Amazing Race Review

And . . . I'm back! Sorry for the long absence.

It was a great episode of Amazing Race tonight (spoilers follow). The start was in Calcutta and the teams were quickly off to Varnasi, still in India. All the teams had plenty of time to make it to the airport for the quickest set of flights, with Kingfisher Air. And all of them did, except for the Cowboys who simply walked up to the other big domestic Indian airline booth, Jet Airways, and bought tickets on a flight that was an hour later. A simple mistake, made much worse by the fact that they didn't double check for something earlier. So they simply gave all the other teams an hour headstart. Not smart.
Varnasi was described as the spiritual heart of India. It is the holiest place in Hinduism and (according to Wikipedia) one of the oldest continually settled places on the planet. Needless to say, it was a bit of a culture shock. The streets were filled with cars, bicycles, pedestrians, cows and elephants. Traffic rules are open to debate and as the Globetrotters said, "When they push the gas pedal down the horn goes on".
The first task there was to track down seven holy men inside of a particularly crowded section of town. Most teams did this methodically but poor Ron decided that his best bet was to wander a long way down the riverside. The Cowboys caught up and actually passed him before he finished up. During this task Kent made a small betrayal of Gary but running away before showing him where the final holy man was. To do this in one of the capital cities of Karma showed remarkably bad sense to me.
The teams had to choose between two tasks, one where they made cow manure into pats of fuel and one where they would haul hay for some cows in the city. Each task included a ride on the Ganges. It was there that the teams could really get a look at the city. Mallory witnessed some river side cremations and said that this was unlike any place that she'd ever seen before. I've long praised The Amazing Race for what they show of the world and this episode was prime evidence of that.
It was a race to the finish and Ron's wandering cost he and Christine the race. Next week is in Austria and I'm sure that the contrast in wealth will be fairly stunning.