[The Practical Nomad Newsletter] The Amazing Race 15, Episode 1

Tue Sep 29 22:14:55 PDT 2009

"The Amazing Race" is back.  Scroll down for details on the season 
premiere, after a few quick notes on other more serious travel news...

=====

FBI collecting records from travel data aggregators, and wants more:

http://www.papersplease.org/wp/2009/09/28/fbi-wants-records-from-travel-
data-aggregators/

DHS exempting more travel records from the Privacy Act (and examples of 
what other people have found in their DHS travel dossiers):

http://www.papersplease.org/wp/2009/09/09/more-travel-records-more-
exemptions-from-the-privacy-act/

How to request your own travel records, while you still can:
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001607.html

=====

The Amazing Race 15, Episode 1:

Los Angeles, CA (USA) - Tokyo (Japan) - Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) - Cai 
Be (Vietnam)

This column with links:
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001737.html

"The Amazing Race" got off to its best start in years tonight. Even the 
hokiest-seeming challenges, such as the one that eliminated a team at the 
starting line, actually tested skills that are important for real-world 
travel. And even tasks that were entirely "staged" (in one case quite 
literally, on a TV sound stage) in Japan and Vietnam nonetheless managed 
to reproduce and give the racers an experience of "genuine" aspects of 
travel and local life, so far as I could judge as a television viewer and 
someone who has visited those countries.

Before they got their tickets from Los Angeles to Tokyo, the racers faced 
a wall of Japanese license plates, with the challenge of finding a plate 
issued in a specific district whose name was written in Japanese on the 
racers' clue cards. That's not a problem you're ever likely to face, even 
in Japan much less in the culvert of the Los Angeles River. But it is an 
extremely important type of problem, which requires a specific and 
valuable travel skill: picking out a sign or label (often from a cluttered 

background or an array of similar seeming signage) that matches a written 
cue, even when you don't understand the writing system and can't 
conceptualize what you're looking for as words or letters, but only as an 
unpatterned visual image. It's hard, and some people are naturally better 
at it than others, but it gets much easier with practice. And its 
difficulty is also a compelling lesson in the value of learning the 
alphabet or writing system, even if you don't learn the language. It's a 
lot easier to recognize a sequence of letters you know, even if you don't 
know what they mean, then to match a complex image in which you see no 
recognizable components.

For what it's worth, the team eliminated at the starting line in the 
license plate search, Lisa and Eric, had already demonstrated their lack 
of travel savvy by riding a motorcycle without wearing helmets in their 
introductory video. The statistics are overwhelmingly clear that nothing 
most travelers are likely to do -- even most so-called adventure sports -- 

are as likely to kill you as motorcycling, especially in the Third World. 
If you're considering riding a motorcycle, whether as passenger or as 
driver, do yourself a favor and take some safety classes. Before you leave 

home, practice driving or riding as passenger on an unfamiliar, ill-
maintained bike both off-road and on the worst roads you can find, rather 
than waiting until you get to a place like Vietnam to try to learn. If you 

think you might want to drive a motorcycle abroad, get a proper motorcycle 

license in your home country. Without it you'll be not only illegal but 
uninsured: Even travel insurance invariably excludes any consequences of 
illegal activities like operating a vehicle without a valid license. 
Speeds are relatively low on Vietnamese roads, the typical motorbikes seem 

small and relatively harmless, everyone rides without a helmet, and nobody 

asks if have a valid license before renting you a motorcycle. But 
motorcycle crashes are the leading cause of death or serious injury to 
travellers. And if you survive a crash, the police may check the status of 

your license, as will a diligent insurance company before they pay out a 
claim for medical treatment or evacuation.

On arrival In Tokyo, the racers made their way (by taxi, a waste of money 
since the train is faster and less subject to traffic delay) from Narita 
Airport to the Tokyo Tower downtown, where they were ushered into a 
television studio where a mock "game show" -- centered on eating sushi 
with way too much wasabi -- was being staged in a claustrophobic theater 
in the round reminiscent of a wresting arena, or perhaps a poker match 
with spectators. (Was the goal to make the two racers whose "real-life" 
occupation is as professional poker players -- they were recognized by 
some Japanese passers-by in the airport who had seen them on TV! -- feel 
at home?)

The game show was entirely "made for The Amazing Race" (although I 
wouldn't be surprised to learn that the "host" in the Elvis-style suit was 

actually some well-known Japanese media figure in a cameo role -- does 
anyone know?), but it was also somehow completely "in character" for 
Japan, with everything from bizarre animated cartoon graphics (the fire-
breathing dragon with the cheerful high-pitched warble, "Eat The 
Wasibiiiiiiii!"), to rival sections of spectators, identified by matching 
color-coded sun-visors, cheering and and jeering in synchronized chants, 
to overly made-up women in mock-schoolgirl costumes bowing politely to the 

winners as they awarded them their clues and onward directions. (In East 
Asia, remember to use both hands as you accept an envelope or "name card", 

to show respect.)

Bizarre as it sounds, "Sushi Roulette" was also one of the best scenes 
ever in "The Amazing Race", encapsulating the disorientation and the sense 

of being inescapably in the spotlight and part of a carefully 
choreographed performance -- but one to which you don't understand the 
lines or know the script -- that is that is so characteristic of many 
foreign visitors' first impressions of Tokyo.

Next the extras playing "spectators" in the game show audience took on the 

role of groups of "tourists", with the racers in the role of tour guides 
who had to herd their groups (not letting anyone fall behind or get 
separated!) through the mid-day crowds on the streets to the next "pit 
stop", leading their groups with color-coded flags matching the colors of 
the tour groups' sun visors. All just like typical Japanese tour groups 
anywhere, except that for comic relief it was the foreign tourists who had 

to find the way for the locals.

After a chance to nap, the teams set out again in the middle of the night 
for Vietnam. (Jet lag might have allowed them a decent sleep, since the 
afternoon and evening in Tokyo correspond to night in Los Angeles where 
they had just come from.) Those who took a few minutes to check before 
leaving for the airport quickly determined that (as is typical for short-
haul flights anywhere, unlike long-haul flights that sometimes leave at 
weird hours) there were no middle-of-the night departures from Tokyo for 
Ho Chi Minh City. The flat rate from Narita Airport to Shibuya District is 

JPY21,000 plus tolls, and if you're in no hurry there is certainly no 
reason to even think of blowing that much on a taxi. In fact, the 
combination of frequent fast service on multiple rail lines, a variety of 
buses, and expensive taxis means that there is probably nowhere in the 
world where a taxi to the airport is consistently a more expensive wrong 
choice than between central Tokyo and Narita. Taking taxis back to Narita 
was was a mistake that all the teams made that could come back to haunt 
them if they run short of money later on. Any team that knew better would 
have been more than US$200 ahead of the rest.

The teams of racers who checked the Web were all shown looking at 
Travelocity for prices and schedules of flights from NRT to SGN. Perhaps 
this depiction was merely artistic license, or a concession to Travelocity 

as the principal advertising sponsor of "The Amazing Race". But 
Travelocity is optimized for customers in the USA, not those looking for 
flights between places in other regions of the world. If price is no 
object, and you're interested only in schedules, the single best source of 

global airline timetable information is Amadeus.net , not Travelocity.

In Vietnam, the team that had come in last in the Tokyo leg had an extra 
"speed bump": they had to bring the harbormaster his lunch of "pho", the 
ubiquitous beef noodle soup that -- with regional variations -- is the 
Vietnamese national dish and one of my favorite foods in the world. The 
real challenges for all of the racers were wading into a mud-pit to spread 

fertilizer around some trees, and herding a flock of ducks from one pen to 

another.

Perhaps the TV producers just wanted shots of the racers smeared with mud 
and with their clothes falling off, but there's also an important lesson: 
farming, especially in a poor country with limited agricultural 
mechanization, is dirty, backbreaking physical labor, and requires its own 

set of skills at things like understanding how different types of animals 
behave, individually and in groups. Vietnam is one of the most romantic 
places I've ever visited, where First World foreigners can afford to 
travel easily and comfortably. But life for locals, including farmers, is 
anything but easy or comfortable. Not surprising, the quickest of the 
racers at the Vietnamese farm tasks were the father and son from a Montana 

farm and ranch, Matt and Gary, for whom it was hard and dirty but all in 
day's work, just like at home. 

If you missed the season premiere, CBS has full episodes of this season 
and season 14 on their Web site. Some of my readers abroad have reported 
that CBS tries to block visitors from IP addresses they think are outside 
the USA, but at least the videos work in any major browser or operating 
system, not just Windows or MSIE.

Bon voyage!

Edward Hasbrouck

----------------
Edward Hasbrouck
<edward at hasbrouck.org>
<http://hasbrouck.org>
+1-415-824-0214

"The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World"
(4th edition 2007)
"The Practical Nomad Guide to the Online Travel Marketplace"
<http://www.practicalnomad.com>

Around-the-World and multi-stop international air tickets:
<http://hasbrouck.org/tickets/>