”
Teams begin the fourth Leg of the Race when they find out they must fly to Istanbul, Turkey!
All teams will be on the same Air India Limited and Turkish Airlines flights from Pune to Istanbul via Delhi, arriving in Istanbul at 10:30am.
Once in Istanbul, teams must make their way to the Topkapi Palace Museum where they must search for their next clue.
What they don’t know is their next clue is a red and yellow hot air balloon figurine with their next clue on the bottom of the basket!
That clue tells teams to take a bus to the town of Goreme!
All teams will be on the same nine-hour bus ride that will arrive at a campsite outside of Goreme in the late evening. Here, teams will find their next clue.
Teams must now set up their campsite for the night. The team who sets up their campsite correctly based on a completed example in the shortest amount of time will win a New Rules Super Yield!
The New Rules Super Yield will allow a team to place a Yield at any Route Marker on the Leg except for the Pit Stop and U-Turn or regular Yield checkpoints. Teams must place a Super Yield at a cluebox or clue pick-up location before opening their own clue. The first team to arrive at the Route Marker after the Super Yield has been placed will automatically be Yielded.
The Super Yield must be used before the end of Leg 9.
After an overnight campout, teams will be awakened before sunrise and all be transported to another location for their next clue.
Here, teams must unfurl a hot air balloon and wait for it to be blown up. They will then take a ride across the stunning Cappadocia landscape. Teams must make sure to pay attention to the stunning landscape below them. Because once they will be let down in Love Valley, teams must map out the landscape they have just encountered using small replicas of the more significant formations and terrain. Once they have correctly completed their map, they will receive the next clue.
Teams must now check in at the Double Yield board, if activated.
They will then use a GPS device to search the valley for keys to a brand new 2019 Kia Sorento. Once a key has been found, teams must then find which brand new 2019 Kia Sorento is theirs for the rest of the Leg.
The clues waiting inside the brand new 2019 Kia Sorento tells teams to drive to the Saruhan Exhibition and Culture Center in Avanos. And here, teams will find the Road Block: Who wants to give it a whirl?
For this Road Block, teams must learn how to properly spin with Whirling Dervishes for five minutes, continuously, to receive their next clue.
Teams must now find Ortahisar Castle in Ortahisar and make their way to the top to find the next clue which reveals the Detour: Aesthetic Artistry or Accurate Archer.
Both Detours are located at the Goreme Open Air Museum.
In Aesthetic Artistry, teams must search the series of Catholic churches carved into the side of this mountain more than 1000 years. They will observe one of several flagged fresco paintings. They will return outside, choose a partially created replica of that fresco and finish the painting to receive their next clue.
In Accurate Archer, teams will both hop onto the back of a horse, with one team member taking the reins. The other team member in front must hit three targets with a bow and arrow. They will then swap positions for the other team member to also hit three targets.
This is also the Trigger Point for this Leg of the Race. If any team succeeds on the archery side of the Detour on their third attempt, the U-Turn or Yield will be activated on the next Leg.
Teams can now make their way to the top of Uchisar Castle in Nevsehir.
This is the Pit Stop for this Leg of the Race.
The first team to check in here will win P200,000 courtesy of Shell V-Power Nitro+.
The last team to check in here WILL be eliminated.
“Director’s” Commentary
A very nice Leg I think. I’ve always wanted to see a Leg in Cappadocia and TAR China 2’s Leg here was pretty good. I recycle a lot of it. lol
First up, we have teams flying into Istanbul for logistics. We want to have all teams together for this first part of the Leg, including the bus ride from Istanbul to Goreme.
Teams will get to enjoy a wonderful night out camping. And here, we have what has become a TARPHDME staple task! Setting up a tent and winning a prize!
This time though, the prize won’t be money, but a brand new “New Rules” Super Yield. Originally, the TARPHDME Super Yield allowed a team to Yield every single team behind them. Now, this new Super Yield allows teams to place a Yield anywhere on the Racecourse! To be a little fairer though, we won’t allow them to put the Yield at the Pit Stop. And to keep things from getting confusing, we won’t allow them to place it at an existing U-Turn or Yield point.
Next up is getting teams into hot air balloons just so we can have wonderful and stunning 8K! UHD drone shots! This is really just an excuse to show off our equipment capturing the beautiful Cappadocia landscape.
Getting to work on a hot air balloon is great too for the teams. So them having to unfurl it and then wait for it to blow up will be fun and tedious for the teams. Then, another task that seems to be a new TARPHDME stape, having to retrace your steps and recreate a map of where you’ve just been. There’s no going back up in the balloon here, so teams will just have to keep switching things around until they get it right. Or take a penalty of course, which will be very dramatic, but not ideal.
Then, we have teams getting to run around the stunning landscape some more as they look for keys to their brand new Kia Sorento. A nice task for our wonderful and loyal sponsor Kia as well. And of course self-driving can throw teams off very much.
I needed a Road Block for this Leg so I decided why not have a Whirling Dervish task. It’s easy, simple and a good, maybe tedious task for teams in the middle of this full Leg.
Keeping things physical, we have teams climbing up the Ortahisar Castle.
And finally, the Detour which should be balanced. Needing to finish the painting correctly and without mistakes while also having to run back and forth possibly between the churches and painting area across rocky terrain should be great. And then the horseback archery is pretty straightforward, but also hopefully challenging for teams.
Overall, I think this is a great, full and competitive Leg!