Race Across the World

[Liquorandvinegar]

New series starting next week - really looking forward to it. The teams are travelling in Asia, but I can't find information about the couples yet. Wednesday nights sorted!

Didn’t Caroline talk about ‘Just being a mum’ a fair bit at the start? She didn’t have Thomas until she was 39/40 . Is she really saying she never worked pre Thomas? The eventing seems like more of an interest rather than a career. Or did I miss what she said she did until she was 39/40? I suppose there are still some housewives out there who don’t have kids but it’s rare isn’t it? Or maybe not in their circles.

Caroline is really irritating me , she’s so gushy about everything , intense . Can’t she do anything without some enormous physcobabble dump .

Loved tonights episode. I feel like the production team may have been reading this thread as this episode felt more like previous seasons. There was so much more about the travel, the upset tummy and even the cost of the cake! At one point there was even a map which showed the position of all four teams mid leg. Although India does not appeal to me, I loved the rural parts that were shown tonight. It was great to see all the teams finish the leg in the same episode and it seems like it's game on for the final two parts. It's so close that anyone could take it. I'm still cheering on the brothers or the teenagers.

I liked the brothers' chat with the sisters about sibling troubles. I did wonder a little bit if the production team had helped Sioned and Fin catch up a bit to make sure the race was closer.

I’ve never travelled to India without being ill. We both had Delhi belly in Chittorgarh (renamed ‘sh*t and gore’). The cramps were awful and we had to carry on travelling the day after for some reason on a train. It was terrible and the train toilets were something else but we laugh about it now 35 years on!

I can’t imagine what the experience must be like at 60+. We felt very weak then for several days. I think I read that they have a medic with each team though? Over the different series there must have been contestants who had to rest for a few days due to illness. I wonder how the production team deal with it in terms of continuity.

My dad had a grand time with my mum in India at 60, no problems whatsoever, then the Delhi belly kicked in just before the flight home. Like at the airport just before. Not fun for anyone I imagine.

I still don’t follow the sisters story. I don’t get that because the older sister was over 18 and therefore wouldn’t be housed she went to Italy. The rest of us would move in with a friend or get our own place but she went to Italy like that was a normal option.

I thought Brian was looking thinner, especially his face.

I enjoyed the episode tonight, especially seeing the camels and those wonderful Indian Wild Asses.

If Fin is type 1 diabetic, how is he keeping his insulin cool? Maybe he has a pump? Once vials/pens are open, they should only be out of a fridge for 1 month. I assume the crew must carry back up meds for those that need them?

I agree. I can't stand her. I actually feel sorry for Tom she's so over bearing.

She was 18 though, that's a normal age for people to travel or do whatever.

I moved to a different country (to study), at 18, with a younger sister at home. I moved there because I liked the look of the place. I stayed and still do, but I wish I’d moved to Italy!

She was some way over 18 - if there’s 7 years between them and younger sister was 14, that would make her 21…

If things were so bad that they lost their house, and she didn’t qualify for housing as an adult, where on earth were they living, that one of the children of the family couldn’t be included?

And how come no one has ever explained this to the younger sister? She was 14, not 4.

I dunno. That whole story seems a bit of a flimsy pretext in pursuit of a ‘story-arc’, as it’s been told to us. But I blame the producers, not the girls.

It does seem very random. But she was 21 by that point so she may well have been thinking about it anyway. And what about their eldest sibling? They wouldn't have been housed either.

I find it irritating that she is constantly saying Thomas. She seems to say it every time she speaks to him.

She said they were put into temporary housing. So it could have been emergency housing organised by the Local authority that just housed the children and parents. Sometimes it's only something like s B&B type place .

I also wondered if producers have been reading this and hastily edited the rest of the episodes. It was so much better last night.

I totally get the girls story. The eldest just had to find a way forward and went off to be a student. Youngest one felt lost and lonely. It wasn’t the eldests job to care for her as still so young but clearly it left a big gap. Losing your home at that age is trauma.

We still haven't got to see much of the accommodation that the pairs have stayed at or the prices.

The teenagers went on back to back buses. They did not do any sight seeing, work or homestays on this leg. They said they did 2x10hr bus trips in 24hrs. That sounds like an ordeal rather than an experience. Maybe the producers allowed this so they could catch up and make filming easier. It does not really make great TV for us if it is just a journey rather than the desert experiences, holy lakes, salt pans and wild asses. The teenagers went via the pink city of Jaipur, but just had a piece of cake at the bus station then changed on to another bus.

Good leg! Didn't like Caroline refusing to give a view on taxi vs bus, then saying she'd try not to say I Told You So if it turned out to be a bad idea! It's a team decision.

Budget still hasn't been mentioned by any team yet which makes me think it's really not a constraint this series. I remember how exciting the older episodes were though when teams had to be more tactical and down to their last few £ when it was the finale.

I have just looked on Sioned's instagram. They did work and a homestay on this leg at a ranch in Urdipur (below Jodpur) India. Was this shown?

"Now THAT is what you call a catch up. 33hrs behind to 6hrs (1hr behind 3rd), sorry but I will just point that out again because yes I am insanely proud of that!
I noticed when racing I was focusing so much on what other people would think if we did terribly, and how everything I was doing would be embarrassing. I’m so glad I did come to the realisation that that really was the last thing that should’ve been on my mind. As long as I was having fun (which I so did on that leg) and I was proud of myself and happy with my own decisions, I was all good to go. This made my race so much less tense and so much more enjoyable (obviously still keeping an element of that competitiveness).
Working and resting at Dinesh’s ranch in Udaipur really helped reset this mindset, the cake fixed pretty much everything (because when does cake not!?), those consecutive buses for 20hrs on the trot closed the gap, and we are now BACK IN THE RACE"

They did show the ranch because I noticed how comfortable Fin was with the horses. Not everyone is.

Has the older sister (sorry, can't recall name) actually said what she did in Italy? She was there a few years so presumably has fluent Italian.Good for her for doing something adventurous and getting away from a difficult situation but seems her younger sister resents the fact that she left.

Yes, I think whats happened is that the temporary accommodation was just big enough for parents and dependent child, so the older one may have already been at University or decided to go to study somewhere else because they didnt have a home, thinking maybe that her sister at least had her parents but she actually had nowhere to go. I believe she was in Italy (or they were separated) for 7 years, but at 21, do you really think you need to make life choices based on whether your 14 year old sister is OK, when your parents are meant to be doing that? It hadn't even crossed her mind until the younger sister opened up about it, so its a good thing they were able to see each others perspectives.

I agree I enjoyed this episode much better, and the scenery was beautiful. I'm glad Sioned told Finn not to baby her when she got overwhelmed. She seemed far more resilient this episode and I think she must have realised that the alternative to putting on her big girl pants and just getting on with it was for both of them to go home. Considering what a rough time Finn had had in his teenage years with both his medical conditions, it would have been a shame for her to take him out of the competition when he maybe didn't think he would get that opportunity again.

I'm a bit confused about Caroline as well. I was at private school and a lot of us had SAHMs, but I'm quite a bit older than Tom. They all worked until they had children though, so I'm not quite sure why she didn't.

I wonder whether having Thomas at 39/40 she ended up out of step with a lot of her friends who'd had children ten years earlier? Presumably with CP he had more medical appointments when he was young, and then trouble in his early teens. So she feels like she's suddenly 60 and he isn't really independent yet whereas her friends have been able to do more as their children move out etc?

I agree the backstories seem far too forced this year. I liked Josh and Felix (?) in series one who were having to decide what to do about their business when they went back, because it was just mentioned occasionally and organically it was much more interesting.